BaldWonder's 1982 XJ650J Maxim Bobber

Iunno... shit happens? Anywho, thanks!

And yup, cable is free moving. I'll check into the thicknesses (I always wanted a micrometer!) but as nice as they look I almost wonder if the most recent PO rebuilt the clutch already. Is that dot pattern on the rings normal, or is that an aftermarket tell-tale sign?

 

I haven't been in the 750 clutch yet, but I will have to soon because it slips ( the opposite of your problem). I have however been in the 550 clutch, and the steels in it are smooth with no dimples. my guess would be aftermarket. still they should be checked for warpage. place them on a flat piece of glass to check them.

FU

 

The factory steels have dimpling.

 

well there ya go. is that the 650 only? or all Yamaha engines?

FU

 

Thanks Moe!

 

I haven't taken apart a 550 clutch, so can only comment on the 650 and 750.

 

So, one of those in-the-shower moments: When I took the original clutch cable off, is it possible I let the throw-out arm snap back and launch the toothed spindle thing on the spring plate off the gear, and that the throw-out gear was never catching? Does the throw-out gear have a rotation limit, or would it spin freely in that situation? Or is it not even possible?

Not that I'm going to take care of it today. I got a wedding to go to, hence the personal hygiene referenced above.

 

The two mesh completely when the clutch cover is put on. The only way for them to come apart is to remove the cover.

 

Dang. So much for that theory. I'm starting to worry there's something amiss on the transmission side. It just doesn't make sense that it would work before the cable replacement and not directly after.

 

When you pulled the clutch plates could you turn the inner drive independently of the clutch basket?

With everything buttoned up will the clutch disengage if you put an adjustable wrench on the throwout arm an turn it?

For the sake of thoroughness: how are you determining that the clutch will not disengage? I think we covered that already, but it's been a while.

 

Yes, no, and when I had it running in neutral, I attempted to disengage the clutch via the hand lever so I could put it in first. Pulling the lever was difficult and did not feel like it was doing anything, and kicking it into first at that point resulted in a violent jump and a stall of the engine. With the engine off, rolling the bike in neutral is expectedly far easier than when putting it in first and rolling it, which mind you is still possible, leading me to believe the gears and engine and final drive are all connected properly. Leaving just the clutch.

 

Humor me for a bit. Hook the cable up and adjust it. Get on the bike and pretend that you stalled in traffic; attempt to start the bike in first gear, clutch disengaged, kickstand up, hand holding the front brake. See what happens. My thought is that you simply had plates that were stuck from lack of use.

 

If I didn't already have it cracked open, oil drained, and gasket torn apart, I would. I'm disinclined to think it was stuck plates, as they came apart in my hands rather easily. Nothing about the disassembly seemed stuck, in fact. Anyway, off to a wedding I go. Seeya!

 

the dots are lined up ?

 

Maybe this will help some of the Wizards get you going:

Were the dots on the pressure plate and hub aligned when you took it apart?

9-22-14 you wrote in BigFitz clutch rebuild thread:
"So what if you can't get the clutch to engage at all? I haven't opened it up yet, but last time I ran the bike, I noticed a little bit of creep with the clutch engaged. Now when I try to go into first, it jumps forward and stalls as if I didn't have the clutch engaged at all. Did I manage to fuse the friction plate or something?"

Not sure if you ever got this sorted, but this was before the cable change so I was wondering if this was a bit of a precursor to the failure and might add a clue.

3-17-15 you wrote in your this thread http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/index...s-little-resistance-xj550k.25394/#post-439816:
"Thanks Gary. I definitely noticed the mark on the clutch case, but I didn't notice a mark on the lever to line it up with. I may just be blind. I'll try again tomorrow, but I'm thinking it's going to be time to crack it open and see what's going on inside. Wish me luck."

This is where with the new cable you could not even pull the clutch in. Not sure if you ever found the alignment mark, so here is a pic of a 750.

 

dots on the basket and pressure plate

 

How hard was it to wire up that tach/speedo? I have an 82 xj750 with the hideous huge squared guage cluster im trying to get rid of. I just dont know what works. Yours looks good

 

well I have two other 550 engines and a 650 and a spare 750 engine. I may just have to open them up one of these days to see what they have. even still there's no guarantee that they are oem.

FU

 

I honestly did not pay attention to it when I took it apart.
:::extends hand out, ready to be hit with a ruler:::
At best we have the pictures on page 5 to judge by. I'll check it out more tonight.

Actually, the change was immediately after the cable swap. The creep could be a clue, but I'm also thinking it may have been the result of the fraying cable letting up some slack. It was bad - there were only three strands holding it together.

Long story short: I started the swap then, ran into trouble and was pretty sure solving it would take up a lot of time and money, and I had just quit my job to go back to school, and then it got cold and I didn't want to open the bike up knowing it would stay open for a long cold winter. My garage is not heated, and polar vortices are a bitch. I'm still in school now, but I'm also working at a decent internship. Now that it's warmer, I'm getting back into figuring this out.

No, I didn't - THANK YOU! I never would have thought to look under the clip!

In retrospect, it wasn't that bad at all. At the time though, I spent a LOT of time staring at wiring diagrams for the original set up and comparing it to the wiring for the speedo. I kept trying to connect just one light by itself to verify the unit worked at all, thinking I only needed power to that one light and a ground. The "aha" moment was when I realized that the new unit needed overall power fed to it as well as the individual light and ground wire. After that it was just a matter of labeling wires, yanking the supplied wires out and snapping the factory wires in to the plastic couplers/harness/clips instead.

 

Having now re-re-re-read over BigFitz's Clutches 101 - Part 1, I'm left wondering if 650s are suppose to have clutch boss springs. I found nothing like that in mine.