Hey all -

Just wanted to introduce myself a little bit. My name is Joel and I recently bought my first bike, an '81 650 Midnight Maxim. I've never rode on the street before, but took the MSF class about a month ago (and loved it!). I haven't ever worked on bikes before, but I do a lot of work on cars, and work as an automotive machinist. Anyway, more about the bike. It's been sitting for about 3 years, but was supposedly running when it was parked. Had one guy tell me he parked it because the rear brake was worn out, and the other guy tell me that the rear wheel would randomly lock up. :blink: It's a pretty decent looking bike, I plan on doing a kind of half-ways restoration, but basically just get it good enough to safely ride on. Probably only have a few months this spring that I'll be able to ride, since we recently found out we have a baby on the way.

Anyway, looks like a great site here, already learned a lot from the FAQ section, but I'm sure I'll need some help delving into the world of motorcycle tech... :D

-Joel

[edit] BTW, how rare are the Midnight Maxims? I see Maxim and Maxim parts all over the place, but I haven't yet seen another Midnight edition, other than in a few sales brochures on ebay...

Welcome!

welcome

Welcome dude! A rear wheel locking up is not a good thing. Most times a brake shoe change will fix this. Brake dust can keep the shoes from returning as well as a piece of the brake shoe compound broken off. Another likely culprit is the brake lever. They can be bent in a right side drop and lodge under the case. Either way this needs serious attention. Check the brakes out and let us know what you find.

Thanks for the welcome and the advice! I still haven't gotten a chance to get the bike back to my shop, but I do know that he disconnected the brake level already. Hopefully it's something simple like that, I already bought a new brake drum assembly from Ebay, so I'll have that ready to swap on. The guy who owned it BEFORE the guy I bought it from said that he was riding it all the time, but the rear brakes wore out, so he got rid of it. So who knows what happened in between then and now... :D

I'll take some pics and let you all know what I find when I pick it up this week...

First the disclaimer - this isn't really in response to the thread starter - more a ramble on rear brakes and why I find them so important... I don't want this to be taken as a rant at you - not at all - this is just my internal dialog on the more general topic of rear brakes...

Rear brakes :) Let me ramble. I like the rear brake, and don't think one could live without it. :)

In the MC courses they quote some number - 75% front brake, 25% rear brake. On sport bikes I've found it to be more like 90-10 (due to the geometry and weight distribution)...

On the maxim I have found that 75-25 is probably right for braking force, however, there are some other things I consider. On the maxim, using rear brake stabilizes the bike alot. Bear with me here. I find that using the rear brake a second before applying the front brake causes the bike to squat a little bit. Then as I apply the front brake the transfer of weight forward is more controlled. This means that the bike feels more stable - which I certainly like. The whole bike sits a bit lower, and the tires get nicely stuck to the road. As they stick harder you can increase the braking force considerably - coming to a fast and well controlled stop.

In dirty road conditions - the back brake is your savior. A locked rear tire isn't good, but a locked front tire usually spells crash. Wet, oily, gravel, mud, downhill, late braking, trail braking - all times to use the rear brake more than normal... infact the only time I'd use more front brake than normal is for a rear tire blow out...

The thing is - if one HAS to balance traction out - save more for the front. You'll need that for steering and stability.

When would one need to balance traction more than normal?

Changing corner speed. You certainly don't want to get into this situation. Most times if you are going 'too fast' for the turn you can grit your teeth, look into the turn and ride out of it with some serious pucker. Most times. There will, however, be a time when you do get into a turn way too fast. The kind of too fast that there is no physical way to get out of it well at that speed. There are three things you can do.
1) Don't slow down and don't increase lean angle. You will go off the outside of the road headfirst... this isn't good as there are way too many things to hit and you still haven't fallen yet - meaning you can expect some awfull sommersaults.

2) Increase lean angle but maintain speed. You will either loose grip on the rear tire, hit hard parts and leverage the rear tire off the ground or loose the front tire. Best case scenario you are going to lowside to the outside, worst case is a highside to the inside of the turn. I'd take the lowside as the best chance to live so far... a highside is never pretty and going head first into a ditch isn't very fun either.

