What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Resynched my carbs using my Morgan tune ,ran good and took it out ran the dog snot out of it. Pulled in garage and fuel was pouring out number 2 carb float bowl drain screw had backed out, lucky it did not ignite . All is well now.

 

Was able to get it spark on all 4 plugs. Now moving on to the carbs... Any tips on cleaning without rebuilding?

 

Yes. Don't. Unless you rebuilt them once yourself already, avoid the aggregation and do it while they're out. Seems like everyone that tries to just clean them has to has to rebuild them anyways.

 

Went for a ride and took a sunset pic.

 

I am rebuilding my carburettors and l think it is better to do this than risk running problems later. Do the work thoroughly and you should be rewarded with a reliable bike.

 

Home made clutch basket holding tool. Easy to make and does the job.

 

You’ll see a bunch of posts on here about people having to do their carbs multiple times to get it right. I’ve been that guy too. The more you fix right the first time they’re apart, the less you’ll have to worry about as you go along. And o rings and carb cleaner are not friends.
Good luck moving forward!!

 

Rode it around illegally, cause sometimes that’s what you need to do, when your title is in limbo but you have a tag that might not prompt too many questions. New to me 82 650 runs great other than wanting to die at idle and a little hesitation when powering up for a hill. Time to tackle the carbs I reckon. Even with the hesitation it’s nice to have something to ride and I don’t know that I’m dedicated enough to get them clean and back on the bike in a day. Maybe I’ll check the valves first....

 

Yes valves first.

 

Couple of days ago replaced the speedometer back cover, the reset knob and clutch safety switch (courtesy of Mr. Fiddles).


Yesterday installed a windshield. Smoked is still hardly visible.

 

Did the oil yesterday, tackled the carbs today. I knew something was wrong when I first got the bike and the idle mixture screws were 4 turns out and it was still running lean. Checked out the carb float levels to find that the closest one was 6mm (spec is 3mm) and the other 3 were around 9mm. So a around 3 times spec which was nice. So being a stubborn person with back issues I decided I was going to do these float levels inside my kitchen, suspending the carbs with bungee cables from the handle of a kitchen cabinet. First I adjusted the floats dry and then went ahead with checking the new float levels. It worked surprisingly well until I tried to get gas into the carbs and spilled said gas. So I'm frantically cleaning my counter and hoping my landlord doesn't decide to drop by today and see what I'm doing in my first week living there. Defeated I head outside to sit on a cinder block (Ouch) and get to work. I put em on top of an oil drain bucket/pan/thing and used a small piece of wood to make sure it was level. High tech, I know. Turns out I got 3 and 4 damn near perfect and had to adjust 1 and 2 just a little bit to get them all in spec. Set the idle air mixture at 2.5 turns and put it all back together. Started it up with the choke and it sounded really good to my ears.

Unfortunately as soon as I took it off the choke it went to idle and then slowly died. RPM's just slowly decreased until it died. I could keep it alive by giving it a little bit of gas but if I was hands off it would eventually die. So I kept it alive a little bit to see how it sounded at higher RPM's. It would bog and almost die if I gave it a hard fast blip and wouldn't be able to recover unless I let off. If I slowly increased RPM to about 2k - 2.5k and then gave it a nice rev it sounded great.

I'm thinking its the idle air mixture, need to lean it out a tad and do some tweaking. Anything I should try? Valves have been done recently, bike was idling fine before I actually set the float levels.

 

turned from this:

into this:


All the really good silver will go onto another 650rj, and I’ll have one nice one of each

 

Received new brake parts and seat cover from Len (Chacal) at XJ4Ever. Great stuff, as usual. Started rebuilding brakes until it got to be about 100 degrees in my garage. Also received "new" fuel tank from Germany, and almost had a heart attack. This is what the shipping box looked like upon arrival:

No bubble wrap - just paper. Also, there were cockroaches in there (glad I didn't open the box inside the house). Miraculously, the tank was undamaged. Had to drill the filler-cap lock out because there was no key. Had no idea what the tank was going to look like inside, but I was pleasantly surprised:

 

9 out of 10 time I’m able to pick the lock.

 

Didn't even try that. At least now it will open with my old key. Or a screwdriver. Or...

 

I always try that first, now that I know how

 

Pulled the bike out for the first ride of the season to go get new tires after taking care of all the maintenance a few weeks ago. There is a little alcove in the garage that is just wide enough to tuck the bike into, but I can’t be on the bike to get it in or out of there. As I was setting it down on the stand, the throttle broke, the bike rolled forward slightly as the bars rotated from only having the clutch side grip attached to the bars (standing on the trottle side of the bike), and guided the bike down in slow motion as I tried to save it one handed. I was not successful in keeping the bike upright.

I bent the clutch lever, but at least I kept it from scratching or denting anything.

What did I do to my XJ today?
Broke it and made it not ridable.

I did use a tig welder tip cleaning tool to clean out the two weep holes in the front brake master cylinder, so the brakes no longer drag.

