What did you do to your Yamaha today?

yesterday I went for a ride to pay bills and once that was done I texted my friend Chris who rides a KLR 2016 Just sayin and asked if he wanted to go for a ride and his response was that he has been waiting for me to text LMAO. Rode to his house talked with his wife for a few got permission and off we went for a 120 miles ride on some real twisted roads-
The whole reason for me getting this bike was to push myself passed the fear zone!
May sound weird but I have spent the last five years trying to improve my cornering abilities not to be dragging my knee but to build my confidence while in corners.
I surely dont want to low side or high side I just want to feel the rush!
With that being said I also spend the money and do the maintance to keep the bike at its optimal performance level.
Good tires, shocks forks and all.
This Thursday Chris and I are going to the Ocean, where california and Oregon meet-should be about 200+ or - miles
As it will also be in the 100 degree all week , the coast 70 much better.
One last thing I was riding yesterday afternoon and I saw this bike behind me and Iknew it was from the 70's but was shocked to see a Honda 350 FOUR- those pistons must be the size of a fifty cent pice lol

 

save that shit for the race track man, practice avoiding obstacles mid-turn to the inside. if you find you were going too fast to do it, be thankful it wasn't there

 

PA state inspection once a year. nobody does all this but this is the book. it's going to be right around 30$
http://www.dot.state.pa.us/Public/D...ub_45 Inspections Regulations/Subchapterh.pdf
they could fail me on the sq/in of mirror surface area or lack of a rear reflector.

 

I am not going much over the posted speed limit I just like to lean it over-
Yet thank you for your concern-It is appreciated
I think the closet track is in San Fransico maybe Redding

 

here's a few things to try next time your out, maybe you already do this stuff. deliberately give the inside grip a little extra push, move your upper body towards the inside mirror, push a little bit on the inside peg. don't think about setting up to lean into a turn, drive it all the way through the turn

 

I had to return a movie (Deadpool), but the redbox was just too close, so I *had* to take the long way around.

 

Went for a short, but spirited ride after work. I seem to always be amazed at just how quick my 650 is. Stock airbox ,filter, jets, etc. Ran it up to 8500 or so through the first 3 years, looked down and the needle on the Speedo was dang near pegged. Of course I made the smart(er) decision to back off at that point, but dang if it wasn't fun

 

I received a box of goodies for my Seca from a dude in Ontario today. Fifty bucks and shipping got me a fairing and bracket, side panels, front fender, chin spoiler, tail & tailight and grab bar. The chin spoiler needs some work but the rest is all useable. Now I have to figure out how I’m going to paint it this winter. I’m gonna have to talk to Chacal about what decals are available for 750RL. Thanks to Shawn for packing it up nice and shipping it out.

 

That sounds like more than 50$ worth of Seca!

 

I bought these today:-

 

Yeah super sweet deal. He’s got a very nicely finished Maxim, not sure what size.

Another sweet deal!

 

Attached some cheap, but seem ok, Coleman saddle bags, loaded them up, and rode up to Keystone Colorado for the weekend. Took the route over Loveland pass at dusk. 128 miles. Elevations from 5200 to about 11000 feet. Fun ride, though it got a bit cold over the pass.

 

With parts kit from chacal, 'how to' instructions from xj4ever.com and a bit of assistance from a gearhead friend, rebuilt my dead starter.

Murphy showed up, but we beat him again...

This site is great. I'm doing repair projects I never would have dreamed I was able to do.

All is right with the world.

 

How did it do at elevation? Any noticeable difference?

 

thanks-that is exactly what I do counter steering and power through the turn.
Just getting more confidence

 

The 12th of July 2018 a Thursday my friend Chris and I went for a ride to the Coast. Mainly due to the 104 degrees, 63 total miles and the coast was great 61 degrees and foggy LMAO.
Sarted in Medford Oregon and rode the back roads to Grants Pass then onto the hwy.99 just into California and made a U-turn onto 101 north to the coastal beaches.
Stopped and ate at the Hungry Clam, great Fish and chips-right out of the fryer and onto the plate .
Xj700X - was getting 49 MPG Amazing!
Also just got 73,000 miles on the bike as well

 

Sandblasted and painted gloss black the seca drum, ready to go on the maxim. This was after a scare that the thing had a crack half way across the stabilised lug. Had to grind back and reblast it to check. Gold inlay tomorrow, brakes on Monday
Oh, one difference on the drum, the brake lever is shorter than my other one - anyone know why?

