XJ750RJ project

Alright well this will be my second project and first motorcycle. I've had my eye out for bikes for a couple months now, and had to pass up a couple nice suzuki GS's and some CB's sense I moved down to cali (a month ago) but I found this bad boy. I'm very excited about this bike because it's a big bike and I couldn't pass up the price $200 (from 700) with a Washington title. The problem is, I'm on a tight budget, I have yet to get my cali license or my motorcycle endorsment, and I can't even make up my mind of what I want to do with this bike (cafe, chopper, bobber.) I've been fartin around these forums for a while so I learned quiet a bit, still should go pick up a chiltons manual for it but i'll hold off until i really need it.

Couple things I'm for sure going to do to the bike is:
-Bugeye head lights
-Drag bars
-Murder it out (rat style black rattlecan)
-Lower it as much as I can
-Fat endoro tires
-Replace the banana seat
-Pod filters
-Guages
-Side kickstand
-Overhaul back drum
-Sleeker signals
-Enjoy it

If anyone got any parts that would help me with this list and would donate them I'll be more than happy to pay shipping haha

 

Welcome to the site Cheg !!
Instead of buying drag bars, you can use the handlebar from a quality mountain bike. They come almost flat, or with a slight rise.
From your tire choice, I gather that you want to play off road a bit.
Save the money you'd spend on pods that would just get dirty and get a washable filter in the stock airbox. These bikes simply run better with the airbox.

Get some pics of your build !!

 

welcome cheg, the folks on this site are great, but i don't know about givin' up thier parts for free, i have a '83 xj750rk so i'll be following your build to see what you do. i agree with TIME you may want to leave the stock airbox it will save you alot of time getting it tuned right. if you mod it w/ pods it will be tough to sync and tune the carbs. post some pics and good luck, NJrider

 

Greetings

Which XJ did you get?

I did a search for you on “kickstand” it should have everything from bending it after lowering to repairing it.
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/search/mode=results.html

What was your first project?

ab

 

WELCOME!!! Give it a little time. Think about it. Read back posts. Rethink about it. Reread back posts. Then....make it your own :wink: ...

skillet

 

I had a 76 datsun 280z. and i belonged to ratsun.net and hybridz.org

And also trust me I always do a good extensive search for information before i just post something.

I'll get some pictures of it after I pick it up today.
My original transporter bailed so i had to go door to door asking for a favor haha I paid them of course (you do what you gotta do when your new)

 

EXCELANT choice in a project car

My last project was a 91 300ZX TT, sold it for a 91 VFR + a few $’s
WHAT A CAR!!

I changed my avatar showing another favorite project… I put a Buick V6 in it.

Have you seen what wizard does?

ab

 

Hey albran the 300zx is a nice piece man i've seen the TT vg's go into 510's and 1200's alot up in oregon.
But I'm gunna try to keep this as on focus as we can so you can pm me or something and we can BS about our 4legged money pits

 

Money pit… NOW you’re talking XJ’s… Bought mine in May for a few hundred $’

I’ve put 1500 $’s in it and have already ridden a WHOLE 1 hundred miles.

Of course most of that was for upgrades.

ab

 

Well it stormed a bit yesterday so i couldn't do much to it. but last night I put that big son of a !@$!@ in my room (my room is in the garage) and started workin on it, but one thing that is starting to bother me is I cant get it up on it's stand (the one that you have to pull the whole bike over) I dont know if it's because i have low presure in the front or I'm just a huge wuss, I had to use a towing strap from the stand to the front tire 8) . I assessed some of the problems, in my fuse box my main (30A) fuse only has a positive feed and doesnt have the clamp for the negative and is it normal to have a red + and a red - ??
Also I tried to save my air box but i started cutting it and still am trying to get it out.

