Update 7/24/15
Done with construction, time for more destruction. Removing old spokes the easy way. As mentioned previously, this wheel is in tough shape, but I'm going to clean it up as best I can and re-lace with new spokes. Down the road I will consider buying new wheels or powder coating these.





Wiring harness arrived! This was made by site member DEET. I'm very impressed with his work.

Get some liquid deck wood deck cleaner with oxalic acid as a main ingredient... put it in a drywall mud pan or suitable container and slowly soak and rotate the wheel through it. (Wear gloves and eye protection)

The rust on the wheel will disappear like magic.

Update 8/21/15
Slow progress lately, summer doldrums. Biggest step forward was getting the swing arm pivot out. It took the Acetylene torch to get it hot enough. Of course the bushings and grease caught on fire, but the pivot isn't destroyed. Ordered new bushings yesterday. Just need to clean up and paint the swing arm so I can reassemble.

Great work! I am restoring a 1973 DT3, unfortunately without the family history of yours! Most of the parts have to come from the U.S.A as there are very few of those bikes in the United Kingdom. Like your FZR600, great bikes, mine is the Black, Purple and Pink one!

Thanks! The FZR is a 400, pretty rare bird over here. Seems to be more 400's on your side of the pond. Thanks to Ebay we can find the parts we need throughout the universe!

My son had a FZR 400, we both loved it! His was a 1988 model with the braced swingarm. It went round corners like it was on rails! Silly boy sold it for peanuts. It was a month older than him. Very few FZR 400's were sold officially in GB , but many were imported and sold as Grey imports. Many people over here put the 600 engine in the 400 frame.
The DT 2 and 3 are really rare over here. Good luck with the restoration!

Update 8/28/15

I can sleep easier at night now because I finally scored a good seat pan. The original is long gone and I have been searching for a salvageable pan for some time now. In the beginning of the project I found a guy selling a DT parts bike on Craigslist, and convinced him to sell me the pan. It was in real bad shape, but better than no pan at all. I figured I'd be able to make it work. However, the more I started down that road, the less confident I became about repairing it. And given the fact that the rest of this restoration is pretty darn mint, I was feeling bad about a seat hack job. Then, last Sunday night, it appeared... a 73 DT-250 seat pan. I don't think seller knew how rare these are. It was listed for 15 bucks. I put a $150. max bid in and I won it for about $100. shipped. So with the pan, and new foam and cover from Pobits I'll be into the seat for $265ish. I saw a mint restored seat go for $520. a few months back so I'm pretty dang happy about this. Maybe someone will even give me a few bucks for my rotten one.

The sand blasted/welded/brazed pan came from Craigslist and saving it was stressing me out. Finally found a real nice original!!

Sweet! lots of sources for replacement foam and covers so you are real close now!

Update 9/8/15

Lots more cleaning up and gloss black painting since my last post, but I finished off the weekend with a giant leap forward. I assembled the rear wheel. Still need to true it up, but getting it assembled was huge. I also installed the swing arm with new bushings and mounted the shocks. As it turns out the shocks are about 10mm shorter than the originals. I thought I had them sized correctly, but I guess not. I will see how she sits and rides with these for now.

All cleaned up with new bushings


Progress!


Wheel Lacing


Done!

That bikes coming together nicely ..Great pic's and story line...keep it going.
Won't be long and you'll be riding just like I am, having a blast.