What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Swapped out the instrument cluster and installed white faced gauges from a GS500.

Went from

To this

 

Ooh! I like the white faces! Really clear! How does it look in the dark?

 

Past few days; Built out half the engine to create clearance to remove carbs. Had to replace automatic camchain tensioner (broke the old thinking it was manually adjustable). Good time to clean the carbs on the outside (standing outside all year under motor tarp humidity builds up; mold everywhere. I store my leather seat in the house). Then cleaned the electronics and battery housing. Cleaned the engine, reinstalled it, put the exhaust back and...left exhaust broke of at te collector. Changed the sparkplugs, checked the valve clearance (still completely up to spec after two years). Took the wheels of and brought them to the shop for new tires. Turned out the front wheel also needed a new air nozzle and new bearings. Cleaned up the rear brake drum.

Left to do: reinstall wheels, change oil filter and oil. Add a little fork oil. Changed that out when i replaced the forkseals last year, but feels way to soft even with thicker oil.
When bolting the axle back to the engine I noticed there's no grease in the universal joint. Is that normal? There are no traces of grease anywhere.

 

Rebuilt brake caliper, installed new pads, rebuilt master cylinder, replaced brake lines, replaced front wheel bearings and seals and put new speedometer head on son's 550 maxim.

 

Started tearing it down. Seat, tank, battery box, luggage rack, air filter, r/r mounting plate and “fuse box” all taken off. Now I’m just trying to figure out how to get the air box out of the way without removing the engine so I can pull the starter and figure out why it’s not engaging the engine.

 

I haven't taken it out during the evening yet but did ride through the Battery Street tunnel. It lights up real nice with the bright white LED bulbs. It's a huge change for me with my "over the hill" far sightedness.

 

I did this----

To make my XJ's jealous

 

Rebuilt MC this morning. Last item needed for safety. MC and Calipers rebuilt, SS brake lines, new shoes, pads and tires. Probably should have just done it all at once but I was afraid I would screw something up and not be able to ride the bike. Next project is to check valve clearances. She runs really good but I'll get to it soon.

 

How did you go from 20,149 mi and 6.7 mi on the trip mileage to still only 20,149 mi with 555.5 miles on the trip mileage? You're missing about 549 mi..... broken gears inside?

 

Took my 86 XJ700 for its first ride since I started the work. Love it so far. Lots of work done and all has gone pretty good. Learned a ton.

 

Undo the box to frame bolts and hold it rearward slightly with a ratchet strap or similar. Then take the inlet boots and squeeze them into the airbox. That gives enough room to remove the carb rack. As far as the starter goes, my recollection is that the two bolts on the starter are all that's required to remove. No need to remove airbox.

 

I fixed the broken trip meter knob while I had the gauges apart and I guess I spun it but didn't zero it. It spins backwards to zero out.

 

Finally replaced my fusebox...

72 degrees tomorrow

Gonna ride to work

 

Pondering and thinking. Added luggage rack and engine guards today. May tackle the MM fork swap tomorrow if I feel froggy enough

 

MM fork asap?

 

Yup. I picked up a MM as a parts donor and hope to use the front end for the seca
This is all beginning work. I’ll finish it up and ride it for the season and at that point make a judgment call on whether I want to take it down to the frame

 

Ooooh midnight maxim! Gotcha.

 

OK... might be 72 today but the morning commute was 50 and dense fog, that was interesting. Also, wet gloves...can't.... feel.... fingers.....

 

Today I got insurance, got an inspection and got the license plate. Waiting now for warm weather! Ready to ride

 

2/24/18 = New valve cover gasket & valve cover donuts courtesy of @chacal. Shims measured, calculated and order placed with @chacal to get everything back in spec.
2/25/18 = Enjoy a ride with my refreshed XJ and AT-950 helmet.