 

seca and maxim hubs are different sizes

 

I had meant to bring my tuning cable so I could check, and maybe tune, up here in Keystone (9280 feet). But I forgot. My impression is that the mixture is a bit too rich up here. Starts fine, and rides well in cold air, but, during the day, when it was hot out, throttle response was degraded and there was a bit of bogging.

Cripple Creek / Victor are closer to my home and still 10000 feet, so I'll probably take a ride up there one weekend with the laptop and cable and see how things look.

I have a separate MAP sensor for ambient baro, but, last I never agreed with the Megasquirt community's ideas about baro correction. Last I checked, they basically feel you should just use lower portions of the map for higher elevation, and vice-versa. the problem with that is that you have to either tune your engine at several different elevations to fill in the whole map, or make some good guesses about what goes in the higher and lower parts of the map based on what you've actually touched in your tuning. I'd rather scale the whole map based on ambient baro.

BTW, I got 51.5 MPG for the trip up here. I'm a bit disappointed with that.

 

here's what to do for that stuff. we have something called Dr,Scholl's foot spray, it comes out a dry powder. Spray your part with penetrating oil, wipe it off pretty good then spray that powder on it, if it's cracked, it will show right up

 

Dr Scolls crack testing kit then..
Yes 550 I do know (now) that a seca drum is bigger, that's why I had to buy a used one to go with the Seca wheel on my Maxim.

 

the levers may be of a different length to align with brake rod or give you different leverage on the brake shoes

 

I reckon it's the latter?

 

yes it makes sense , 650 maxim has smaller shoes if you can use the longer lever you may be able to get better rear braking. it would require less force from your foot but you would have to push down a little more due to the travel in the arc

 

Well I have a tatty seca drum with a long arm, and the ebay one seca - (the one I painted), has a short arm. I suspect the short arm may have come off a maxim, or at least something with a long brake "pedal".
If it all fits together I'll see how it feels, can allways change it.

 

Should have left it as is, but NOOO not me . I was playing with my new colortune, it had been awhile since I synched my carbs ,so broke out my synch manifold , they were not far off , but I tweaked them all out ,got 1,2,4 reading good ,but number 3 was barely indicating . After about blowing it up finally got all 4 reading almost spot on and idle at 1100 is where it is happy. Took it out for a quick ride seemed okay, letting it cool with a fan on it now .

 

Rode back this morning. First I pulled a plug just to get idea of rich vs. lean. Looked a bit rich. Need to recheck how all the baro compensation is set... Took a more scenic route on the way back... some great scenery and twisties. That was more like 150 miles, but mileage was better... got 55 MPG on the return.

 

Brought it home and started the long cleaning process.

Also rode the other Yamaha and got out the selfie stick for some fun.

 

The xj's have officially moved into their new home! Along with the rest of us of course. Been a long time coming and plenty more work to do not including motorcycles but a good feeling none the less.

 

This time of year in NC, to cool off, you go up.
The past weekend, trailered my 650 maxim (first time I ever trailered a bike to a destination- at my age the saying "half the fun is getting there" does not apply) up to the beautiful southern Virginia Appalachian mountains for a weekend full of hairpin turns, switchbacks so abrupt I thought I would run into my own taillight, steep uphill grades to mountain tops vistas and decents to the beautiful valleys. Took on challenging motorcycle loops known as the eagle's nest, the bootlegger, and claw (not tail mind you)of the dragon, all routes way too severe for my large touring motorcycle. A 2 day total somewhat over 500 miles, nearly 16 hours of seat time. Motorcycle riders everywhere too. At every stop my XJ initiated interaction with other riders - most common from the older crowd - Sounds good! I had one of those; what year model is that? or I learned how to ride on one like that. From the younger folks, is that a Seca? or, nice bike, my Dad had one like it. Ahhh - kids. This was also my first experience riding something in the mountains that weighed less than 1000 pounds, and it was fantastic. Little bike has opened up a whole new book of motorcycling fun for me. This trip was the 1st chapter of many more to be written. Cheers!

