1982 XJ550 Maxim rebuild

Yes, vice grips and a piece of heavy pipe used to rotate the piston after torching it several times to free it up enough for it to slide at all. I seriously doubt a grease gun would have popped that one out. I had to crank on the vice too and ended up making marks in the caliper that I had to file down.

 

I doubted that method as well until I tired it. Pretty amazing how well it works.

I'm enjoying your build, brings back memories when I started with a simple Powercoat/Paint rebuild and spiraled into rebuilding, painting, and polishing almost everything on the bike over 18 months. This motivated me to grab that new frame in the garage and drop it off for powder yesterday so I can get my project going.

 

More progress. Have a bunch of small parts that need ordering to finish up the motor and starter. Carbs are still in pieces. Saw a set on ebay, may grab them for parts. Picking up head bearings next so the triple tree can go back together and on the frame.

 

that's going to rust really fast with no chrome on the end. think maybe it's time to cut loose

 

huh?

 

Pack reinstalled with new springs. The pressure plate is free though. Is this normal or are the friction plates too thin? I measured them in spec, so dunno what is wrong. Ideas?

 

Pull it back apart and inspect. One of the plates is hung up. The stack should not have that gap, and should not protrude past the basket fingers.
Make sure that the dots on the basket and pressure plate line up.

 

the spring washer makes that gap. I think the dots are off. will check it.

 

It was the plate alignment. thanks.

 

Well I guess the shop crane incident was not without casualties. Now I know where the pool of assembly lube came from.

 

On the plus side, oil pans are cheap.

 

10 bux shipped but it is fuuugly. gonna need a soak and wire wheel treatment

 

I could not find a diagram or video of a 550 starter rebuild but managed to get it all back in. The cap bearing and seal are not even shown on the OE exploded view. Well it has new bearing and grease seal, case seals and o-ring. The brushes are fine so gonna keep the new quad-brush ring as a spare. Runs well! The brake cleaner I used to clean the magnets made it outside and destroyed my paint job. F-it.. It will stay that way.

 

Starter re-installed. Checked compression and have about 110-115 on all but #3 which barely made 25psi. Guess I got lucky on 3 of 4 with the head, valve and shim rebuild. Will see how out of spec #3 lobe shim is off soon. Got used carb set in and managed to salvage one body so far. I gambled and it almost did not pay off. I have some decent float bowls, floats and slides but the rest is crap. One of the carbs was actually broken at the diaphragm flange and held on with a tie wrap. I think I can salvage two more if I destroy the buttery fly shafts. The shaft seals are beyond crunchy so they gotta be replaced.

 

I said #2 at the end but meant #3, just to avoid any confusion. Lots of view of the engine fins while I fight with the compression tester but the pressures are shown.

 

Well the shim changes on #3 did not correct the issue. They were way out of spec. The compression went up to 60psi but leaked down. Looks like a ring issue or possibly a valve seat so it's gotta come back apart. Mixing heads, buckets, cams and shims is much fun. Good thing the 550 and 650 share the same shims and buckets. I have a pile of spare shims, but unfortunately they're all sizes I don't need.

 

The only thing I notice on #3 is that the bottom combustion ring may have been put on chamfer down. #4 had stuck rings and there are 2 vertical polish marks already. Jugs coming back off for honing again. Once again the idea of parting it all out seems tempting..

 

Been there. Not your exact situation but feeling exactly the way you do right now. Just keep at it. Take a day(or week, haha) off from it and then re-assess. You'll get there.