Letter from South Africa

Gerhard recently wrote in all the way from South Africa:

Hi there, from Swellendam South Africa

I recently bought my R5 and rebuild it. It was in storage for 10-12 years and was still in perfect running condition except for the battery and a little rust in the tank, but no problem. It got 26000km on the clock I have got a couple of questions. How can you identify what year model it is? What was the original colors of the models? What is the route of the front brake-, throttle- and clutch cables?
I struggle to get the right shape of the seat...

Thanks for a great site and I think there is a lot of 350 Yammie owners that enjoy your site just as I do. Wish there were a R5 club in SA.

Here are before and after pics of my pride and joy.

Regards
Gerhard de Jager

Quite a looker you got there, Gerhard. Interesting choice in paint!

Really like the crash bars on the bike... it's not often you see them on small standard bikes here in the states - usually I see them on big cruisers and the like. Interesting.

Another good story about bringing one of these bikes back to life from long-term storage. All mine needed was a little cleaning and a new battery too!

Ok, now to answer some questions...

In terms of colors, from what I've gathered:

1970 R5(A) - Metallic Purple/white
1971 R5B - Mandarin Orange/white
1972 R5C - Mandarin Orange/black

This is the way you can tell the model years apart visually. But, as so many bikes have swapped body parts, tanks or been repainted, the next step is to check numbers:

Engine or Frame Numbers (start-end)
1970 R5(A) - R5-000101 - 013649
1971 R5B - R5-015101 - 042209
1972 R5C - R5-100101 - 013606

The R5 shares the same serial numbers for both engine and frame. You can find the engine numbers stamped in large numerals on a flat section of the left side of the case, directly above the shift lever. If the flat spot is there, but no number, most likely you have a replacement case. The frame number is also stamped in large numerals on right side of the neck of the frame, just in front of the tank.

In terms of cable routing, I'm not sure... I checked out the official online Yamaha Parts catalog (plenty of diagrams and part numbers for most Yamahas produced) and found this image here.

Unfortunately, it doesn't tell much in terms of routing. I had to reroute mine when adding the lower clubman bars, so I couldn't show you a stock setup using my bike... I'd just look at some of my images or links to other R5s in the sidebar at the left of this page and see if you can figure it out from those examples.

In terms of a seat, check out eBay... used R5 seats pop up from time to time...

Hope that helps!