What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Dunked the whole thing, huh?

 

Yup. Outside was sketchy too.

 

Let's see how the paint looks once removed. After treating my tank for a time, I added more liquid which eventually caused an reddish, foamy overflow out the fill hole. That nastiness was hard to clean off my paint. My son has two tanks that are crusty inside and it would be easier to dunk if the paint isn't harmed.

 

Definitely not something you want to do if you care about the exterior finish. This tank had been repainted with god-knows-what so the more that comes off, the better. But if you have a nice finish that you want to preserve then the full-tank-dunk is definitely out of the question.

 

Siphoned the gas out of the Maxim to run the generator last night my town got hit by a big storm. No power, no gas stations open so the Maxim to the rescue. No one hurt here but 100 year old trees down and lots of power lines too.

 

Received a valve shim, ordered new spark plugs - still about ayear off from riding it, but progress!

 

Made some good progress towards replacing the steering head bearings. Got all the old races out, too.

 

Stripped the paint off of my frame, re welded the steering stop back on the head tube, sprayed primer and the first coat of paint on the frame.

 

How did you get the lower race out? I cannot get a cold chisel to catch it at all.

 

When I did mine I used a long drift and heated the head tube with a heat gun and drove out the race , to get it in I froze the races and used two large area washers and a bolt and nut tightened until the race moved in and was able to tap the rest of the way in. I upgraded to cage bearings from xj4ever, was a good upgrade

 

I will try that, I have not heated the tube yet, thanks.

 

Exercised my 550 yesterday, also tested out my new-to-me camera

 

Got a trophy

 

I accidentally etched the paint on the gas tank with vinegar when I was dealing with the rust in the tank over the winter. Today I spent a few hours using rubbing compound, polish, wax, and some serious elbow grease to remove the stain, and bring that beautiful black/red fleck paint back to life.

 

I started mine, YAY!

That's kind of a big deal for me since the bike has been sitting nearly 3 years since I did a bunch of fixing up on her. New tires, paint, headlight and horn upgrades, all new brakes, fork seals, some electrical work, rebuild carbs... some more things I forgot, I'm sure. But circumstances at the time kept me from riding, so I never put gas in it after doing the carbs. I thought you know, a month or two maybe, not 3 frikken years, lol. Anyway, over the last two weeks, I've wet set my float levels, reinstalled the carbs, replaced the battery and the 3-years-old gas in the tank and yesterday finally woke sleeping beauty!

I still need to do some tuning, but for right outta the box she seems to be running not so bad

 

Yaaaaay!!!!

 

Congrats! Always exciting when a sleeping bike awakens.

 

Yesterday checked the valves and installed a new gasket. Also swore at the PO over and over about stripping the choke cable screw, fixing that is now on the list.

 

Installed a new rear fender, new brake light, installed a new switch to the clutch and found out the battery that was installed was not the proper one when I went to get a new one. What is the proper battery for an 83 750 Maxim? They had 3 different ones that all said would fit but none were the same, all a little different.

 

Bought and installed the wrong battery today bike starts sweet charges spot on but the post are on the wrong side. GRRRR?!#@! Once they charge it no exchanges..... oh well.

 

Fork seal replaced and the first ride since last spring and that was only 10 minutes. I haven't rode it much since the better half bought me an S83, 3 years ago. Wow, forgot how to ride a 4 cylinder rev it and man it goes. NYCC here we come.

 

What is electrolisys on the tank. Do you know of any way to clean rust from inside the tank?

 

Look up electrolysis on YouTube there are some good videos about it there. It involves a battery, cables, a solution and a rod of metal hanging in the tank. Haven't done it myself but everyone swears buy it.

 

Here is a bit about the last job I did.
https://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/24-hours-ago.85206/page-17#post-669769

 

Carbs cleaning and adjusting the fuel/air…

 

If you have good paint and the rust isn't that bad, you can try a diluted vinegar solution first. My tank had manageable rust from sitting with about a gallon of old gas in it for 10 years. I filled the tank up with a 50/50 vinegar solution a bunch of drywall screws and let it sit for a couple of weeks. I'd occasionally pick up the tank and shake it and let it sit. When it was time to empty it I'd filter out the rust into a coffee filter and so I could reuse the vinegar solution if I needed to. I then took the tank into the yard and grabbed some dawn and gave it a good rinse to get all the vinegar out. After which I immediately sprayed the inside down with WD40 to keep the flash rust away. Ended up working out great. Just had to be patient.

 

Straightened out a 750 Seca tank! It will live to ride another day!

 

@Dan Gardner nice job on that tank.
Today I got the replacement 750 motor into the titled 650RJ frame. Not mounted but in there. These motors have gotten heavier since the last time I moved one.

 

Front brake pads done then an early morning ride to seat them. In the afternoon took the better half out for a lesson in the different feel of an 750 inline 4 accelerating and a 1400 v-twin. She liked them both but loved the seat on the Maxim

 

My Seca was ticking so pulled valve cover , number four intake clearancewas very loose . I realized the last time I did the adjustment I set the clearance with SAE not metric , recently bought metric feeler gauges , made such a rookie mistake surprised the other valves were not further out . Of course I did not have the exact shim but robbed a shim out of my spare engine I needed a 265 but used a 270 it is a little tight but could still get feeler gauge in . Of course in my haste the valve cover seal was not in right on the left side so had a big oil leak , finally got it in . I had not pulled the plugs out in awhile was happy number two was slightly lean but the rest had a light brown tip gave number two a half turn out turn . The ticking is gone took it out for a little spin was nice to ride even if it was short .

