30% of the way there...

Has this entire thread just been an exercise in satire that went over my head??

 

One last attempt... wish me luck.

 

Nope. That didn't change shit. f*** hydraulic brakes.

Manual are, and have always been, more reliable.

...now begins the search for a manual drum that'll fit the front...

 

All these highly mysterious issues..

 

Ok ok, you got me. Well played. This is where Alan Funt pulls off his wig and points at the camera.

 

In the past two weeks, I've received 7 offers to buy the bike from me. At this point, I'm probably going to take one of those offers.

 

“Well if you’re going to crush it with a loader, I’ll take it off your hands” …

Are statements like this counted as offers to buy your bike?

 

It's probably in the space between your ears, 'cos there's plainly nothing else there....

 

Sounds like you need to walk away from the bike, let off some anger, and then come back to it. Just a suggestion, but all that hard work you have put into it and just little things are holding you back. These bikes have some age on them, they can be made to look really nice, but remember all them little components, wire and gauges are OEM and have age on them. It will take a little time to get all the bugs worked out of it.

This sounds outside the box, but here it goes. Taking one caliper off the front of the bike along with one brake line. Hooking them up to the MC on a table to get a good level that you can for sure make air move out of the lines. I normally keep a good know MC hand from a metric bike. I have crossed used MC from Yam, Honda and all other metric bikes when I have had a bleeding issue. Always starting for a known good works in troubleshooting. If the MC is moving the puck out from the farthest in position that you have pushed it in, you should be good.

On the other side of this, if you are into Second Amendment items, you can always blow off the steam by target practice. Not at the bike, but that to is up to you.

 

If I can get a chance during the day today, I'll be posting it on Craigslist.

I bought a project bike to fix, then ride and relax. Not perpetually wrench on it and chase annoying gremlins. If I wanted to do that, I would have bought another Harley. This is my 10th motorcycle, my 5th Yamaha. The only time I've had issues with a motorcycle, were the Harleys, and now this one. It's a dud.

Sometimes, some projects aren't worth any more of your time, money and effort.

It can be someone else's headache.

I'll keep my eye out for a decent Virago, in my experience, arguably the best cruiser ever built.

 

You say the above, yet when you first posted about this bike:-

 

And?

 

I understand and have been there before. Cutting one's loss for time and effort is hard to do, but sometimes you have to do it. When you get the next bike, if it is a Virago, go with the bigger ones, the 1000 or the 1100. I stay away from the smaller ones for the head gaskets and the wonderful starter gear issues. I agree with your other statement about riding and wrenching. I have lots of friends that ride HD's. They state that if they are not riding, they are or have to wrench on the bikes. That is why I stay with a metric, I ride and change oil and tires when needed. Our metric bikes are more day to day sustainable imho.

Best of luck with the sale of the bike and finding the new project bike.

 

I've owned 750 & 1100 Viragos, they were hands down the best bikes I've ever owned and riden. Oil and tire changes were the only maintenance I ever had to do to them, and that was even after putting more than 100K miles on each of them.

Yamahas have always been reliable.

That's why I figured it'd be a safe bet with the XJ650. Apparently I was wrong.

 

You were wrong how? Your XJ hasn't been relliable?
All your issues have been down to you my friend, not the concoction of steel, aluminium and rubber that make up a motorbike.....

 

I finally have to say it. Go f*** yourself. Not one bit of your advice has helped a single bit, and all you do is throw digs at me. That's not what this forum was meant for. Use a 6x6, dry when you go f*** yourself.

 

...anyway, who is willing to offer what for it? (You have to come to Michigan to pick it up)

 

Well I told you your bike wasn't getting fuel, and you ignored it and went to tear down the whole thing...
Now you can't bleed a single calliper and instead of working out why you post childish pictures of hand signals at a piece of machinery, behaviour I would be dissapointed with from my 9 yr old grandson.
If it wasn't so tragic it would be funny.
Just saw your latest post, who you going to blame now? Instead I would suggest getting your multimeter out and doing some voltage tests, the kill switch and safety relays might be a good place to start.

 

What part of "Go f*** yourself" are you having difficulty understanding?

 

A bunch of family members are pissed off at me now.

This is why I stopped talking to them 15 years ago.

They needed money for a down payment on their first house? Here's $35K. Here's $20K.

And the word "loan" never came out of my mouth. I GAVE it to them. And never asked for a penny of it back.

Their car was broken down, and they had to get to work, "What time do you want me there?"

It's 1 A.M. and you're stranded halfway across the country, "I'm getting in the car now, I'm on my way."

You don't have money to buy your kids' Xmas gifts? "I'll be there Saturday to take you shopping."

You're homeless? "Move into my spare room."

The list goes on and on, then about 15 years ago, I hit a really rough spot and needed a little help, and other than one of my sisters, NONE of them could even return a call.

Recently, I knew that I was going to need help getting this bike going, and some of them can build bikes with their eyes closed, they're that good. I'm decent with bikes, but not great. I've done complete frame off restorations of classic cars by myself, but bikes are a different animal.

Now, keep in mind, these are the same people that I've fed, housed, clothed, etc... and never asked for anything in return.

So about 2 months before I knew I would need help, I started texting and calling, just making small talk, and EVERY ONE of them were like "YOU should come visit me." (I don't even know where they live), they've known my number for 20 years, and they've known my address and how to get to my house for over 40 years. And not one of them has ever stopped by for a visit or reached out to me first.

None of them have thought for even a fraction of a second why I disappeared from their lives 15 years ago.

But now that I've sent them this snap, they're all pissed off.

Good. It'll be longer than 15 years before they hear from me again.