 

Still playing with whatvis now affectionately called my midnight seca

New steering stem upgrade to rollers tapered bearings from chacal.
New pro taper mid trials bars and pro taper grips and fork gaiters
Midnight maxim front end installed. Nothing has been fully tightened in front end yet so it can be trued up
I need to make a spacer yet for the brake splitter as I stayed with the seca triple tree which was recommended so I don’t have any cutting to do ( may regret it if I would)
Using maxim controls minus the m/c which is on now mostly to appease me. (Lol). It’s from a 550rj which I’m positive will not be good enough for the dual brake system. If I a wrong please let me know and if I am right please suggest an alternative that’ll still mount with correct orientation on the bars

I’m just happy she is one step closer to an adventure

 

Yes, too small of a bore/volume. You need a 16mm bore m/c as used on dual-disc bikes. We have that style in stock.

 

Tried to start her up, to no avail. Some chuffing, and a stumbling run for 6 seconds or so, but no luck. Got the battery on a charger, try again later.

Some awesome backfires afterwards, though, so it's definitely moving fuel around.

Not too surprised, as it's been freaking freezing cold for two months now.

 

I’ll aend you a pm

 

I went to see about a Motad 4:1 exhaust and they've closed their doors! Guess I'll look around more!

 

I've been eyeballing this myself: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/372099496205

 

With temperatures reaching almost 50 today and calling for almost 60 tomorrow, threw the batteries in both bikes and went for a little spin around town. Plenty left to do on them both but couldn't resist the chance to get some throttle therapy

 

I rode to work today. I’ll take the hour at below 40 going home on the interstate. Feels good just to be on the bikes

 

Rode to work today as well. Only a mile and a half or so at 37° and no highway speeds so no big deal. Looking forward to this afternoons temperatures and if I'm lucky I'll get a chance to put my new brake lines on at work before I go home

 

Gave it it's first bath. Going to find some plastic and leather conditioner and get all that done this weekend. First projects are likely going to be to put fresh gas in it, change fuel filter, change the oil, and check the plugs. Once I know the engine is healthy I'll start on the front brakes(lines, calipers, pads, master cylinder).

 

I’ve had the red XJ650 maxim for about a year now and just yesterday for the first time I checked the plugs with colortune. The prev owner must have had the carbs too lean because it took a little too long to warm up. Turns out they were a bit lean. A slightly richer setting seems to have fixed the situation. Colortune is awesome

 

Temp hit 64...pulled bike out of corner of garage fired it up took off around block bike ran poorly pull plugs on 3 and 4 did not look good. Off to AutoZone dude tells me he would have to special order NGK Plugs so off to Advance auto they had 5 in stock sold . Put the new plugs in she pulls like she should ...of course Chicago weather Thursday 1 to 3 inches of snow. And weekend 40s so a few more weeks. If it would warm up my next chore is replacing the head bearings with Chacals tapered bearings. It felt so good only riding around my neighbor hood a few times realized just how much I missed riding..but have to dodge the craters in the road and lots of sand have to be carefull

 

2/27/18 - diagnosed a non-functioning tachometer gauge, solutions implemented, and fingers crossed.

 

your going to leave us hanging as to what solution was??

 

Hey, I managed to catch some attention! Thank your for asking @XJ550H

A little back-story: PO claimed he was riding in the rain when all of a sudden the tachometer ceased to function. My assumption was electronic failure of sorts and simply neglected to check the cable. Today, that changed after quickly removing the cable and validating it was in fact broken just after the angled steel portion at the engine, and at minimum part of the global issue of tach not functioning.

Solution to resolving tachometer gauge functionality issue:
1. Remove broken tach cable via unscrewing the cable itself from both gauge and engine.
2. Insert broken tach spring cable into drill
3. Insert into tachometer
4. ignition to on position
5. Spin that bad boy up.

At first I was defeated to see that the above didn't work..then it hit me - maybe I was spinning it the wrong direction? Flipped the direction and viola! That bad boy shot up to about 6.5k rpm on the tachometer (1:5, right? It's an older 18v DeWalt - everyone knows it doesn't spin 6.5k; or maybe it does, reduction gear not part of the process.). Probably the most excitement all day 1. knowing it wasn't the gauge itself 2. not having to tear into that thing - I'd rather be putting around on the backroads.

