Fender removal on '86 Maxim XJ700X

My son bought his first bike, an '86 Maxim XJ 700 X last year and we spent some time and money getting it running well. It's a screamer for sure. Now he really wants to paint the bike a different color.

Can anyone here point us to a good source of information on how to best remove the front and rear fenders? Is this something that we can tackle just by looking and removing the obvious things we can see? Do the tires need to come off? I did a quick search for fender removal and paint and didn't see any prime thread candidates. Would the XJ CD have this type of info in it and if so, is that still available?

Any help greatly appreciated. Great site. We were on it last year and learned all about the leaking petcock and other issues which we fixed. Now that it runs he wants to make it look as bad-ass as it goes!

Thanks in advance!

 

Fender removal is pretty straightforward on those bikes, lots of accessory pieces to remove first on getting to the rear fender, but nothing major.

 

Just dive in and start unbolting stuff!

Front fender, just take the aluminum cross brace off and the bolts that hold the fender on come from the tire side into the cross brace.

It's easiest to take the side rails off the back (and signal lights) first, along with seats and you can lift it off IIRC (there are four bolts holding the side rails on and two screws got through the seat and fender into the frame.

Then of course the tail light comes off.

 

Thanks for the advice to dive in. We did and it couldn't have been easier!

We put my son's Maxim back together after spending two weeks painting (stripping, sanding, bondo, priming, painting and clear coating) and then went on a 4-hour ride today. Doesn't get much better than that.

We went from this:



To this:



One happy 16-year-old

 

glad it all came together and your getting to ride in this nice weather

 

Looks good, Methos 1979. Given that you have the original chrome air cover and carb covers (5 valve), I would recommend also pulling off the two aluminum finned covers on the engine (2 simple allen head bolts on each) and polishing the face of the fins to remove the aftermarket paint. Would look good to restore that shine there, and is very easy to do!

What did you use for paint and clearcoat (brands)?

 

I was getting ready to remove my fenders preparing for paint and thought “looks simple enough; wonder if there’s some tips in the forum?” a quick search found this thread.

I’m continually amazed at the wealth of knowledge here - freely given by experts - even for the smallest tasks. Many thanks to the XJ Bikes community for the pitfalls avoided and time saved!

 

I was getting ready to remove my fenders preparing for paint and thought “looks simple enough; wonder if there’s some tips in the forum?” a quick search found this thread.

I’m continually amazed at the wealth of knowledge here - freely given by experts - even for the smallest tasks. Many thanks to the XJ Bikes community for the pitfalls avoided and time saved!