How did you get here?

I ended up here pretty much like everyone else in the last several years - googled 1980 Yamaha XJ650G tachometer and here I was. Or maybe it was gas leak, I forget.
I had just bought a bike to ride when my s83 is cranky / dead / in the shop / etc...
Looked at a lot of different bikes, something about the XJ just reminded me of bikes from my childhood, and I am old enough to feel nostalgic about that.

 

I got here simply because it was meant to be. I'm the guy who is always a day late or a dollar short when a great deal comes along. Any of you who watch Craig's List for motorcycles will know what I mean.

At any rate, I've been watching Craig's List looking to pick up a Honda Rebel to replace a CBR250R that I'm thinking I will part with. As I'm scrolling through the listings I run across an 82 XJLJ, what a beautiful bike, and the price is right too. It had been listed for a long time so I expected the reply to be that the bike had sold. The seller replied that he still had the bike but was going to out of town for Thanksgiving and we could get together when he got back.

When he gets back we set up a meet and he says he's got lots of interest but I was first so I get first shot at the bike. I show up with a trailer and cash in hand. Not only does he have the bike, but he's got 2 boxes of parts, manuals, and magazines all related to the bike. He says he bought the bike back in 2012 from a collector and has had it in his heated storage for the past 10 years. It's got 6600 miles on it, starts, runs, idles, shifts, and stops.

I don't even haggle and had over the $2400 and he helps me load the bike and all the goodies onto the trailer and into the truck. I NEVER find deals like this, so I was simply meant to be here!

As you can imagine, a 40 year old bike that's been sitting needs a bit of TLC. Thanks to all who have pointed me in the right direction to get this bike back onto the road. I feel a little guilty putting miles on this bike, but I'm a rider not a collector!

 

Welcome to the forum. Congratulations on finding a nice bike. I had one for about 18 months, fewer miles but came to me with issues I managed to get sorted. A nice bike to ride but I decided I liked the naturally aspirated XJ650RJ better. You got a good to fair deal for sure. Mine sold for less than that but was more cosmetically challenged. Just have fun with it! Happy New Year!!

 

I was offered an XJ550 for £200 by a mate as a stop-gap for my son when he fell off his SV650, but it had been off the road with carbs off for 11 years, so needed a little more work than expected.... I came across thsi forum as everytime I googled something about it I found the answer was on this forum!
I have not ridden a bike for 35 years, but am currently going through the training and licencing process here in the UK to be able to ride it! When I did my Compulsary Basic Training I spent the morning wobbling around the cones on a Lexmoto 125, but they stuck me on a new XJ6 for the 2 hour road ride, that was quite a beast! (and scary as hell after 35 years!)
My plan is to ride the XJ as is for a while then buy a another bike so I can then strip it down and Cafe-Racer it, so expect this forum to be a goldmine of info

 

Hello... this is my first post, so I guess no photos for the time being...

How did I get here? Umm, because I came into possession of a 1980 XJ650 Maxim and the fine folks over at ADV rider (who also have a pretty long XJ thread) mentioned y'all.

But how did I come into possession of a Maxim? Well... no, I did not own an XJ Back In The Day, nor have I had an unmet desire to own one for the last forty years. It just sorta happened... this way:

Back in 1980, a group of us hung around at an accessory shop west of Chicago, and we'd stay after closing time on Friday nights to chew the fat and wash it down with a few beverages. One Friday (before the first tab was popped), one of the guys showed up on this chopperesque Yamaha and offered people a ride. So I took it for ten minutes or so. Seemed like a nice bike, a skinny 650 four. Odd name, "Maxim." Riding position wasn't bad (though I could do without the buckhorn bars), power was good. Brought the bike back and popped a tab (well, actually stuck a tapper into a gallon can of Dortmunder lager, because even back then I was a beer snob). Thought no more about the 650 Maxim for, oh, fifteen to twenty years.

