BLUE BLOOD!

With work on it finished, we had to do a photo shoot on Niall Mackenzie’s beautifully restored YZR500 – and look at the machine’s bloodline.

- NIALL MACKENZIE, BERTIE SIMMONDS

Every factory race bike is effectively a hand-built special so by nature, they can sometimes be quite rough around the edges. Many would say that is part of their character and I’d agree, however, the OCD racer in me (we’re all riddled with it) likes to tidy things up so this is what I decided to do. Don't you think she's beautiful?

Firstly, the finish on my YZR frame and swingarm was inconsistent, some being part polished, some part scuffed, due to the occasional gravel trap excursion. Personally, I don’t like the super shiny look so after some trial and error we found the perfect grade of wet and dry paper for the job. Too rough was scratchy and too smooth made no impression, so we eventually settled on P1000 grade paper. It took a few hours, but very satisfying blitzing everything to a uniform original brushed aluminum finish. We then repeated the same process on all four Millet Racing expansion pipe exhausts.

One thing I do love about older race bikes is their minimalist electrics. The wiring harness only has to take care of four ignition coils, the electronic power valves, a kill switch, rev-counter, temperature gauge, and total loss battery. Although out of sight, over the years everything had become scruffy so we replaced connectors, re-soldered, and re-insulated where necessary. As with most race bikes back in the day, it all operates on a total loss system, but with a rechargeable battery for operating the power valves. We had to replace the inner power valve cables that were frayed due to wear and tear. The two-into-four throttle cables and clutch cable still appeared as good as new.