82 maxim project

Been lurking around here for awhile. Bought this beast for cheap because it wouldn't start. I've restored old dirtbikes, but this is my first foray into streetbikes. Just trying to make it my own...for cheap. No restoration here, I want this thing to be a mean SOB. Progress is slow, garage time is usually late at night when the kids are in bed.

When I got it:


Teardown:


Seeing how it'll look, custom kickstand :


Seat & fender mount, not bad for not welding for 8 years:


Lowering front forks 2 inches:


No front fender, no fender mounts needed:


Other side:


Clean shaven:




No need for centerstand or brackets either:


Hillbilly shock compressor, cutting them down 1.5":


Hillbilly valve compressor:


No wonder it didn't run, cam sproket bolt came out:


Tore it up a bit:


Lots of cleaning to do:


That's where it stands now. Waiting on warmer weather to paint frame, tins, wheels. Cleaning up the engine and putting it back together, redo the wiring, figuring out exhaust, putting on the drag bars...hopefully it'll be done by riding time.

 

Ain't it fun? Looks like you have your work cut out for you. Keep us posted on your progress then.

 

SIMPLIFY THE WIRING!!! It'll make things much easier. There are several diagrams on this site if you search.

 

Well fellow XJers, making a little more progress on my project. Buttoning up the engine tonight and loading it in tomorrow with my little bros help. Def. going to do the simplified wiring.

Paint:


Putting in back together. Still need to paint fender/tank:




Decided to make a new seat, didn't like how the stock pan was flowing:

 

Did a good job cleaning up where fender mounts were! What prep and paint did you use on your shocks???

skillet

 

Skillet-thanks! for the shocks I did scotch brite pads, cleaned, self-etching primer & then rustoleum satin black. But, the paint isn't holding up too great, going to have to redo over next winter.

 

Got the carbs cleaned and bench synced. They were nasty:



Added fluids, made a temporary fuel tank, and she fired right up. Sounds mean as hell. Still need to fab up my tag/tail bracket, front turn mounts, wire my rear turns and tail light, get new tires mounted and paint the tins. This is how she sits now, boy is it slammed to the ground! I had to take a big chunk out of the kickstand and weld it back up to get it to work right.



Ended up sticking with all the wiring. This is my first street bike, so I wanted to keep all the functionality for this first season. Probably going to minimize the wiring loom next winter when I work on cleaning up the engine now that I know it runs.

 

Air in the tires will help :wink: ! IMHO you really need around 4" of ground clearance...

skillet

 

Do you have mufflers on those pipes or are they just srtaight?

 

WOW....this makes me ashamed that I haven't done more work on mine. Great job. I can't wait to see it all put back together and outside ready to ride.

 

Thanks Koolaid!

Once my custom lowrider tires are replaced with new ones, looks like I'll have about 4.5" of clearance. That's plenty, I'm not gonna be racing this thing.

Yeah, there are mufflers on there, the ones that were on the bike when I bought it, just painted with high-temp exhaust paint.

Not much progress. Got the tag/light mount ready to weld, finishing front turn mounts and waiting on the stupid Ohio rain/humidity to take a break so I can paint. Oh yeah, still need to go to the DMV and get my endorsement.

 

OK guys, looking for some help here. Got the tank stripped and came across a bunch of "patches". Could this be JB Weld? Should I dig out and redo?

 

AS for paint-I do allthe painting I can with Dupli-color
engine paint,It's extreamly hard once it has completely cured
and out lasts standered rattle can by a long shot.
A couple of coats of the low gloss black makes a nice even finish.
Then three coats of clear and it looks like factory high gloss.

 

In the home stretch, sealed the tank with POR-15 over the weekend, mounted the tag/tail light bracket I welded up and painted some parts. All that's left to do is body work on the tank, then paint and new tires.

Some crappy phone pictures-

Front:


Rear:


Close up of tag bracket and rear turn:


Side view:


Thanks to all the knowledge on this board, this thing is almost road worthy!

 

wow, great job man, its really coming along great. you've come along way since you started, and in so little time. Im building one I got real cheap as well, except I have NO real knowledge of anything, so its going to take me some time to get it ready.

 

Can i ask, How exactly do you lower the front forks??

 

Loosen the bolts that hold the forks in place and push em up a little bit. Thats how I did it. Gotta get new lines though. Squishin my brake lines too far up. Gonna upgrade to stainless soon anyway
-Chris

 

chris is right just dont move them more then an inch without checking clearance and drive it .it changes the steering geometry maskes the wheelbase shorter can cause vibrations .any farther your asking for trouble you might be ok but drive it to make sure.
Chris you really must have really lowered yours alout if you need new lines they bend alout

 

I didn't move my forks up in the tree, I lowered the forks by disassemblying them and cutting the spacer at the top of the fork 1.5" then adding a new 2" spacer on the dampening rod (is that what it is?) above the spring:



Here's the link to the write up I used to do mine:
Lowering forks

 

Got the paint almost done. Gonna wait for it to cure and then add clear, but I couldn't wait to put it together. Put on my new standard petcock, added gas and fired it up. It ran, but gas was leaking out of the pod filter on carb 3, so I'm going to have to pull them again.

 

looking good man looking good

 

slick lookin bike dude. new gauges would be bad ass, but everything looks good.

