What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Good info from @Brhatweed there...
Pulled the forks on my Vmax 1200 to change the seals, bit of a dissapointment in that they were too thick to allow the circlip in, so for now they are without it. Whilst on the job I pumped out the brake callipers one at a time, cleaned up the pistons lubed with red grease and pushed them back in. Pads cleaned and inspected, refitted. Need to put some test miles on it.

 

I had a TCI to update, and had looked for Automotive capacitors so I checked this out. According to the Mouser and Digikey queries Nichicon UXY is not an option for the applicable values on the TCI, and per the datasheet from Nichicon for UXY the values are only available from 2300 to 11,000uF. Did I miss something?

They do have other AEC-Q200 qualified capacitors, but they are rated at 105 degrees C, which should be fine.

https://www.mouser.com/new/nichicon...1a68OhmHigKwtx-Is_j16oQgrAaCd8IU2SFog-vj3ifZ3

 

Now you've done it - my interest has been piqued, and have ordered an Arduino uno project kit. The goal is to write/download and modify code to run the Yamaha coils from the existing pickups, add a vacuum sensor and run it on one of my xj s. Maybe it could also read and log a wideband lambda. All together this could be sold as a module one day, perhaps help keep our old bikes on the road, and with a vacuum sensor make a fair few mpg for them.
When I get some way in I will start a thread on this.

 

Please make it compatible with both sides of the road, not sure I can shift with my right foot

 

Just change the camber shims and you'll be fine.

 

I replaced the fork seals on two of my 3 900 Secas. I used ATF in one and, for fun, used 10W40 in the other. I cleaned up the front calipers and bled both bikes.

Changed oil on the 750 Seca.

I purchased a 550 Maxim that's been sitting inside in this guy's basement for the past 15 years. 27,xxx miles. Came with a key but no title (bill of sale) so I'll have to go the surety bond route here in MN again for an extra $100. Should make a good ride for one of my sons!

 

The 550 is a sweet looking bike for sure, not so many around here in uk. Not so sure about a maxim 550, in fact I never knew there was one?

 

Another SECA here in Minnesota is always a good thing

 

The current stable includes 5 Secas....

 

Trying to talk my better half into a SECA but she's leaning towards a Maxim being the seat is lower and in her words... wider. At least it's in the same family.

 

I re-soldered two of the three wires on the turn signal switch. Now the blinkers work again.

Then I washed it (well, as much as I wash any bike), re-installed the stock seat cover and took a bunch of pictures so I can list it for sale. It's been a fun project to get the bike back on the road, my wife is pleased that I had something to keep me busy over the winter, I feel good about rescuing a bike that was headed for the junkyard (or just rusting away in a friend's garage), but I don't really have room for a third bike in my garage or in my life. I suspect I'll be lucky to get half of what I put into it (that's the problem with a project bike, isn't it?), but as long as it finds somebody who'll ride it I think I will be OK with that.



She is a nice looking bike.

 

Gal-Pal likes it but I don't see making a trip to Illinois, give me a ballpark number for it and maybe I can convince her.

 

Not counting what I had to give the State of Illinois to get the bike in my name, I have about $1700 in it right now. If I could get a grand for it, I would be quite happy. I'd like to get it out of the garage before I get my knee replaced next month and am out of commission for the winter. The bike includes a ton of spare stuff including both wheels, both fenders (the shinier ones are on the bike now), rear brake panel and shoes, head pipes, those big passenger-peg-mount castings, coils, fork tubes and other stuff I can't recall. In addition to the normal stuff (carb rebuild, tires, etc.) it's also got a new clutch, recent valve re-shimming, tapered roller bearings in the steering head, floating front rotor, EBC pads, caliper rebuilt with new pistons and seals, Galfer brake lines, new Progressive shocks and that nice Puig windscreen. I really did go kinda overboard with this project... but it was a lot of fun.

Here are a couple more pictures:




I love that it's still got the original aluminum "License Applied For" plate. They don't make 'em like that anymore!

 

$1700 is more than fair for a road worthy bike, if you could find a place to store it until spring you'd probably have no problem breaking even.

 

Stripped the downdraft Mikunis on my vmax trike. Hell of a job to find replacement bungs for the jet blocks, just jets came up with rebuild kits that has them, as well as the float lid rubber gasket seals. No throttle spindle seals in the kit, but they have told me they have found some. Now waiting for the postman.
Oh, also ordered some cds steel tube for the telescopic forks replacements - leading links.

 

That is damn good to know. I had been looking on facebook marketplace and there were a few '80-82 Maxims being offered under $1K, which made me think it wouldn't be worth much. Then again, it's October and many of these bikes had worrisome remarks like "needs a battery" (translation: "hasn't been started for a couple years, probably needs carb rebuild, tank cleaning, etc.") or "runs but needs choke" (translation: "expect to have to clean the carbs"), and so on.

Storing the bike till spring is not a problem. The motorcycle garage has room for three bikes, though the third one has to be parked sideways across the workshop area, meaning that taking that bike for a ride requires an awkward game of musical motorcycles. That won't be a problem this winter, as I'm getting a knee replacement next month and probably won't be doing any riding or wrenching till spring anyway. The bike's already 90% of the way to being set for winter storage; about all I have to do is squirt a little oil in the cylinders and crank it over.