Around 1996-7 or so, a friend of mine swapped a computer for an old bike that hadn't run for a while. You guessed it, a 650 Maxim. One fine Saturday afternoon, I dropped by while he was fooling around with the bike's rusted-out gas tank. Wanting something to do between sips, I pulled the gunky carburetors off and attacked them with a couple cans of spray Gumout. An hour (and a trip home to pick up a spare Harley tank), the Maxim roared to life and settled down to purr like a kitten. Nice.

And then... my friend got distracted and spent the next several years trying to fix the gas tank with various chemical potions. Without success. Eventually he bought a used tank, but by then the bike was buried underneath a pile of stuff worthy of "Hoarders."

Fast-forward to a month ago. I was reminiscing about a Honda 500 Four I had resurrected back in the '90s, after it sat for ten or so years. Said I kinda wish I hadn't sold that bike because it would be cool to have an old bike to toodle around on, maybe ride up to the Slimey Cruds Run in Wisconsin (where you're kinda out of place on a new bike). My friend was in the midst of a Marie Kondo attack, and immediately offered me the Yamaha. For free. Along with boxes of parts he'd picked up for it, including shiny, like-new fenders, blinkers, spare rear brake parts, footpegs, and so forth. So, a few days later I showed up with a U-haul and the Maxim was relocated to my garage.

I'd like to say it started right up after fresh gas and a carb cleaning, but in truth it's stuck in a bad place. But I will post about that in the Tech section.

I will post a picture when I've got enough seniority, but for now just imagine it... dirty but pretty good looking. Chromed carb hats are of course rusty. There's dirt (mostly settled dust). Tires are brand new in terms of wear, but since they're 19 years old (according to the date codes), they're going to get replaced just as soon as I commit to keeping the bike. Fenders have some rust, but as I said I have a nearly-new-looking spare set. Seat has one repair in the vinyl, otherwise OK and even feels comfortable. Biggest things it's going to need are a front master cylinder (there's a pit that makes it non-rebuildable) and mufflers (which don't look bad until you get down on the ground and look at the underside).

So there it is, a free bike. All I have to do is get it on the road. And make room for it between the Harley and the Himalayan. Cleaning out the garage might be the only thing more annoying than cleaning those four fussy little carburetors.

 

I'm about to get my hands on an '81 650 Maxim; found this place by purposefully looking for it. I own an Indian, and have helped my friends work on their other bikes as well. 4 years of doing that has taught me that every bike has it's own forum run by people who love those bikes, who have a treasure trove of information available for any job big or small.

 

Welcome aboard

 

I've been the owner of a 1980 XS1100G for about a year and a half and am trying to make my bike as "Bulletproof" as possible since I travel on it full time with no fixed address. I NEED a bike that won't let me down!

Had heard a rumor that the FJ1100 ignition system could replace the XS1100 ignition. The XS1100 uses a vacuum actuated advance mechanism which causes the wires on the pickup coils to flex. Needless to say 43 year old wires get brittle and break, you patch them up and keep going and hope for the best or spend anywhere from $500 up for an NOS unit or import a whole new setup for about that same price.

Looked into the FJ setup and the pickup plate and rotor thingy do indeed bolt right up to the end of the XS crank. However the price of the CDI (TCU, whatever) is astronomical since there where only a limited number to start with along with other XS owners grabbing them up when possible.

So I ended up getting a reasonably priced 1982 XJ1100 pickup plate, rotor and CDI and am going to attempt to make it work on my XS. I've not seen any posts on using the XJ setup on the XS but I can't see any reason why it WON'T work.

Looks like I've already been helped with the pinouts and appreciate how quickly my question on that was answered on this forum. It looks like I'll need to change the coils to the XJ spec, figure out how to get the tamper proof bolts out to remove the XS pickup coils plate and have absolutely everything I need hardware wise in place before doing it.

Since I have no permanent home this will more than likely happen at a campground somewhere a long way from even a basic hardware store, you have to have everything on hand before you start. It's a challenge, I'm quite used to it, it gives me something to do!

 

Just an update on my "free" motorcycle...