Also If anyone needs the rear brake light (with housing) and metal grab bar Hit me up 619 871 6128

 

To my previous post this is the fuse situation

 

Looks like you could use a fuse box, with your MAIN disconnected.
Don't run it in the house, of course. Gets the women upset.
To put it on the center stand- - run the bike on some 1X4's first.

 

What happens when I'm out riding with my gf? Here hold these 1x4's incase you want to stop somewhere?

It takes me a while to muscle it but it can be done i was wondering if there was an easy way haha and the bike right now is not running the oil is drained and i have no sort of air filter

 

If the rest looks as good as the fuse box, YOU’VE EVEN STILL HAVE THE COVER! You’ve got A good one!

The trick to the center stand is.
Drum roll please.

In you foot

Put your foot (I use my left (sometime)) on the stand
Grab the handle
Stand!!! on the stand (push DOWN HARD)
At the same time pull gently up and back on the handle.

I’m not going to make any recommendations on your wiring, the first time I charged my battery the charger didn’t shut down, not the chargers fault.

ab

 

Sense I didnt post any pictures of the bike because it was stormy i got some pictures today.
unfortunately my sorry ass is in the first picture

 

You should replace the Fuse Panel.
The Plastic parts have nothing to do with why its necessary to upgrade the Panel.
Those Fuse Clips have a high failure rate.

http://www.centechwire.com/Merchant2/me ... _Code=FB-6

One like this will cure a lot of Electrical Bugs.

 

doodz, I would love to wake up to a motorcycle in the morning.

this is what i do to put my bike on the center stand, get on it likw you're going to ride, it, put you foot on the center stand so it touches the ground and lean the bike till you feel both legs hit the cement, leand forward, and jerk back like a mofo, its alot easier on my 700 and cb750 and my seca 750, idk.

and if you want to get rid of the front left blinker... lemme know oh ya, i'd also like to buy those engine guards if you decide to get rid of them

 

oh ya those fuse panels are an engineering mistake, they turn to something equivelent to glue and sand mixed together, touch them and they flake away, kinda like the 05 ltz400's, clutch cover was made out of magnesium, and engine coolent kind of melted the cover...

 

schooter.. You are kidding about jerking the bike back to get it on the center stand?? right??

 

no...i put my foot in the centerstand and pull it back as hard as i can, even then i barely get it....handlebars and such should be able to hold it... if i try and stand on the side and pull it back it most likely will tip over, my seca has done so a couple times

 

Try this next time...

Stand on the left side of your bike facing it...
With your left hand hold the left hand side of the handlebar (where the clutch lever is) with your right hand grab a hold of the frame under the seat but over the rear wheel (most bikes have some form of grab bar there) then use your right foot to bring the center stand down (use the peg similar to the side stand). that peg acts as a lever.

Then simply extend your right leg (basically stand up on the peg), keep your back strait and pull up on the rear end at the same time.

this should put the bike on the stand with little effort...

 

lol sounds brilliant.... ill have me dad stand on the other side just incase

 

Ha my dad is up in oregon we got in a fight so that's why I'm down here now :roll: And my mom isn't very helpful though she tries to be. Kinda miss all the tools up there (he's an electrician) and i have to buy all my tools down here ugh.

 

I will definitely off the side covers they are in great shape I'll take a picture and PM you

 

On that note I have some other stuff that I will be selling/trading
82 seca seat in EXCELLENT condition,Grab bar, tail light section(kinda rough) and the fender piece that your license plate goes on.
Anything else you might need that I havent listed it's work asking the worst I can say is no :lol:

Items that I am looking for are.
-pod filters
-a single seater seat
-fuse box
-tuning equipment
-round headlight w/bracket

 

I've owned 3 XJ's with the old style fuses over the years and I have to say they have never given me any grief.

But, I guess upgrading to the newer style blade fuses can't be a bad idea in the long run.

 

The advice to Install a new Fuse Panel, replacing the OEM Panel is based upon the OEM Fuse Panel's Fuse holding clips extraordinarily high failure rate.