 

I would wait to pull the carbs again. I had the same thing only out of carb 4 and after I ran it down the road and back everything settled in the carbs and no more leaking. You might just have a float sticking that the engine vibrations can get rid of.

 

thats looking very sweet man. like the color alot!

 

You make it sound like you really didn't do much with the carbs, and it just refuses to NOT start for you. I have to admit I'm a bit jealous. Mine is flat out refusing to start so far, but that's a conversation for another thread. The bike is looking great. Thanks for taking that original seat off; I can uncover my eyes now, lol.

 

I love the color scheme! Too bad you didn't want a front fender...more paint "real estate" to contrast with the black of the wheels

I had gas leaking out of my airbox only once last fall; ran some SeaFoam through (I know in this case is more or less a band-aid...), haven't had any problems since.

Keep up the good work!

 

Lookin' good, I like the color.

 

Another that likes the colors :wink: ...

skillet

 

+1 on what they said

 

Man, I feel like a lazy piece....my bike has sat in my garage for a year collecting dust and you have built the bike I hope to one day have. Nicely done, nice bike.

I am also a fan of the color. There are already enough flat black 80's bobbers out there.

 

Thanks for the compliments guys. I was originally going to do all black, but wanted something that stood out a bit more. I used duplicolor metal specks and am very happy with the result. I'll take some photos in the sunlight once I've cleared and polished.

Also hoping to get rid of the giant gauge cluster over winter and replace it with something smaller.

As for the carbs, it would have helped if I hadn't put 2 of the floats in upside down...d'oh! Should have them buttoned back up tonight.

 

hahahahahah.... When I just redid my carbs a month or so ago I put them ALL in upside down. Glad to see I'm not the only dumbass on here.

Your paint is inspiring me to do the same and add some color to the bike instead of just using bedliner as the paint like I was going to. I think I'll strip it all down this winter and still do the frame with bedliner, but the tank and fender are going to get spray bombed like yours. I need to check what other colors they have and see what calls out to me. Maybe blue?

What did you clear with?

 

Koolaid - that makes me feel better

The metal specks blue looks pretty good, I've seen it on some bikes on the interwebs. I was originally going to do bedliner too, so I have a couple unopened cans in my garage. I got to worrying that it might build up too much on the frame and make things fit back together harder, so I just went with a satin black.

Haven't cleared yet, didn't have time after painting, so I'm letting the orange cure first, but I'm going to just use duplicolor clear laquer and wetsand then hit with rubbing compound...good enough for the girls I go with!

 

what did you use for the rear fender?

 

Well of coarse I like it.

 

awesome man.... check out my thread here in about 15 min and I'll have some updated pics posted. I see the finish line in sight. The paint might not get done until winter, but I was able to run it around the block tonight. I just need to properly mount the exhaust, seat, headlight, and finish up the wiring and she's good to go.

 

Been super busy with work family stuff, but the good news is after cleaning the carbs and bench syncing them again, fixing some bad intake manifold leaks, and replacing the friction plates, she fired up and I ripped around the neighborhood. Bad news is I was still having some electrical issues, so now this is where I'm at, thinning this down to the minimum wiring + signals.



Also got new tires to mount and am heading to the cycle graveyard to find a MC that won't be at such an extreme angle on the drag bars.

Stryker-the rear fender is the stock one rotated forward with the original tail light holes welded shut.

 

She's roadworthy!





Eliminated all this "useless" wiring. Wow, what a difference it made.


My dimmer switch was snapped off when I bought the bike, so I replaced with a simple toggle switch on the headlight bucket


Also, starter button was broken, so I replaced a relocated down by the left side cover...helluva lot easier than always jumping the solenoid with a screwdriver. Removed the choke cable too, simple enough to reach down and turn on at the carbs.

Had to replace the automotive style clamps that were holding on the muffler because I needed more clearance...learned the hard way by losing a muffler around a corner. Don't think I could go much lower with this bike 8O

Left to do is find a speedo, clear the paint and replace the master cylinder, but for the time being, just enjoying it. Plan to fabricate some new side covers over winter, without the stock seat pan, the covers just look out of place, but will work for now.

I'll try to get the wifey to video it running so I can share.

 

Bought my speedo at JCWhitney for about 50 bucks, its small, simple and mechanical.

 

looks great man. Got my speedo from mikes XS.

 

Short cell phone video of it running down my street...don't mind my boys yelling, they get really excited about the bike

Just click on the image below to go to photobucket.

 

hey man, great work. good video to, glad to see it came together for you, and you got your first ride in on it, i'd say you were all smiles. the feeling is awesome.

 

Well, it warmed up a bit here in Columbus so I was able to install my new head gasket to keep the oil from flying on my pant legs. Also was able to finally put on a couple coats of clear. Not perfect but certainly not bad for rattle can.

 

Nice bike. Nice colors. Very cool. Good job.

 

Looks great! Good work

 

Ya' done GOOD :wink: !!!

skillet

 

Nicely done! Great looking bike.

 

Looks great! I'm looking to do something similar myself. Clean and simple. I'm here in Columbus also, we'll have to get the CBus XJ'ers together this summer.

 

lmk, im in columbus too

 

you did a good job