newbie has questions

Hi, Everyone, and thanks for this great site.

i have a couple of questions of course they are more than likley dumb..

1) i am 6 foot 200lbs, and i noticed that i am going all the way thru the travel on my forks,just coming into my driveway, my bro says that is not right and that it looks like i need to add air to my forks... do i need a special fork pump, or can i go to the filling station and pump them up, and at what P.S.I. i had the seals done last summer,no oil is leaking but i noticed that it looks like i am going to have to take the straight bars off to fill....

2) to pod or not to pod.... i also noticed that all 4 of my air intake boots have all shrank and and are only half on all the carbs... what do you guys think.. new boots or good looking non-street legal K&N`s i hear stories about pods being awesome and being nothing but disasters... sure would like some feedback..

3) i want to put a pic of my bike as my avtar but cannot get in down to 6kb....help!!!

thanks again in advance,

Jeff
82 yamaha maxim 650

 

Do not use an electric air compressor, you will blow the seals... use a hand pump or a bicycle pump. You'd have to check your manual (or someone here may help you) as to what the proper air pressure range is for your bike. My one side was low, and the other had no pressure at all. I used a bicycle pump, and in 3 or 4 pumps had the one overfilled by almost 15 lbs. so be careful, it doesn't take much to fill them, and an electric or gas station air compressor will put to much pressure in almost instantly, possibly blowing the seals.

 

Hey Jeff; Welcome aboard.
First the air pressure specs.
Standard 5.7 psi.
Range is .17psi. to 17psi.

They are hard to fill, I took a big truck type air chuck with the dual foot on it and turned the foot upside down. And was able to get air in that way.
If you use a compressed air source be very careful not to overfill, it will fill up rather quickly. Or you could use a hand pump. I think the best way would be to have a portable tank with a regulator set to whatever pressure you wanted.

Either way I still found it hard to get the psi were I wanted it, because of there not being much volume of air in the cylinders, everytime I attached the gauge it would loose a 1/2 to 1 lb. of air.

#2 I'm not up much on the pod thing. But I have heard it would require re-jetting the carbs. and that they are hard to tune.
I have a stock filter and have all the power I can use.

#3 I had the same problem with the pic too. This might help. http://xjbikes.com/archive_forum/t538.htm
Good luck.

 

Hey Guys,

thanks for the quick replys,

i was digging around in the garage, and found a fork hand pump for my mountain bike. Gonna give that a go, scot thanks for the advise, rich thanks for the specs

Jeff
82 yamaha maxim 650

 

Welcome to the forum Jeff, your going to love it here. A bicycle shop should have an inexpensive air pump with gauge expressly for air shocks for about $20. I picked one up on clearance and it works great. Easy does it on those forks, you'll blow the seals if your not careful. Don't ever use compressed air to adjust them. POP! I haven't any experience with changing the air cleaner assembly, but I have heard that you need to change out the jets along with it to richen up the fuel mixture or you'll end up burning out a few valves or other expensive parts. As a general rule, you should swap out the airfilter, jets, and exhaust as a matched set, but this is not a hard and fast rule. Usually, the exhaust manufactures (the good ones anyway) will have some information on what jets and air filter to upgrade to for your machine. They have the money for the R&D so let them do the homework! In addition, depending on riding conditions, you'll have an increased requirement to clean not just one filter, but four, especially in dusty conditions. Fresno has plenty of it with the dry summers and all the agriculture around! I love Visalia myself but I can recall a certain red-headed massage therapist from New Zeland I dated there back in '96. Wow!! She was a student at Fresno State, drove a '64 Ford 500, and knew how to drive it! I can't help you on the photo issues, I'm hardly computer literate. Drop me a line, I'm hoping to run my 81 650 up to Sac. this summer. Maybe chat with folks along the way. Regards.

 

Robert,

Hi there from good old dusty fresno, i am actually going to stay with stock air setup, PO had put new boots on, but boot clamps were faulty and of course they shrank, so new boots,clamps, filter and that will be dialed.. its got a decent pipe on it right now so just fixing what i got now seems easist.. still have bigger fish to fry (head Gasket) yea, ...i found my fork pump, so i got that dialed in also ....thanks.. visalia is growing fast nice town... 64 ford 500 nice ride aaarrrrggghhh... hey let me know when its getting close to your Sac Run maybe tag along a couple sections

thanks for the reply to my post

 

Thanks SnoSheriff,

Great site, thanks for the links for the pods.. i worked out my pic issues after rich threw me a link..

 

hey man no ideas on the air, but i put pods on my 650 and it sounds great and runs fine, my carbs may have been jetted for the 4into1 exhaust by the PO tho. but the pods sound really good when u flatten it. by the way i just got the cheap ermgo ones to try em out and see if the jetting would work. maybe later ill get k&n ones,
cheers brenton