A great many of the Forum Members have had Electrical problems related to the Fuse Panel. Additionally, many others have found their Fuse Panels to have already failed upon purchasing a used bike with problems starting.

The advice is to prevent what is known to happen from occurring and leaving a Member stranded by eliminating the cause ahead of time.

 

should this happen to me I'll go with good ole tape that'll get me home :wink: maybe

 

LOL - the old cigarette packet foil around the blown fuse trick :wink:

Far easier to bodge one of these fuses than a blade one

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC6jGdzn4V4 -- easy like RookieRider said.
I spent months getting my bike on its center stand the way schooter did it when I was just moving it around in the garage...plus is had a frozen caliper to boot!

 

Ok some good news, I got it to turn over and run.
Only with gas sprayed into each carb.
Also my custom-made air filters (A nice pair of shorts,scissors and zip-ties) that looked almost decent went well for a while untill i look down and see that my #4 cylinder was missing it's filter, then looked down and saw the ziptie on the concrete. Short story shorter my bike ate an airfilter.

One problem I am having is that my bike isnt sucking gas from the tank.

 

Hopefully your motor didn’t eat your shorts!

Your homemade filter probably wasn’t a very good idea, makes your motor run either rich or lean.
If you have to, go get some cheep pods, it’ll run lean but you’ll still have your shorts for this summer.

You can test your petcock by disconnecting the gas line at the petcock, then put it on prime.
If gas doesn’t run out you’ll need to take the petcock off, clean it AND the tank.

Here are some pic’s.

ab

 

Alright well a trip to the local meet got me, I'm gunna go through the tank the lines and rebuild the carbs

Thank you albran

 

Lol actually It did eat them, then spit all the chunks back into my room haha :roll:

 

Just an update.

I rebuilt the carbs and i think that the PO already cleaned them because they were spotless inside 8O , I am used to working on 1970's autoparts so it might be the 10 years difference? Either way all the parts look in good shape exept for a couple of the needles I believe that cylinder #1 and #4 have good needles and 2 and 3's just look horrible, If anyone has any interest i'll pull the caps off and get a picture of them.

Also I decided to tackle the tank rust so i searched the forums for a little while and couldn't decide on a method. But sense i moved down to California and i live so close to the beach why not use the sand/gas method (FAIL). I ended up using sand, gas, coke, carb cleaner, a tad bit of oil. And that mixture after a while of shaking the livin *sensor* out of the tank it cleared up most of the rust, YAY. Then now I'm faced with getting the sand out. Oh and the neighbors didn't think dumping the toxic sludge right out in the road was very cool either.
How am I going to get the sand out of the tank!

After I rebuilt the carbs i did slap them on to see if the bike would run better, (By the way this is the first time i have rebuilt/played with carbs ever..) The bike compared to what it was running like is awesome and sense my tank is in rust rehab I used a jar/tape/tube as a fuel I.V.

The bike was running great so I decided to tape the jar of gas onto my bike with a towel rapped around it sitting on the top of the Valve cover and take it for a spin. at first it didn't want to pull my fat *sensor* around but if you keep steady on the idle and let the clutch out a couple of times it got up to speed.

I also met my next door neighbor today turns out he has a triumph and a shadow and he speaks fluent english, you might wonder why i point this out, and well I live in Chula vista (Chula Juana as robert calls it (really funny IMO)). So I borrowed his bicycle pump to pump up my tires and when i went to return it he offered me a middle eastern cigar to celebrated the first voyage of my gas gusslin beast.

Now to talk about my cooling problem it would seem that my bike is overheating... I decided that because of the smoke that my bike generates at a stand still (a really big cloud). I think that it could be an oil problem, I'm using quacker state 20w-50 oil. I wasn't sure how much oil it took so i put in about 2.5 quarts but I got the over heating deal so then i thought I'd fill it until i could see the oil level from the brake side oil cap thing and if i went a little over it had a function to level itself out. Well a full 5 quarts went by and i couldn't see the oil level..... Well I figured that if 5 quarts and i couldn't see the oil level then I'm not supposed too so I fired up in my driveway :evil: And the stupid thing launched oil 15 feet and covered my bed with motor oil.