 

So bike was running good took it out and was running rough ??? Checked to make sure fuel line was not kincked was okay , went to check to make sure plug cap was seated while bike was running ....and shocked the crap out of me the cap fell apart . I have spare caps replaced and running great again .

 

Spent the day designing integrated turn signal mounts for the Blue Turbo so I can take it in for a safety.
The safety guy said the lens had to have a valid DOT marking on it.. so I couldn't just print the lens. (Sad Face)
Front lenses are as rare as hen's teeth and worth more than I paid for the bike.
But back lenses are as common as dirt..... Hmmm! What to do? What to do?

So,,, I present my solution! In red. I like red. I had red. It'll probably be black.

 

@Vern Nelson Please consider sharing your design in the 3D printing area!
https://www.xjbikes.com/forums/forums/xj-3d-printing-stl-files.40/

 

Nice hack. Make the lens and after inspection put it on.

 

I will do that after I've checked out the fit and cleaned up a few things.

 

I have considered that.... I could also put the lenses from my good turbo on for the inspection.
However, in an era of policing for profit, I'd go with what passed inspection rather than risk some stupid ticket.

 

Yesterday I rebalanced the front wheel (lost a wheel weight the other day). Today I snapped one of the clamping bolts for the lower triple clamp. Then I backed it out with a left-twist drill and replaced all four with new bolts.
Remember fellas, bolts and studs are not forever. They elongate every time they get torqued down, and eventually they become fatigued and twist apart. I had only applied about 1/2 of the required torque when she busted.

 

Removed rear wheel to drop it off tomorrow for a new tire. Got a message from the shop today that said " got your front tire that you ordered in". I hope that it's not a front tire?%!! Will call before I make the drive. On a good note the rear pads look good no de-lamination and have lots of meat left.

 

FWIW I ran a front on the rear until the wear bars were showing. Unfortunately Harleys use the same size front as the 750's have for rears, so shops are prone to mis-order. Fortunately that means when you are on a multi-week trip and overestimate how much rear tire you have left it's pretty easy to get a new tire the same day.

 

Pulled the plugs and they are all sooty black and not wet. Decided it was time to replace the stock coils/wires so of course I reached out to Len and they are on the way here. Just for fun I ran the colortune and here’s what it had to say…

1,2,3,4

 

#3, yikes! If I remember right, yellow = rich, white = lean, bunson blue = correct. Unfortunately the range of blue can be large and if your plugs are sooty you need to turn the screws in till the color is white and then back them out to the blue range. Then fine tune after running the bike on the road a bit.

 

I'm interested in what people think about what's going on in #2 and 3. #2 has hardly any flame. #3 is orange. I'm stumped.

 

I wonder if the valve clearances are tight on 2 running rich on 3.

 

I ended up doing the valves about two years ago, and unfortunately wasn’t really able to ride more than 20 miles during that time. I just got done giving the carbs a good cleaning, I took them to church when the valves were done and they really were too bad. I did reset the mixture screws to 2.5 turns out from bottom but it seemed like it was running rich. I turned them all in .25 turn and that’s when I checked the colortune and got the above results.

Is it possible for stock ignition coils to get so bad that it could cause the issue with the #2 and not provide enough of a spark all of the time? #2 would show blue combustion erratically, maybe 20% of the time, I could see spark every time but not always combustion.

 

cleaned the carbs on my 80 650 maxim, set the float levels etc and reinstalled the carbs on the bike, hopefully tomorrow I can fire it up and set up idle , and maybe sync the carbs .

 

The shop got the proper tire and they installed it on the rim . So long story short got a new tire put on the bike only had to take it on and off twice. I hate forgetting washers....

 

It is worth checking your coils with a multimeter as describing the Haynes manual. Check both coils for comparison. Check your mixture screws on 2 and 3 too to see what happens when you turn them, l am assuming you are using an auxiliary tank so you have access to the screws with the engine running. I think it's more likely to be the mixture than the ignition.

 

The cylinder that is black unthread the plug cap cut off a 1/4inch of the plug wire thread cap back on and see if it makes any difference. I just had a cap crack on my Seca , so I would replace all the caps first they are not to expensive. I run Honda CB750 coils these have replaceable plug wires . These can still be bought new Cycle Recycle part 2 has them 44$ each and they are on eBay as well. I have ran these for four years now with no issues. These bolt right in the stock location .

 

All 4 plugs are black, I did trim the wires back. One thing I noticed which made me think about the coils being the culprit was when running the engine and different times, it seemed like the header pipes would not all be super to the touch, 3 of them might be skin sticking hot and 1 warm but nothing like the other three. It's not always the same pipe with the lack of heat either. I just received the new coils this morning...ordered from Len two days ago! I will share my findings after I swap em out.