new 85 maxim x owner

Hey everyone I just picked up a rough 85 maxim x . I was looking forward to a quick easy bike to get running... But I was lied to... So I have been on this forum quite a bit looking. Well after some diagnostics I have the head off trying to figure out how much money I want to spend. So needless to say I'll be on here much more now.

 

How did you go from "ran last year, probably just needs carbs cleaned to run again" or whatever the PO told you, all the way to pulling the head off? Must have been a hell of a whopper.

Buy a replacement head off ebay, new head and valve cover gaskets, check valve clearances and put it back together. Hopefully if the original head really came apart there isn't anything down in the lower end to grind things up later on.

 

maybe that's not QUITE what he said.....

I have a '67 Honda 305 Dream that when I got it was told "it ran great the last time I had it out". Then, after dragging it out of the barn basement on its side with a chain hooked up to a tractor, and the hay blew off on the way home...........yeah, it DID run great the last time he had it out-----many many years before, and up to the point that he pushed it into the barn and then forgot about it for about 20 years.

I could easily sell it and tell people that " the previous owner had been riding it before I bought it", and 'the engine turns right over'. Both of those are true.......he had been riding it (more than 20 years before the time I bought it)", and the engine DOES turn right over---it's sitting right on my bench behind a bunch of other things, but if you press on the kickstart, the engine spins right over.....the plugs are loose so there's very little resistance. Theres very little rust on it, either.........it's totally disassembled, and all frame parts have been fluid-bed stripped, so there's very little paint on it, either.......lol

 

Yeah he told me he ran it every year around the block here and there to keep it going. I got it running simply with a charged battery and fixing some previous wiring attempts. Well i rode it around the fields for a while. No smoke, no leaks! I was amazed. Didn't overheat. It was horribly weak but would rev up as far as I wanted. Well I figured it just needed carb work. THEN I checked compression since I was going to get new plugs.Glad I checked it too instead of chasing my tail on the carbs.I'm sure they need cleaned but it needs much more. Valves leaking bad on two cylinders. #3 only had 25psi compression. None of my intake valves had any clearance between the cam/buckets. It's just a mess. It has 25000 miles on the clock but I swear the guy said it was really 125000. Guess I'll just see what I can do with it.

 

All old bikes, no matter how the PO describes them, need work to be made roadworthy.

Fortunately, you have an XJ and you have this forum and XJ4ever as good resources. Read EVERYTHING, and heed every warning. If the guys here are telling you you need to do something, DO IT. In due time, and with enough money invested, you will have a nice running XJ.

Its a labor of love. Get to work. Do it.

 

I feel like I'm about to be in the same boat. my '81 has eaten most of my weekends since I bought it. I should follow suit with the compression test. maybe that's what is keeping my #3 cylinder from firing right.

 

When you get the valves in spec and the carburetor cleaned and dialed in, along with all the other necessary maintenance items that come with a 30 year old bike, and trust me, you want all those other bits like tires and brakes to be in tip-top shape, that 30 year old bike will bring a smile to your face that will only get bigger with every twist of the wrist.
Sorry for the ramble, but these bikes are fun and fast, especially when in good shape.