Perhaps come spring I will ride it to the Slimey Crud Run with a "for sale" sign on the windshield.

 

Difference between fully running and ready to ride and needs some work is about $500 or more around me for an XJ. The "just needs battery" ploy people do often means it needs more than that. People list for $1700 and get $1500. That does not stop people from offering $1K before even showing up which I"d reject.
Yup spring time is going to be +$300 to $500 difference.

 

What did I do today... started with a drive to the DMV to renew my license-plate sticker. I could have done it online, but then I would have had an expired sticker on the plate (it expired Monday) and a piece of paper that is supposed to convince the cop I've renewed. Maybe not the best thing to do if going out of state. By going to the DMV I got the sticker right away. And avoided a "convenience fee" for doing it online.

Then I came home, installed the sticker and the plate, and also installed a GPS (retired iPhone 8) mounting on the handlebar:



This uses a RAM phone holder and part of the matching ball mount, bolted to a clamp that held the shifters on my mountain bike before I replaced them:



Waste not, want not. Installing this clamp unfortunately involved removing the bar-end mirror, grip, switch pod and clutch lever assembly, which in turn required disconnecting the clutch cable. Keep that part in mind.

At this point I do not have a power supply for the phone, but I do have a 10,000 mAh power brick in the tank bag, which I calculate will run the phone for a good two days or so. Good enough.

Then I took the bike on an 88-mile ride to shake things down. Wanted to verify how the bike was running, and moreover how my soon-to-be-replaced knee felt after a few miles. It felt... painful. Not enough to avoid riding, but enough to tell me stops every 30-50 miles are going to be required. Fine. I need to take more photos anyway.

The bike ran well, but... seemed shifting was harder than expected. Hmm... eventually I remembered I'd had to loosen the cable to R&R it from the lever. Maybe I didn't adjust it properly? While riding I tightened it up a bit with the lever-end adjuster and the bike then shifted much more as I remember it. When I got home I tightened it up down at the transmission end, so I could again have some adjustment range at the lever.

While on the subject of cables... the bike was still not returning to idle as quickly as I would like. Then I noticed there was absolutely NO slack in the throttle cable. I moved the adjuster a bit so I have some. I also looked at the plugs (the best I can do without a Colortune™ tool), and found that #4, which had fouled from being too rich a couple months ago, was now showing a tad lean. Hmm. This carb is an oddity. When I drilled out the EPA plugs, I found #1 and 2 were both around 1.5 turns out on the mixture screw, #3 was 2.25 turns, and #4 was only 0.75 turns out. Or I misread. Anyway, when I last fiddled with the carbs, I assumed I had made a mistake and set them all to 2.0 turns. Synched the carbs and it ran great... for about 800 miles, and then the #4 plug fouled to the point where my four became a triple. So I set the mixture back to 0.75 turns. Now the bike wouldn't return to idle, or wouldn't continue idling at 1100 rpm. I have since been slowly adjusting the mixture screw out, and the bike has responded by running and idling better. So far, I think it's still (at a hair over 1 turn out) still a bit lean, so I moved it another 1/8 turn today. I intend to ride, read the plug, tweak the screw... and, I suppose, eventually I will get to the point where a synch check shows some difference.

The point of this whole project is that tomorrow I leave on a three-day weekend ride, to visit breweries in the Driftless area and sample their Oktoberfests, and then to Pine Bluff, WI, for the Slimey Cruds Cafe Racer Tour on Sunday. Should be about 750-900 miles in all. I do this pretty much every year, weather permitting. Last year I took the Harley, was planning to take the Himalayan this year but my bum knee cannot stand banging against that tank-mounted crash bar. The weather forecast is perfect, and last night I got the bonkers idea of riding the Yamaha. It will certainly be easier to park at the end of the run in Leland. The only question is whether my sore knee can tolerate the rather tight bend it has to make on the Maxim. I think, based on today's ride, that it will, so that's my Plan Of Right Now. We'll see how it feels in the morning...

 

Minor milestone hit yesterday:



The odometer is now reading 10,201 after a pretty good day’s ride into Iowa. It ran well on a lot of two lane (wouldn’t you know it, fresh chip seal on the fun parts), a bit o’ gravel and too much four-lane between Dubuque and Manchester. Not that the bike complained (aside from a bit of tire squirm at 80 mph on grooved pavement), but I am feeling my age…

Idle is still a bit unsettled (it’s still prone to hang around 2000 rpm for a few seconds when I come to a stop, and if I’m stopped more than a minute it’ll slow down and stop if I don’t blip the throttle a couple times). I did a leak check before I left, didn’t find anything, so I suspect it needs another round of carb syncing. Alas, I just ran out of time to do that before I left.

Today it goes for a boat ride across the Mississippi and maybe some splish-splash on a bit of the Trans Wisconsin trail.

 

What did I do today? First I got it dirty.



Then I washed it:



Somehow it never ends up entirely clean.