 

Was 60 to in Cincinnati went for ride. Clutch cable snapped lol. Friends are great! Picked up a new one and hit the road. Pulled plugs after riding. Adjusted air fuel screws half turn on 2 and 3. Road some more things ran well!

 

Whoa that’s a big turn !

 

After a couple days of no start, headed to a local parts shop and grabbed a set of new spark plugs. Drained the old "been there all winter" fuel, replaced with nice new stuff. Gapped the plugs, swapped them in.

Started immediately - not to shabby for a -8C try. Happy times, hopefully I can get riding again soon; still a hell of a lot of ice around though.



However, I've determined the previous owner is either a moron or an ass - depends if this is deliberate or just dumb.

When I drained the tank, I figured I'd drain the carb bowls too - I've never done that on this bike, so it'd be nice to get any random crap out of the bottoms of the bowls too. Started on the right side, carb 4 - drained nicely, no problem. Reach for #3, and there's no drain screw. wtf? Go to the other side, #1... No drain screw... Wait. Ah. Ok, there's the #3 drain screw, it's on the wrong side?

Of course. PO took the time to number the carb bowls with a paint pen... and they're numbered: 3, 2, 1, 4. He swapped 3 and 1, so the screws are on the wrong side of the bowls. 2 is stripped. So I could drain a grand total of one bowl, #4. I mean, really. You actually number the bowls, why would you put them on in the wrong order?!?

I really do need to take the carbs to church, but I don't have the zillions of Canadian Pesos the rebuild kits cost yet, and it's still running well (leak on the #4 bowl gasket notwithstanding).

 

2/28/18 - Finally took ten minutes to swap on my XJ4Ever rear shock absorber crown nuts from @chacal ! Even tried to shine up some of the chrome just to match the nuts.

 

It always a good day when you get your new parts from xj4ever

 

∆∆This∆∆ should be on the next round of xj t-shirts.

 

I mean, if he'd just put them on in the wrong order, I'd have just shrugged and moved on... But they were numbered! With inch high white numbers! *Twitches*

 

Yesterday I was refunded for the Gunson Colortune I ordered off eBay because it was 8 weeks late.

Today my Gunson Colortune arrived in the mail!

Although I am faced with a moral dilemma I am excited to start tuning.

Does anybody have any pictures or videos on how to use it?

Nevermind. I used this thing called Google to find a number of videos on YouTube.

 

Installed the last round of XJ4Ever shims to get this 550 back in spec. Lubed + installed new clutch and tachometer cables.

 

I'm at work, but there's a (color) pdf instruction sheet that explains the three main tests to run, colors you should see, etc. I highly recommend googling a bit further and downloading that (I assume it didn't come printed with the Colortune) as the instructions are quite useful. PM me if you don't find them, and I'll hook you up after work.

 

I haven’t seen this yet on YouTube but I find it much easier to attach the little colortune plug to the long stiff wire that is enclosed to get the colortune plug started in getting it screwed it. The plug is so short, it’s hard to get it screwed in when doing plugs 2 & 3. Just put the plastic black top piece then screw on the stiff wire connector. After you get it started in the hole using the wire to screw it in a bit , it’s easy to remove just the wire.

 

color tune stuff
http://gunson.co.uk/items/pdf/Products/G4074_Chart.pdf

http://www.etoolcart.com/manual/G4074_Inst_Colortune_English.pdf

 

Today was in upper 40's and was sunny ...so cleaned up the garage and installed my spare starter on bike . Pulled out my spare set of carbs. The drain screws on all 4 float bowls were welded in and 2 were roached at some point screws were drilled on poorly. I managed to get one of the screws out so 2 of the bowls are toast . Well anyway not alot of accomplished but spring is coming I hope.

 

never thought of putting a spare starter on a bike ,one goes bad you have the other to take over.

 

I always like to have spare parts...lol