 

Fitted the replacement brake hub to the maxim. So that's the back wheel sorted. Got a parcel of bits from Yambits - brake calliper rebuild next.

 

Hmmm... didn't do anything to my Yamahas today, but I did notice that this thread says Yamaha, not XJ, so if I happen to do something to my XV750 before I do anything else to my XJ750RJi, I can post that too.

Right now I'm working on my daughter's Ninja 250, though.

 

This thread is in the XJ Technical Chat section...

but, I suppose a Yamaha is a Yamaha, so I won't tell

 

So I had e exhaust studs one on number 2 and other on number 3 cylinder the PO had put Allen head bolts in , tried to find studs all were way to short. Went to local yamaha dealer and they ordered them for me as well as the nuts, put it all back together and like an idiot had my mallet was hitting pipes to seat the flange and put 2 dents in header my fault . But the good news is looks like I took care of my exhaust leak , but it is raining heavy .

 

Scrubbed all the years of grime and stuff of my XJ.

Also made the first video of what should be the rebuild series.

 

Rode over 100 miles w/ my father-in-law and his brother. Everything went great! Need to deal with that handlebar vibration though! (I know, bar weights...)

 

I picked 2 750rs and a big bunch of parts on Thursday, then Friday picked up a complete 750 maxim, a modded 650, and a bare 650 modded frame (but has no title)

 

I filled my bars with butylene caulk. Works very well.

 

Oh yeah--- also yesterday helped my best friend get into the xj realm. He found an '86 xj 700 and an '85 xj700X. I trucked them home for him. So now come the fun of helping him learn to revive them

The funniest thing was listening to the seller say how hard it is to find parts. The whole time thinking to myself..."I got several of those"

 

Yesterday I threw a little backrest on a spare grab bar I had.

Make the wife maybe take a picnic ride now

 

or you could fill the bars with urethane caulk

 

Been a while since I posted. Had to replace the battery this week. The stupid thing is only two friggin years old! One cell was dry; don’t know what’s up with that!

Anyway, went on a 170 mile ride today. Traveled among a few different Loess Hills Scenic routes in Iowa. Beautiful!

Took a little stop to visit the Missouri River near Decatur, Nebraska.
Had my first encounter with a metal grated bridge as seen in the backgound of the photo.



The bike was very squirrelly, and to be honest, I didn’t really like it. I just remembered to hold onto the handlebars loosely and let the bike follow its path.

 

Today... I just waved at the bike. It sat there sad and lonely, saying "you promised you'd work on my clutch," while I worked on the car instead.

 

You DONT want to make your bike jealous

 

Wet-cell batteries require maintainance. It could be that the charging voltage is a tad high as well.

Metal grated bridges are fun...unless it's raining. I used to live in Portland, Oregon, which has several of them. I'd go many blocks out of my way to avoid them in the rain.

 

I put the new front tire on, and all I got was some blurry pics.



I had the old tire off, and the new mounted and balanced (YAY! I didn't need to use any weights this time) in under an hour.

Then...

I...

Checked...

... the brake pads.

Three hours later I had the new set of pads on, the wheel installed, and was enjoying a short test-loop around town.

At some point it would be nice if aftermarket pads had the holes for the pad retention pin in the right place. Filing them to fit is getting annoying, even if it's only once every few years that I have to do it.

 

I don't remember ever filing any pads from Len

 

he does make a note of it in his catalog

 

It's suppposed to just be the 550 pads that need it, but the EBC pads for my 750 will not go on without enlarging the holes slightly. It could just be that I've gotten lucky that way.

 

The XJ550's and XJ750 Seca models use the same pad sets..............