It is now running, and running well. Took a lot of work. Much of July and August were spent taking carbs that sat for about twenty years with fuel in them for a long service at the Church of Clean. New jets, float valves, etc... then the bike still wouldn't start when cold. One of the helpful inmates finally clued me in to the fact that the starter (enrichener) jets are buried in the float bowl. Cleaning them out required learning new expletives... and more importantly, discovering "Amazon's Choice for 0.4mm acupuncture needles," which were perfect for poking through the varnish. Hope I never have to do this again.


Setting float valves. Gotta keep it level...

The bike had a problem that it didn't want to idle--if I dropped the idle speed below 3000 rpm, it would idle for a while, but slowly drop until it sputtered and died. A $40 set of Taiwanese vacuum gauges from Amazon identified the problem: carburetor 1 was seriously out of sync. When the other three were more or less in the idle range, number 1 would be open enough to cause that 3000-rpm idle; when I closed the main idle speed screw enough to back down to 1200 rpm, I was effectively running only on cylinder 1; the other three throttle blades were completely closed, past the transfer ports. Get that fixed (and correct the much lesser mis-match between 2-3 and 3-4), and she purrs like a kitten. Still need to refine the idle mix, which I am doing mostly by reading plugs. So far, adjustments seem to have a minimal effect.

Front brakes got a complete overhaul: picked up a used master cylinder from a helpful inmate, found a set of Galfer braided stainless lines on eBay, needed a new caliper piston and seal kit from Brake Crafters (apparently got the last one, because when I looked to verify the vendor, they no longer list the kit), and finally replaced the stock pads (which I think are made of compressed camel dung) with EBC semi-sintered. Now I could stop as well as go.

Also changed oil and replaced clutch plates, as everyone advised me that a wet clutch that's sat half in/half out of oil for twenty years is a ticking time bomb. EBC plates, thing shifts smoothly but for my unfamiliarity with shaft reaction (my only previous shaft-drive bike was a BMW GS with the Paralever rear suspension, which is set up to behave like a chain or belt drive).

With the bike now eminently rideable, it was time to get it legally in my name. And there, things got complicated. The guy who gave it to me had a title, signed by the first owner, who had also written my friend's name in the "sold to" blank. In IL, no erasures are permitted, and my friend had never run the title because he never got the bike on the road. So... into the DMV, and after much head-scratching the clerk told me to write my name in the blank next to my friend's. Then we ran the title as joint ownership. Two months later, when the new title arrived in the mail, I was off to the DMV with another form (and a $50 fee) to "correct" the title by removing my friend's name. So... all told, four visits to the DMV (two to find out what I had to bring, two to show up with the right papers and get things done; actually not as bad as the time I bought an Illinois-titled KLR from a dealer in Wisconsin--that required four visits to the DMV and two trips to Milwaukee to fetch paperwork from Georgia) and $200 in fees, and the bike is now mine, all mine! I celebrated by putting it on the insurance and going for a 100-mile ride, which it did flawlessly.

I then got on to other things. I have never trusted vacuum-operated petcocks, so I modified mine to operate fully manually:


I posted instructions for this somewhere in the tech section, but all you do is join these two passages on the back of the lever and disconnect/plug the vacuum line.

I changed fork oil (of course; I hate hate hate those circlip-retained top plugs), then found I had to replace a seal on the left fork leg (of course the bolt won't come out of the damper rod, but I was able to work the seal out without scratching the tube so it's good for the time being). And that left me with steering head bearings that clicked like an old analog TV tuner. So in went a set of All Balls roller tapered rollers:


Why does a company making roller bearings call itself "All Balls"?

The ridiculous buckhorn handlebars were relocated to the spares shelf, and replaced by a set of reasonable (EMGO "Daytona") handlebars, with the original mirrors modified to work as bar-ends:


Yeah that cushion--actually a "solo custom saddle" that was in the box o' parts--looks dumb. But it gives me legroom. I'll be re-working the seat over the winter.

