My Newbie Thread

Hello, I haven't done much posting since I got my bike and started coming here, but that was mostly because I hadn't had a chance to start the overhaul and felt I was better off reading than participating. Now though - I've got some stuff finished and am hoping to have this thing on the road juuuuust in time for the rainy season.. Maybe sooner if I'm lucky.

What I have:

1981 XJ650 Maxim, 25k miles and change. License plate looks like it was last registered in 91, I bought it last year in "running" condition. No battery but they said it ran, the motor wasn't seized so it came home with me. After getting it home we changed the oil, took off the tank which was loaded with rust and put a reserve tank on the bike, jumped the bike to car battery and got it to start. The carbs were so gunked up the springs actually locked up and wouldn't release the throttle back to idle position so we killed it and I tore the carbs off to start cleaning them.. but instead it got rolled inside and put on hiatus for a year.

Now here I am, I've got the carbs cleaned and bench synched. I just checked my valve clearances today, I've got brakes on order for later down the road, I'll be ordering shims friday along with a petcock rebuild kit and in tank filter and I've got some questions. And pictures.


So far my main question is about my Valve Shims, I believe I know what sizes I need but if you all don't mind double checking my work I would appreciate it:

My Intake going left to right (if you're sitting on the bike)
Clearance .09 Shim 295 needed? 290
Clearance .06 Shim 300 needed? 295
Clearance .04 Shim 295 needed? 285
Clearance .09 Shim 285 needed? 280

Exhaust in same direction
Clearance .10 Shim 265 needed? 255
Clearance .13 Shim 270 needed? dont
Clearance .13 Shim 270 needed? dont
Clearance .09 Shim 280 needed? 270

This look accurate?

And here's some pictures!
Carbs:

 

Hope they are that clean on the inside you will be rolling in no time. Nice work! And shims look right.

 

Thanks Toomanybikes, and well.. I spent a couple weeks at church reading before I was comfortable enough to crack them open, and I wish I had taken pictures because they were terrible inside. Terrible. I would go as far as saying they had never ever been opened before, I had to remove those stupid little brass cover things over the mixture screws. That was nerve racking because I have a lead touch and knew I was going to eat those screws.

Anyway, it's late and I'm rambling but I'm pretty sure I got them as clean as humanly possible.

an g'night

 

Night

 

you may have the choke holder and the throttle cable holder in the wrong place. the photo with your thumb holding up the throttle so we can see tour butterflys is where the throttle cable end hooks up should have the barrel not the clamp above it.

not positive but someone else should chime in to confirm this

 

exhaust clearance is .16 to .20

#2 Clearance .13 Shim 270 needed? dont should be 265
#3 Clearance .13 Shim 270 needed? dont should be 265

 

choke holder & throttle cable holder are indeed incorrect.......

S/B like this

 

I believe you're right. I just looked at my 700 and the holders are reversed.

Oops. Just saw fiveofakind's reply. Ah, better late than never.

 

Hmm..Not sure how to quote someone so.

XJ550H - Thanks for catching that, I must have been looking at my intake clearances when I decided I didn't need to change them. Also thanks for noticing my linkage mess up.

fiveofakind - Thank you for confirming that I messed up, I was actually thinking it didn't look right but it went together that way so it had to be correct. Guess not , I'll get that all fixed when I get back home.

bmarzka - Thanks for double checking, I appreciate it.

 

to quote you hit the reply link under the post you want to quote.

 

Well that was certainly simple.

 

Or highlight the text you want to quote, and then a reply button pops up. ET viola, the text is in your new message.

 

So I have a small update and another question.

I got my parts order from chacal on Monday (ordered it last Friday) and then yesterday my battery showed up and I just finished charging it at work today. I really hadn't expected all my parts to show up this early so I kinda..gave all my free time away until this Friday, so that's when I'll install my new valve shims, put my nice clean carburetors back on, give her fresh oil and start her back up.

My question has to do with running the bike, Its got a long ways to go before I attempt to ride it (installing new tires/brakes/brake lines/ect) but I do want to at least hear it run for more than 3 seconds but one of my exhaust is basically rusted off. The cross over pipes are all good and the right side muffler is good but the left side, right in the center of the muffler there is this perfect ring of rust that ate away so that it's just held on with a small piece of chrome and sheet metal.

From what I've read the crossover is where the exhaust on these bikes (81 xj650 maxim) is getting all its back pressure, so will it rev up and idle fine with only one pipe actually installed or should I just cut them both off until I can get new/replacement mufflers?

 

I started mine with no exhaust at all what a horrible sound but it ran. it will even run with out the carb to airbox bootsjust be happy with the start and rev you will not be able to tune much with out full exhaust just a waste of time . cut the thing off if you want better if you just unbolt it you may be able to sell it later

 

Originally I was just going to unbolt it, but it looks like the mufflers unbolt at the crossover pipes so I would have to take it off to the headers, and if I just replace the mufflers I was hoping to keep the cross overs because I thought they would help me not have to rejet for aftermarket exhaust.

 

Hahaha. You should never count on Chacal to be slow! Believe the hype! He is legendary!

 

"Grumpy" update:

Well, I did not get the bike started today as I had hoped to and I ran into a couple hurtles and now have some more questions, so here's what happened.

Decided to change the oil first, got it drained fine then when I went to remove the oil filter it turns out the PO had rounded the head of the bolt like a pro. So I grabbed some vice grips to try and get it off with no luck, they just ate away at the head. So I decided to skip that, put oil in and as I'm finishing up the rest of the bike i'll buy chacals spin on oil kit and worry about that bolt then.

Then I put the valve shims back in and double checked all my clearances - that went swimmingly.

So now it's time for the carbs, being the brilliant mastermind that I am, I didn't number my carb to motor manifolds and I spent a good 30-45 minutes figuring out which went where. One hurdle down, next we fit the carbs in, then put the carb to airbox boots in. Unless I'm missing something I believe the PO also purchased two aftermarket boots because two fit perfectly, the other two you either have to have fully on the carb or fully inserted into the airbox - you can't have both. Fine.. just shove them fully on the carb and I'll deal with that later too, I want this thing to start already.

Now hooking up the linkage, The throttle cable hooked up fine and dandy but the choke cable. Not so much. I spent more time than I'm willing to admit trying to make it work with no luck. I'm pretty sure i put something together wrong so I took a bunch of pictures and I'm hoping someone can spot my screw up for me. I think my choke return is not connected correctly but.. Well here are some pictures:

 

Found how it should be, mine is on backwards..

 

Ya. There are two sets of boots. One for the early engines, and one set for the YICS engines.

 

XYthin,

You have several things wrong on your carb rack.....

1. Choke cable should be clamped on the metal part of cable.....

2. Your Choke Enrichment Forks appear to be on upside down......just noticed that in your pics above ......

See my attached pic......you need to pull off your carbs and redo.......sorry, but you are learning at the same time....