82 XJ550 is lifeless..

Alrighty... So I just stepping into getting an XJ550 Seca and figured I would keep it as it would be a great project for my 9yr old son and me to get our hands dirty.

The bike it self has seen some serious better days. It's been repainted and the kill switch has been removed from operation and the from brake just plain doesn't work. The poor bike as you would imagine at this point doesn't even run. Not a big surprise.

I've done the following:
-new plugs
-intense cleaning of the carbs and bench sync
-cleaned the starter, brushed looked like they had tons of life so I didn't replace them as the PO said they were new
-new battery

I can't get this beast to give me much life when I try to turn it over. It will chug for a while like it want's to but very slowly. The most life I got was today and I tried to resort to the push start and popped it into first and it gave me a little wannabe backfire and blew black smoke out the exhaust. Other than that just chug, chug, chug.

I'm going to try to do the the push start again when I can grab someone to help me push it again for more speed.

I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. Any thoughts or help would be great..the little guy is getting bummed out it wont start.

thanks,

 

He's only 9, you got plenty of time. He's gonna need to learn some patience.

Anyway.....did you do a valve clearance check? did you flush the tank? Service the petcock? Exactly what did you do to clean the carbs? What did you set your floats at? What did you set the mixture screws at? etc......

dave F

 

Might be good to do a compression check early on, too.

 

I haven't done a valve clearance check.... I know what I consider basic stuff, but this is pretty much a learning process for me as well. Tank was said to be flushed as well as a petcock service. I took the persons word for it. Gas is definitely flowing from the tank.

To clean the carbs I removed the float bowls and jets, cleaned them in carb dip as well as blew out the carbs with compressed air. installed new float needles.
I don't have the special Yamaha tool so I wan't able to set the floats according to the Clymer book from what I read.

I'm planning on breaking the majority of the bike down, however I don't want to do this without being able to get the bike to run.

 

Don't ever do this. They might be lying or they might not have known what they were doing.

 

+1. I NEVER take a PO's word on what they did until I can see it myself. Heck, I never take a shop's word until I see for myself that it was actually done.