3) Attempt to slow down by carefull application of the rear brake. This is very dangerous - but - you have to ask in this situation when crashing is the only option so far how much are you risking. Careful application of the rear brake will scrub a few km/s off. This will slowly giving your more traction to the front end. As a result you will slowly be turning sharper - even without taking advantage of the marginal traction gains that could be turned into lean angle allowing a steeper lean angle.
What can go wrong - well - you will could loose the rear end. This means you've got a 60-70% chance of a highside and a 30-40% chance of the nicest lowside you could hope for. If not? Well you've certainly slowed down so at least you won't hit the ditch so hard and in the best case you made the turn and you need to pants.


Let me describe one of my most squidly moments in the hopes that one can learn from my mistakes.

I was on a road posted 55mph. I of course was doing ~100mph. I was rapidly catching up to a large truck, and even more rapidly catching up to a horse and buggy. I had been lulled by the straight road after travelling through 20 minutes of some of the most challenging twisties I have ridden. As a result I'd had 20 minutes of flogging the bike and was still trying to pull max performance out of it now the road had straightened.

Mistake #1 and #2: Ridding like a squid and not slowing down for the scenario that was unfolding.

So I did what any self respecting squid would do - maintain speed and pass the truck. The truck doing what he was entitled to do was now passing the horse and buggy. This meant that I was now hugging the left should at ~100mph next to a truck that was going ~60-65 mph.

I see a brow of a downward slight right turning hill coming up - and I pull in infront of the truck. What I failed to see because of the speed and the truck blocking my view was that I was very quickly approaching a left turn posted for 25mph.

As I made the right turn I see the road disappearing to the left with the very bright yellow arrow signs at the bottom of the hill. I now know I'm screwed - and I'm being followed by a very irritated truck driver in a heavy truck.

I drop anchour - rear brake followed by front brake. I hold them as hard as I can - leaving a black mark in two seperate places as I threshold brake on the rear. I'm not a god and can not threshold two perfectly so perhaps I could have got more out of the front.

At what I considered the last moment I release the front brake and loosen the rear brake. The bike stays surprisingly stable - probably as a result of not releasing the rear brake entirely.

I leaned it into the turn and waited. I flew out the otherside of the turn safe - but left a bit drained. I rode the remainder of the ride to home base and sat down. That was the single most crazy turn I've ever made. I made it through the turn for a number of reasons:
1) I didn't target fixate
2) I didn't freeze on the brakes
3) I was able to use the rear brake to maintain the balance of the bike


Now - maybe you won't be as silly as I was - but there will be a day when you have to change speed in or around a turn and I think you (collectively) will find out just how important the rear brake is... it is absolutely something to be mastered, it may just save your life some day.

Huge ramble - sorry!

cheers,
woot.

Alright, here's the pics I promised. The more I dig into this bike, the worse it looks. Starting to wonder if I should just use this one for parts and find a better bike to start with. :(






So what do you guys think, should I abandon ship before I get in too far, or should I dive in, tear it all apart, and then make a decision? I guess in a way it'd be good for me to go ahead and take it all apart, since that's part of the reason I got the bike (wanted to learn, already know cars pretty well). I see bikes in much better condition going for $300-400 on ebay, and running ones going for $1000, but I don't have that much to spend right now with a baby on the way.

Was hoping I could get it running and ride for a few months before we have the baby, but something tells me that's not gonna happen.

One comment - the midnight maxim is just a blacked out maxim. That'll be good for you. All maxim parts will fit, and a can of BBQ paint will make them match!

Seriously - that bike needs a bath - hose it down! :)

Alright - the look of the bike could be improved cheapily with somesand paper for the pipes and them some REALLY HIGH HEAT spray paint. They'll look way better.

The seat - unless the midnight maxim came with a different seat, someone spent some money on it - it looks like a great endurance seat. A new cover probably wouldn't cost that much but might be harder to find if it is indeed a custom.

The stuff to start with - tires! You need tires!

You also need to change the brake fluid.

After that - lube the cables, change the engine oil, take the rear wheel off lube the splines, check the brake shoes, put a new tire on (the rim's off the bike it'll save you money!), reinstall rear tire, change the rear axle oil...

