G'day from OZ

Had a shocker today had a change of heart about the garage and decided to spend some time on the beach instead. Well how could blame me we had the place to ourselves and a Sea Eagle :roll: (more Garage credits)


So today just removed to old coils and did some tidying up of the wiring harness, nothing to big just re-wrapping and general stuff, oh and removed the right alloy foot-peg bracket and gave it a small polish (don't really like the over polished look on daily riders) and it looks like i'm missing the blanking bolt from the bracket, no biggie, i'll find one sometime.

Before



After




One Q for the group has any one restored the "idiot" lights area or is it a simple replacement jobbie :?




Rod

 

I never have, but I have some ideas.

to restore the plastic lenses, try some of that headlight renew type stuff to clear up yellow headlights, then for the white letters, spray some white paint on a rag, and dab those letters, and armor all should clean up that black plastic nicely

 

Hi Ozzyrod, looks like you got a bargain! If it was me i would walked in 2 minutes after it was sold to someone else. Good luck finding bits, i agree that headlight does really have to go.

 

Hey, totally agree with you on the headlight and i may have found one through the "Yamaha XJ owners discussion group".

As for timing on the good buys! my usual trick is to pick up the "buy of the week" only to find out later that it's shot and will cost more to fix than it will ever be worth.

I've been quite lucky with the Xj as most of the parts have come from our very own resident guru and parts seller, Chacal
He has just sent a package of all the necessary parts i need and hopefully the coils will arrive about the same time so we may see the old girl on the road before the end of march. The biggest hold back is my CB450 Cafe that MUST be finished for the VJMC rally at Healsville (Vic) in March!! so here's a sneak peak :roll:


I've done a heap more work since that photo was taken, but have still yet to run the engine :? I've a "thing" about running the engine on a bike too early, if i do it tend to make me rush the final phase just so i can ride it and inevitably i'll damage something, so the engine run will be in late Feb sometime.

Oh and just one more photo for the freezing folk in Canada, taken while fishing Yesterday at the Tangalooma wrecks (morton island) as we say here in Queensland "Beautiful one day perfect the next" :lol: :lol:





Rod

 

Hey Ozzyrod...that 450 can put it's slippers under my bed any time you'll let it.
It's gorgeous.

 

Thanks Bushy, It's small words like this that give me the kick i need to finish her.

She started out as just a frame and a trailer load of STRIPED parts. The PO had even striped the gearbox down to it individual parts and they were in bags and tins all mixed up :cry: I've lost count of the number of small parts I've never found in the mess and have thrown out so much junk that he had found/kept and thought were good.

Rod

 

Well all the bits and bobs turned up today and as per usual i had forgotten something :roll: Brake leaver! not a biggie as they are available locally, but i had wanted to buy the lot thought the one supplier and what a supplier he is Chacal you're the man
Your parts arrived in no time and everything is just peeeeerfect

The badges i picked up locally as the were very cheep compared to what was on offer from the web.



And the coils i found on the web arrived at the same time.



So what to do now :roll: yep fit the coils and see what happens, but first i made a small fuel tank out of a "gravity feed" 600ml spray pot (fuel and solvent resistant) and some brass connections and modified an old gas lantern as a holder. I worked very well indeed :lol:
Started with one like this!



Even looks the part




So i started to sync the carbs and had all sorts of problems which i'll discuss in the Carb Clinic/forum.

Rod

 

Ok after lots of reading is appears that i didn't bench sync the carbs and that is the problem. Guess what i'll be doing tomorrow :roll:

Rod

 

Ok can someone tell me what's wrong here carb 3 butterfly won't seat and the idle screw won't come anywhere near the stop tab. The PO striped them and well what can i say, but, help as i have no reference.

 

I have not had this problem but wonder if the edge of the butterfly is not at 90 degrees to the face - what I mean is they go in one way round only and it is in the wrong way round. Loosen the two fixing screws and if the shaft goes "Home" it's the butterfly catching?

 

FIXED

I loosened off all the mounting screws and then aligned the carbs and retightened everything. Now the carbs are bench sync-ed, back in and running :lol: :lol:



Sync and tune tomorrow

Rod

 

nice, now pop over and sort mine out...

 

Is it running yet or :cry: :cry:

 

Ok it's been awhile since i posted anything and it's been awhile since i did anything :roll: :roll:
So what's up! well not much as the Cafe racer is taking up most of the day and the rest is taken up with sleep! but i have done the seat with a cover from UK Ebay and it looks OK

went from this



to this



and now this 8O







I used the re-trim to buy a new toy for the garage, Staple gun and 5000 staples all for 70 big ones :lol: :lol:

 

Almost registered, just need one of these...
I was never going to strip this bike and restore it, my intention was only to get her up and running and then ride her for 6 months, fix any issues then pull her off the road for a complete restore. So what you see is a cleaned and running XJ still needing some TLC in the beauty department. Motor was rebuilt by PO and sound tight and fine, all the mechanicals are great, wiring is NOW working well (that took several months), seat redone.

Once I copy the stripes I'll repaint her.

Finally the worlds most expensive head light is fitted :cry: I have bought 3 first one came without the rim and globe second one was from a XJ550 and two small (although advertised as a XJ650) and finally the third from Japan from a XJ750, Total spent $170 :x P.S i have a XJ750 headlight bucket and mounts for sale