 

The one thing that really bothers me the most is, the fundraiser motorcycle runs for Veterans is 99% of the reason I decided to buy the bike and start riding again. Taking care of my fellow veterans and honoring the memory of those who didn't make it home is important to me. Otherwise, my riding days were behind me.

But I don't know if I'm more disappointed with the bike not working, or my failure to get it working.

 

Take a much-needed brake from it. Do something else for a week. No fundraiser is worth your mental health. The amount of people that will work on these older bikes is down to just people that love them. Most of us do it just for the challenge and the accomplishment at the end. Finding someone in your area might be hard. I am close to 60 and not many younger people in my area will even look at an older bike.

 

The front brake is still only 50% and I still don't have properly working turn signals. But I found a blown fuse that was giving me a false positive when I tested it. It had continuity, but wasn't passing enough juice through.

But I FINALLY got a successful test run on a public road.

 

Never quit, nice one you on the road.

 

Good find on the fuse, the ones that open only under a load at rare, and hard to find. Great job sticking with the project and then getting some riding time in. Wonderful.

 

I took a longer ride yesterday, and she ran great. I don't know how well the front brake works though, I never had to use it. Many decades ago I was a truck driver, so anytime I'm driving a manual, I just automatically compression brake. So I barely even had to use the rear brake, and didn't even touch the front.

Tried yet another turn signal relay, and no dice on that one either. I didn't want to convert it all over to LED, but it's looking like I'm going to have to.

And I'm going to have to roll the dice and gamble on a fleabay speedo gear so I can hopefully get the speedometer working again.

 

Put a RAM mount on it and use the phone GPS for speed. I use WAZE ap all the time, love it. I would guess with use and riding that the front brake will get all the bubbles to the MC, and it will start to work better. When you pull the handle, does it stop before it reached the bar?

Do you have a "power probe" for test equipment? That would work great for isolating the relay. I am guessing you have a wire or something off. Do you have any other turn signals, 4 of them in a parts bin? If you do, that the time to lay them out on a table and make a working with relay turn system. Just a thought.

 

I used my Garmin GPS for a speedo, it seemed to work fine. I'm not a crazy rider, so really unless someone cuts me off, I rarely ever touch the brakes. I just go out for a casual cruise. The front brake has about 50% power after reverse bleeding it a few times. The manual rear drum works 100%, perfect.

The OEM relay allows the turn signals to turn on, but not blink, the other six relays I tried literally do nothing, at all. I've even de-pinned the leads from the connector and tried different configurations and still nothing from the aftermarket relays. I've tested voltage across the wires and they test good, 12+ volts. I've resigned myself to having to convert them to LED, which is something I was planning to do... one day. But I liked the idea that the bike still has the 42 year old factory bulbs, that still work. So I was hoping to keep them on for a year or two. But that's not looking likely. Converting to LED should be (in theory) a relatively fast and cheap upgrade.

 

Be faster and cheaper to fix the one you have?
Why not ask forum members in the states if someone has a good relay? Or post you oem one to someone to verify if it works? Are the lamps fitted the right wattage?

 

Something I've noticed while riding.

The bike struggles to do 50 MPH... in 2nd gear... because she wants to run even faster.

Seriously, you twist that grip, she wants to hook and cook!

 

Just re-fueled and took a short ride.

 

Ready for the dumpster now??

 

I've run Avgas in a few vehicles. Not one of them ever went faster.
Smoother, yes, but not faster.

 

Higher octane does in fact help to go faster. Not by much, but faster simply because it leaves more power in reserve.

The speed gain is usually only 2-5 mph, rather insignificant, but faster nonetheless.

I've tried yet another OEM turn signal relay, with no luck. I've checked the switch, it's good, I've checked voltage it's good, I've checked fuses they're good. I'm going to have to convert to LED.

Any suggestions for lighting for it?

 

Yesterday I took the bike for it's maiden voyage onto the interstate, and she ran fine. Especially in the higher RPM's...

However, because of my height (I'm very tall), I acted as a wind sail, and the bike seemed to want to rotate backwards. The front end wanted to keep coming off the ground. At 55 mph it wasn't too bad, up around 70...ish the front end got a little light.

Any thoughts on adding a fairing to negate some of that?

I did some more parking lot laps today.

 

Logical, right?

 

So, you’re saying you did a wheelie going 120mph in a 25 mph zone?

And you did it on that bike?

I’m going to need to see some proof on this one…

 

It was a hypothetical inquiry. lol

However, I have pulled a wheelie on it. I've also watched a video on YouTube of someone doing it too.

It's not an easy thing to do with this bike, and you'll shorten the lifespan of your clutch significantly.

 

Oh okay. I believe the wheelie.

 

New accessory.

 

I’ve never seen that style bag. Very nice.

 

Now that the riding season is almost over.

 

I added a windshield.

I'm not sure if I like it or not.

It'll depend on how much it mitigates the wind buffeting on the interstate at... "elevated" speeds.

 

Ah, I now see why you seem to be a bit of a hot-head. Semper Fi.

 

It surely came out pretty. Shows all that hard work that went into the cleaning, painting and polishing. I don't have that much patience.

 

Which windshield did you buy? Looks good.

 

I finally had a chance to take a quick rip up the freeway.

It cut the chest buffeting by about 80%, but increased the helmet buffeting by about 125%.

It was this windshield from fleabay.

 

That is somewhat the experience I had with the Spitfire windshield. Partly why I don't have one now.

 

I'm thinking that I'll leave it off for "regular" riding, then put it on for longer runs.

Does anyone else have the same experience with RPM's? The bike loves to run below 3K RPM'S and at 5,500+ RPM'S.

The trouble is, at 5,500 RPM'S in 5th gear, I'm doing 70-72 MPH. And at 6,500 RPM'S in 5th gear, it's going 90 MPH.