These required a shorter clutch cable, twelve bucks on Amazon. And with that, the bike's in pretty good shape for riding. Except, of course, for the ticking-time-bomb glass fuses, which have now been replaced by a cheapie Advance Auto fuse block.


I'd like to move it further to the bike's left to make seat installation easier, but will have to lengthen one lousy wire (arrow) to do so.

And with that, the riding/wrenching season kinda came to a close for this bike:



I'm pretty happy with the way it rides and runs. It still needs tires (I have a set of Kenda K761 70/30 dual-purpose tires on order--what's the point of a shaft drive if you don't ride on gravel and dirt?) and maybe shocks. I replaced the utterly useless stock shocks with a set of Progressive Suspension 412s that I took off my Harley. They're about a half-inch longer than the stockers, and sprung for a much heavier bike, but to my surprise they actually work pretty well with the preload at minimum. The mufflers are rusting, with multiple holes, so replacing them will be a spring project. Luckily a friend welds, so we can cut the perforated mufflers off the collector/crossover assembly (which is not rusting) and weld in a stub pipe to use clamp-on aftermarket mufflers. Maybe we can even find some with baffles, as I am no fan of loud bikes. A neighbor handed me a very nice sissy bar/side plate/backrest/luggage rack assembly left over from his wife's Sportster, and I think I can make up a couple adapter plates to fit it on the Maxim, so that might be an off-season project.

I have only managed to put about 700 miles on the bike since it followed me home, which works out to about a dollar per mile not counting the DMV fees. I expect that ratio will improve next year. I'm not entirely sure what I will do with the bike long term. I brought it home mostly because I wanted to see if I could get an antique bike that hadn't been started in twenty years running, and because I hated to see it slowly rusting away under a pile of stuff in my friend's garage. Mission accomplished; it runs and runs well. I plan to at least ride it to the Slimey Cruds Run in May, as old and slightly quirky bikes are what that event is all about. After that, who knows? Thinking about making a scrambler out of it (a bit more suspension and maybe a little more dirt-oriented styling). Or, if my wife takes to the pillion (there's a reason I want to see about fitting that Sportster backrest), it might find a niche as the lightweight day-trip bike--possibly one to trail along on car trips. The 500-pound Maxim will be a lot easier to haul to Maine or the Gulf Coast than the 800-pound Harley.

OK, that's the update. As a reward for your reading this all the way to the end, here's a photo proving you really do meet the nicest people on a... Yamaha:


Random encounter on a gravel road through a cornfield. Not making this up.

 

You had mentioned having the Kenda tires on order, I've run those before and if you have a chance to switch your order go for the Shinko 705 rear if you can do it!

The Kendas are about useless in the wet and my bet is they'll be worse when cold, zero grip with quick tread clog off the pavement either way.

Realize you have few choices on the low end of the price scale for a front but you might want to consider the Shinko 700 up there, not something you'd want to run on dry pavement for too long but you'd be way happier with the performance.

 

They probably started by importing wheel bearings from China.
Might even have bicycle-related origins, where steering stems were generally all-balls.

 

That could be but these days they hold a good rep for quality and value.

Pretty sure All Balls was a catch phrase for All Ball Bearings, makes sense to me anyway

 

I have heard mixed comments about the Kendas' wet performance. Many complaints, but also others who say they stick just fine in the wet. YMMV, I guess.

I have run Shinko 705s on my KLR and Himalayan. Nice tires on pavement, in rain, and on fire roads. Unfortunately they are not available to fit the Maxim's 16" rear wheel. The Shinko 705 is available in a 100/90-19, so if the Kenda front remains back-ordered (which it's been for a month or more) the Shinko is an option up front.

The damn 16" rear wheel is the problem. There are so few dual-purpose tires that fit a 16" wheel, and most of those are short-lived, expensive, and/or tube-type. I've done a lot of online searching, and the Kenda is so far about the best I've been able to find. Whether it's any good in practice remains to be seen.