 

Oil change.. 5.2 US pint (2.5 Litre)
Oil and filter change...5.9 US pint (2.8 Litre)
Near where you put your foot on the rear brake lever is a glass piece (in the clutch cover) oil level should be a smidge below the top of it. When on the centre stand on level ground, it will probably take 10 minutes to find the level after its been running. A workshop manual is a good thing to have.

 

thanks bush!

was the quaker state 20w-50 a bad choice in oil? it was regular automotive oil

Any idea why it might be over heating then?

 

I don't know "quaker state oil".... 20-50 is ok tho, but you don't want modifiers in it, they will make the clutch slip. There's plenty of info on oil types in the forums if you search for it.
What you called over heating sounds to me like over filled with oil and it's getting burned.
I like the way you said you tried to save the airbox..was the right hand stronger than the left?... If you are going for function over fashion, airbox= function. Any'ow good luck.

 

Here's how to get almost all the sand out;
Take the tank out of your bedroom 8O :lol:
stand it up, put a garden hose in it, start filling.
using 5 feet of garden hose, start a siphon, just suck from the bottom corners, continue to siphon until no more sand comes out.
Then quickly dry it using denatured alcohol and a smaller tube siphon.
The alcohol absorbs the water, you remove the mix, you put in more alcohol, then oil the inside of the tank, unless you want to coat it.
Coating will bond any remaining sand.

 

Do you still have 5 qts. in it? That's almost twice too much!
The book says.
"Oil & Filter 2,250CC (2.8 US qt.)"

ab

 

Nah a couple qts ended up on my bed a couple on the concrete and then the rest in my shoe as i rode it up and down the street

 

You should name your bike, Bart Simpson. As in, "Eat My Shorts". Lol!

 

The oil quantities I stated are from the Haynes manual for 1980-'82 XJ650/750. On my bike right by where you put the oil in, stamped on the case is 2500 cm3, which is another way of writing 2.5 Litres (without filter).

 

Another oil issue you could run into is using car motor oil instead of motorcycle oil. I have said this in a couple of other threads, but car motor oil is not designed for use in motorcycles. Unless your bike is somehow different than mine, the oil not only goes throughout the engine but it also goes through the transmission which cause a lot more wear and tear on the oil. Do yourself a favor and use motorcycle oil. It will hold up way better than car oil.

On the other hand, if your on a trip and you cant get your hands on bike oil, you can use car oil to make sure your oil level is high enough. Just use bike oil whenever you have access.

 

well I rode to work, with the whole jar/tube syphon tank setup with no headlight seat blinkers brake light or license plate and a guy at work offered $500 for the bike 0.o I bought it for $200 and currently i've put $20 bucks toward the bike..

 

I wish I'd seen that ............................................ sell it.

 

I was like well it's not really street worthy :wink: . He didnt care he said he was going to ride it straight home (mexico) with no license plate... 8O

 

Tough call there Cheg, I'm not sure I'd sell but if the bills or tuition are due...
Incidentally, QuakerState 20-50 ought to be fine for you, what makes you think the bike is running hot? A huge-ish cloud of smoke upon fire-up, especially after finishing a bunch of maintenance, is normal. Unless you have over-serviced the sump, in which case you are gonna see smoke signals for days!

 

Alright guys this is a very sad post but I have to sell my bike.
I'm getting the opportunity to go on a month long road trip livin out of a van i'm going to travel the whole country i'm going 6000 miles in a loop from california to florida to ohio to north states then to oregon then back down to california. I put it up on craigslist already but i'm going to share some photos with you all once i get home today.

 

I'd take more than 30 Days.
But, I'd do it on the Bike; not the Van.