1983 XJ650 Maxim bringing back to life

some pics of blockages and crud I had to clear/remove.
I also pulled the gas out of the tank and am removing petcock to rebuild or replace. Seems like a fuel filter between tank and carb inlet is a tight fit unless I run it along the outside. Need to research how others have done it.

 

That's pretty cool @Melnic.

There is an area on the forum for sharing 3D print related stuff: https://www.xjbikes.com/forums/forums/xj-3d-printing-stl-files.40/

If you'd be comfortable sharing your designs, it seems like something that a lot of people would be interested in.

 

Pics of the tank. going to start the vinegar soak tonight.
Need to also paint the bare metal under where the petcock gasket will go.

 

Doing good work....I like it. That tank does not look bad at all. That should come clean fast. I still like the Evapo Rust better then anything out there....that is just me though. Keep up the good work.

 

Getting closer and hope to start it up this weekend.
I have been vinegar de rustifying the tank for the past week and looks good enough to drain and dry out.
Stock Jet sizes to replace the ones someone changed out came in this week and put in the air jets. Will finish putting everything together tonight, then Saturday when I have more time I will test the float levels then hopefully put it in the bike and start up using the plastic external tank.
I'm pledging to myself to keep this bike ethanol free. I have a place on the shore 2 1/2 hours from here and the bike will reside there. plenty of ethanol free gas stations over there. I have 1 gallon right now and will drive to a local shop that has ethanol free "race gas".

 

Looking good!

if you can avoid the ethanol that’s great. If you need to run it occasionally that’s ok, just don’t let it sit around with ethanol in it for any length of time.

 

IT'S ALIVE!
So, finished up the carb build last night, I tested the float valves and 1 & 3 were not filling up right, pulled the bowls and found that the drains were plugged. After all the checking and double checking the passages, I neglected that one. I did get the enrichment jet on the bowl bottom (even baptized myself with some carb cleaner to the face) . Pulled all the bowl cover off and cleaned and checked them. Heat and silicone lube to the rubber boots and I did not need any straps or anything to put the carbs in. I did curse the first time before I realized I forgot to heat up the intake boots, once I took a brake, came back and heated them up, it went in with some moderate force. Cleaned all the boots before starting. Put the Carbs onto the intake boots first w/ the air box boots removed. With the air box boots clean, warmed up and lightly lubed, took about 15 minutes or less to get them on and not bad at all. Hooked up the temp fuel tank and let it sit a few minutes. came back turned on fuel enrichment and nada. Tried a few times and nothing. Took another brake, then a quick squirt of starter spray after pulling the air filter and bam, started up and revved up waaaaay tooo high. Turned off fuel enrichment, still 6000rpms. Idle screw was waaaay too high. I got it down to 1000 rpm and it would idle for a while then shut down. At 1500 it was holding. Shut it down and measured pipe temps with thermocouple. One was waaay hotter and one was noticably cooler but not so cold it was not running. So, time to clean out the YICS tube and then sync. I had been soaking the tank in vinegar past 5 days and today I had the time to deal with that w/o stopping so I moved to that next. Came out great.
Thx everyone for the help and support so far.

 

Cleaned the YICS port, a 40 caliber bore brush fit perfectly. Cleaned with the brush first, used some Hopps #9 then some patches. Used the YICS clean out pick/tool also from XJ4ever. used the YICS tool and synced carbs. Don't know if it was just cause it was hot, but the tool was not pulling out. I used a solid rifle cleaning rod and slowly pushed it out from the opposite side after pulling the bolt out. Idles much better and was holding a 1500-1700 rpm pretty solid for 5 mins. It failed the starter spray test on #2 intake boot though. so I was dreading having to take those intake boot bolts off. Will have to do that this winter. I need to get a color tune kit and check valve clearances next. I know I'll have to sync it again but wanted to get it running the best I could right now. Going to finish putting the tank on and have him do a road test here in the neighborhood to see how well it runs before spending more $ on it.

 

Good for you, the great feeling of that motor staring up and running the first time. That makes thing all worth it when she does run. I don't do anything with the YICS system. I just treat the bike like it does not even have that on it.

 

Before proceeding any further check the valve clearance first. Any changes in the shims will effect the tune of the engine. It is a bit of a high you get when things you work on actually work. I makes you want to do the happy dance. This is why I love to fix things.

 

Yes, Planning to do valve clearance, just trying to figure out when.

 

So, pulled Valve cover and measured Camshaft/shim clearance.
Little curious here because all of them would FIT a 0.10mm and NOT FIT 0.13mm which I read is at the tight end of passing spec.
2 of them were off however
IN4 0.03mm Fits, 0.04mm Not Fit (So this is too tight)
OUT 3 0.15mm Fits, 0.18mm Not fit (This is at the high end of Spec)

I am awaiting the tool to remove and look at shims, I'll be curious to pull IN4 and OUT 3, I'm wondering if someone adjusted the shims and swapped 2 of them. Otherwise I'll be ordering 2 shims to bring them all closer to each other.
Sound like a good plan? Should I be looking for anything else while the cover is off?