You then need to figure out the rear tire lockup - probably needs new shoes or at least an adjustment of the lever - I wonder if the spring is broken that is attached to the rear brake lever?

I think you could resurrect that bike - do a quick bit of math - take the ammount you could sell it for when you've had the baby (and the bike is clean) subtract the price you brought it for - and then figure out where you stand (break even, made money or lost money). With a baby on the way you probably (if you're like me) don't have much spare money or shortly won't anyhow! :D so keep an eye on the money.

Even just washing the bike you might be able to flip it for more than you brought it for. Personally I think if you're carefull you can rebuild it for very little - getting parts from here, ebay and a local wrecker.


Good luck - it's a doable project it just might not be the best timing! :)

Cheers,
woot.

Thanks for the encouragement! :D

I'm kinda thinking right now priority #1 is going to be seeing if this motor is locked up or not. He pulled the spark plugs, and I'm not sure how long they've been out. If I've got to do a complete motor rebuild, fixing the bike is likely going to be out of the question in the near future. I think either way I will keep it though, I think it could be a VERY nice bike with some work, and it's pretty complete and close to stock, so it shouldn't be too hard to work on.

I plan on washing it once I get a decently nice day, supposed to be 50 degrees on Saturday, might do it then. Gotta put the spark plugs back in first though... :)

The seat is definetly a custom one, I talked to the guy who owned it before the person that I bought it from, and he said it was a brand new seat that he put on there. Problem is it's gonna need a bit more than a recovering. Some kind of animal got to it and chewed the foam up pretty badly.

Pretty sure that the rear wheel lockup is in the rear brake, either a broken shoe or a broken spring. You can hear it clinking when it rolls, then all of a sudden it'll lock up tight. Then you can usually roll it backwards a few feet, and it'll roll forward again. It was a fun time getting it in the truck to pick it up. :blink:

I know I'll think of some more questions soon, but I did pick up a Hayne's manual for the bike, and I'll be sending in money for the XJ CD today or tomorrow. Another thing I've got working to my advantage is I have a friend of mine who picked up an '82 XJ 650 almost the same time I did. He also has a parts bike XJ 850. Not sure how much will interchange on them (why I'm getting the CD!), but he is a semi-retired body man that does a lot of ebay-watching. Anyway, thanks a lot for the help so far!!

:o BURN IT!!! :D

Seriously, I don't think it is all that bad (if the motor turns over).

First, get a tetnis shot :P !
Second, wash it with an eye on detail. Look for broken stuff.
Third, follow the directions above.

Get it to run first, then do tires and stuff.

The seat can be redone at your local upohlstery(sp?) for very little $.

Good luck (and God bless!)! :blink:

Right on MIK.

The seat for what it's worth won't be too hard to fix... I'd just find some high density foam - tidy up the mouse holes with a hot knife - then insert and glue in the other foam. Then you can re-cover it.

I have a spare stock seat that needs a new cover as well. I was planning on making a homemade custom solo seat out of it, but I'd trade you! ;) Actually - in all seriousnous - if you could take some pictures of the seat at most of the angles as you take the cover off of it I'd be greatly appreciative. I'd try and make a model of it on my computer and then use that as a guide for creating the foam for my solo seat. ( A friend of mine did one for his ninja, didn't look to hard.)

Mik's right - make sure the engine will work before you sink money into it... I just assumed. Most likely the motor won't need anything serious as they are pretty indestructable. That being said it looks like the previous owner might be the type of person capable of pulling it off! ;) :D

Cheers,
woot.

My XJ750K looked just as bad before I started on it. Jump right in there and get dirty. Mine was worth it. Having been having a ball on it this year.
http://www.slygrin.net/xjpics/html/jeffrey_covington.html

Thanks for all the inspiration guys!! Got a free minute or so ( :D ) last week and pulled the left side engine cover, and the motor turns over great! That was a pretty big sticking point for me, I didn't want to go too far with it if the motor was locked up. I guess the next step (after taking it outside and hosing it down) should be checking the gas tank for rust before I try and crank it. Only bad thing is that I can't find the key for the tank. :rolleyes:

Oh well, pretty psyched that the motor isn't locked up anyway, it had the spark plugs pulled out of it, and I really wasn't sure how long it had been sitting like that!