 

Or, if you are really set on having more aggressive adventure style tires on your bike, find an 18 inch rear wheel and brake assembly from a Seca. It will fit right in on the Maxim in place of the 16 inch parts there without interference. Just remember to get the brake assembly too as it is different, smaller, than the Maxim's. You will have a bigger selection of tires.
Good job on the rehab of your bike, looks good.

 

Thanks. It's actually still pretty dirty, and there are a couple oil leaks on the engine that are messy but not terribly significant. They can be dealt with later.

One of the neat things is that the previous owner bought a milk crate full of shiny spares--like new fenders, turn signals, rear brake lever. These things are going on bit by bit. The old front turn signals went onto my RE Himalayan:



They are bigger, brighter and a lot better built than the cheesy plastic Indian units that came on the bike. The chrome on these old ones is a bit pitted--all the better for the flat black to stick when I paint 'em to match the ADV bike. I have a small turn-signal project in mind for the winter: I want to switch over to LEDs with white running lights and yellow turn signals. I have a set of these on my Road King, and I think the white running lights are brighter than the halogen spotlights that came on the bike. The 3-1/4" LED/lens "pancakes" are almost a drop-in into the Yamaha housings. Not quite, because they have a little flange at the front that's about 1/16" bigger than the Yammie blinkers, and they leave about a 1/4" gap that needs to be filled. On the Himalayan, I will probably just fill that gap with black tape or something. Depending on how this works, I will do the same thing or something similar on the Maxim's lights. Nice that the bulb socket itself can be removed from the housing by taking out two screws.

As for tires... I am a long way from trying to fit a different back wheel. They are hard to find and not cheap. I've been reading tire reviews, and with about three exceptions everybody hates the K761 on wet pavement. Damn. I don't hide from rain, so this could be a problem. The Kenda rear is already sitting at the shop, waiting for the matching front to come in. I figure I will try them, and if they really suck in the wet I will look at something else. The Duro HF-904 rear is fairly cheap (around $100 on Amazon, Revzilla and Dennis Kirk) and gets a lot of good reviews (particularly from Harley Sportster riders who want to play in the dirt), but it is a tube-type tire. An Amazon reviewer says they can be run tubeless (and shows one on what's clearly a Maxim rear wheel), while a staffer at DK says they lack the "liner" that makes tubeless tires airtight. I'm not totally opposed to schlepping a tube into the tires, depending on how hard they are to get on and off the rim (my Himalayan runs tubes and has a 17" rear wheel, and I do all my own tire changes on that bike), so the Duro is a possibility. Of course, the Duro is only available for the rear, but 100/90-19 is a fairly common front wheel size on ADV bikes, so there ought to be plenty of choices.

 

I had a Kenda rear on my GS - not a pleasant experience, as some doofus had decided that an across-the-way zig-zag groove would look cool.
That thing put the shyts up me when it aquaplaned.
Took it back, the supplier swapped it for a Michelin iirc.
A year or so later I noticed the replacement Kendas were sporting a different pattern, identical to the Arrowmax. Fitted one of them and had no trouble with it, even in the heaviest downpour or standing water.
There was nothing wrong with the original tyre's compound, it was just the stupid groove design.

 

Given that they're importing Chinese bearings of unknown origin...
Costs very little extra to buy genuinely good makes, like Koyo.

 

Was this the K761? Kenda makes a lot of different tires.

Duly noted for future reference. All Balls bearings are already installed and unless they fail, I will not be replacing them again. Based on a fair number of positive experiences reported on the site, I don't expect that. But if I ever need to replace the Maxim's steering head bearings again...

 

Bought my 82 XJ750
Maxim . It came with the Haynes manual. . Fixing up this XJ was therapeutic as heck. Gonna do another one. Found xj4ever after searching for parts. Joined the forum and the rest is history. No old lady to scold me for buying parts. The xj4ever supporting vendor is great for parts. I tried out an Amazon carb kit and I'm going back to the OEM parts. Other sources may provide marginal quality parts. The tech talk forum is a lifesaver. Everyone is helpful. Great community . My landlord has his 2023 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10 parked where the dining room table goes! Reliving my youth.