 

Being prompted to look again at specs, Out1, Out2, and Out4 are all too tight.

 

You can make your own tool to remove shims. Bend a piece of house wiring to 90 degrees and run the bent end into the spark plug hole after you manually position the cam to fully open the valve. Put the wire into the open valve and rotate crank so the valve closes on the wire, propping it open and allowing the removal of the shim for inspection/measuring/replacing.

 

Or google the zip-tie method.
Also, a pair of hemostat clamps is invaluable for fiddling the shim out of its bucket.

 

Tool came in today and I pulled and recorded the shims.
Took me a short while on the first one to get the feel of how tight to make tool and how much you have to pop the shim out. Used Hemostat to pull them out firmly
Someone can check my measurements and plan please.
SO, on my measurements, I did not have every value of shim so I can only know a range it is. Example, .10 fits, .13 does not, so gap is somewhere .10-.12

Out 1: Measured .10-.12, Y265, Install Y260 to bring gap to .15-.17
In 1: Measured .10-.12, Y285, Install Y280 to bring gap to .15-.17
Out 2: Measured .10-.12, Y270, Install Y265 to bring gap to .15-.17
In 2: Measured .10-.12, Y280, Install Y275 to bring gap to .15-.17
Out 3: Measured .15-.17, Y270, Leave as is
In 3: Measured .10-.12, Y270, Install Y265 to bring gap to .15-.17
Out 4: Measured .10-.12mm, Y275, Install a Y270 to bring gap to .15-.17mm
In 4: Measured 0.03, Y285, Install Y270 to bring gap to .18mm

Have:
1 Y265
2 Y270
1 Y275
1 Y280
2 Y285

Need :
1 Y260 (Need 1)
2 Y265 (Have 1, Need 1)
2 Y270 (Have 2)
1 Y275 (Have 2)
1 Y280 (Have 1)



Even though I just need 2, I Will Purchase:
Y255(2) Y260 (2), Y265 (2) Y270 (2)
Should be about $50
This way I'll have some spares in case I need to go smaller (larger gap)

 

Start a conversation with @hogfiddles, he runs a shim pool.

 

It looks like you have the spec wrong for the intake - some of the manuals are wrong

Correct numbers are:

Inlet 0.11-0.15mm (0.004-0.006in)
Exhaust 0.16-0.20mm (0.006-0.008in)

 

So, I should leave IN 1-3 alone for now?
If that is the case I would do this:

Out 1: Measured .10-.12, Y265, Install Y260 to bring gap to .15-.17
In 1: Measured .10-.12, Y285, Leave as is
Out 2: Measured .10-.12, Y270, Install Y265 to bring gap to .15-.17
In 2: Measured .10-.12, Y280, Leave as is
Out 3: Measured .15-.17, Y270, Leave as is
In 3: Measured .10-.12, Y270, Leave as is
Out 4: Measured .10-.12mm, Y275, Install a Y270 to bring gap to .15-.17mm
In 4: Measured 0.03, Y285, Install Y275 to bring gap to .13mm

Pull:
1 Y265
1 Y270
1 Y275
2 Y285

Replace :
1 Y260 (Need 1)
1 Y265 (Have 1)
1 Y270 (Have 1)
1 Y275 (Have 2)

 

So this gets ambiguous because the general consensus is if they are in spec then they are in spec with no need to try to adjust for the middle. Since you posted numbers of .10 to .12 for the intakes then . 10 is out of spec and the .11 and .12 would be in spec. As for number 4 intake it looks like you are on track selecting the correct shim.

I suspect you have the same set of metric gauges that I have:

0.03
0.05
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.09
0.1
0.13
0.15
0.18
0.2
0.23

You can stack individual blades to get the missing .11, and .12mm, but that is not my preference as I am not comfortable with stacking because it is cumbersome and there is also an accuracy factor that occurs with tolerance stack up.

I have tried both methods and I get much more repeatability by just using the SAE feeler gauges which are readily available from .001 to .010 with incremental steps of .001. With the SAE and checking the intakes it gets so much easier just to say .004 fits, .007 does not, or with the exhaust .006 fits, .009 does not. The only drawback might be if the valves are significantly off then converting SAE to MM to get the correct shim is a bit more difficult.

The above has been discussed before and most here will suggest stacking and will ask for metric numbers if SAE numbers are posted, so the above is just my opinion. However, until you post unambiguous numbers no one can say your math is correct