New owner of 81 xj550 seca

Bought this bike about a month ago and have been pretty happy with it. Not quite as responsive as my Suzuki GS500, but it looks a helluva lot cooler. Some pics here:
http://www.perfecthorsesass.com/album/yamaha/index.html

My first concern about this bike are the brakes. I am thinking about getting some steel braided lines and new pads, but I am wondering if there are any readily available caliper/rotor upgrades. Would the braking system from a modern bike adapt to the front forks?

The bike has been riding fine up until yesterday. When I fired it up to ride home from work, I noticed the voltmeter only showing about 8V. Also, the turn signals would not work. Whenever I would flip the switch, I noticed the voltmeter would indicate way less than 8V. It was still daylight so I couldn't tell if the headlight was dim, but it was on. I haven't done any testing with the multimeter yet, but I was going to test the battery, rectifier, alternator tonight. Anything else I should check?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

Welcome!

I can't help you with your Q, but I've thought about the same thing on the front brakes. I'm sure if you had the money you could fab some kind of caliper adapter and use a modern 4/6 piston caliper. I don't know what you would do for a rotor.

I saw your bike for sale on craigslist a month or two ago. I was a little late on that add. :lol:

Your bike is the cleanest Seca I've seen yet. That thing is awesome! Did you get the fairing, also?

 

Thanks, I was kind of amazed when I saw the bike in person. There was no fairing, but I think it looks better without it.

 

8v is not good.... the alternator is not charging the battery. first thing to check is the brushes. Search the forums for alternator brushes and get that resolved.

The brakes... more than likely (on a bike this age) the front brake caliper needs to be rebuilt. Not a big deal but the brake fluid (and the old lines for that matter) should be drained & replaced. You may need to rebuild the master cylinder as well, but I would do the brake caliper first then see how much improvement you end up with.

Nice looking bike BTW.

 

Very nice looking bike. You need the fairing though. That's what sets the 550 Seca's apart from the other XJ's. Once you get the brakes cleaned up and the charging system straightended out, you'll find very little needs to be done to keep these bikes purring.
How many miles on yours?

 

Thanks. I read a little bit about these bikes before I bought it and liked what I read about reliability. This one has about 12K miles on it.

 

It was reading between 12V and 14V up until yesterday. The ride into work is only 6 miles, but I got stuck in traffic so it ended up taking 40-45 minutes. It was pretty hot by the time I shut it down. Do you think the heat could have been the straw that broke something in the charging system's back?

My Clymer's manual has a section discussing how to test the alternator's coils through the alternator connector under the seat and goes onto the brushes if it fails those initial tests. I'll be checking that out tonight.

Thanks for the compliment on the bike and the suggestions.