Wish I did that before moving the bike like I considered as that would have reduced the rolling resistance and maybe prevented me from breaking the plastic insert for the throttle grip. I might be riding right now insted of messing around on the forums looking for parts

 

What broke.... throttle tube? Throttle cable?
Let us know what you need— someone is bound to have it

 

The throttle tube I believe (having internet access issues at the moment, difficulty looking things up).

The plastic part that goes over the bar that the grip slides onto. It is what rotates with the grip to pull the cable. It sheared off at the controls side of the grip. I’d try to post a picture, but it will probably take an hour or three to upload at this rate.

 

Apparently I’ve only got reception in the garage and on the toilet. (still in the garage)

 

We have brand new ones in stock, you can send us an e-mail for all of the pricing/ordering info at info@xj4ever.com

 

Thanks. I’ll shoot you an email. I was scanning your parts list, but must have missed it.

 

Cylinders back on engine. Took my time didn't want anything damaged. Easy to guide rings into the bores by hand as there is a good bevel on the bottom of the liners. Final engine assembly in the next few days.

 

Back from paint. Going to order new badges from Chacal to finish the look.

'81 XJ650

 

What kind of coating is on the headers?

 

VHT Flameproof black

 

I have the Midnight Maxim version of that year bike and like the look of that with all the other black. Thanks. Guessing it was fairly easy to apply.

 

The only pain was cleaning up the header pipes. The VHT was the spray bomb from Advance Auto Parts. I did use VHT primer as well. Share pics!

 

Stripped the "new" tank.
Before:

After:

 

Replaced the reed switch in my speedometer. Turn signal auto-cancel works again!

 

Scratch that it only works on one side, sometimes at this point

 

Opposible thumbs come in handy once again.

 

Reinstalled the intake manifold. Had removed it to repair a crack at one of the injector sockets. Should finish reassembly tomorrow.

 

Only working on one side should be the switch, or the lamps/sockets/wiring, not anything in the flasher or cancel circuit.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Going to go through the bulbs and make everything match and see what I can figure out.

 

Installed my clutch today, just a few more things to do and engine is complete. Got the idea for the homemade clutch basket tool from Mezzmo's videos.

 

Looks like you're making good progress. Mezzmo's videos are great. Lots to learn there. Just wish I had his talent (and his tool collection).
Re-covered the seat today.

Thanks again to Len @ xj4ever.com for supplying quality replacement parts that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to find.

 

Got some parts from Len on the bike earlier in the week (throttle tube, clutch lever, and clutch safety switch). Throttle tube was a little tight, but got it sanded down a bit yesterday and now it is working perfectly. Felt good to get it back out on the road.

Came to the realization that the battery was not new when I bought the bike last year. Thankfully I cleaned up the weep hole in the brake master cylinder, push starting is a lot easier (and more importantly, I’m not dragging the front brake or risking it locking up on me).

 

Began tearing stuff down in preparation for the lumpectomy, but got totally sidetracked by the exhaust. Thought I'd clean up a spot or two just to see what I could expect, and couldn't stop because the results were so satisfying. Wound up spending way too much time on it. Best news was that the collector box was in surprisingly good shape. No fun trying to find one of those nowadays.

 

Finally got my bike safetied. It’s officially on the road!
And on the way there a strap let go and it fell over in the trailer. Huge ding in the tank now, so I guess I’ll be fixing and painting sooner rather than later.

 

Workin on my 1983 Seca XJ900
Carb kits arrived today... started rebuilding them... soaked and cleaned them today, start reassembling the carbs sunday while the brisket is in the smoker.

XJNineHundred

 

Synced the throttle bodies on my FJR 1300 and tried to make a jump plug to install the Smart Turn System (failed). It pains me that my 38-year old XJ has self-cancelling signals while my 2013 FJR does not.

 

Received more parts to add to the stack of things to do to the "82 650. Thanks to Chacal @ XJ4EVER.com Petcock rebuild kit and steering bearing upgrade kit.

 

Went for a 70 mile ride ...going to swap out engine soon the starter clutch slipping is getting old , just hope spare engine is good. I'm going to drop oil pan to check out sump ,of course I have so many things going on not sure when I will do the deed.

 

How many miles has your XJ done? My machine has 36,000 miles but I don't know if it is genuine.
Just rebuilt my engine. Starter clutch rollers were perfect but I had new ones so I renewed them and the springs anyway and the starter chain guide (the main reason for splitting the cases) before it broke up and locked the selector drum. Fitted a new cam chain too. The problems I had were the three studs at the front of the engine seized. It took a bit of time to get the head off the cylinders and the cylinders off the crankcase. Machine shop had to fit new studs to the head and I managed to save the thread on the cylinder. Too many Scottish winters with road salt sprayed over the front of the engine causing corrosion of those three studs. Hope you don't have that problem. The cases seperated easily. There was not much sealant on them and I think that is the first time the cases have been split since leaving the factory.

 

Rebuilt the clutch today

 

I bought a spare complete engine almost 2years ago, finally cleaning off the grease and dirt . Drained oil and pulled oil pan, a little sludge was only thing in sump, no chunks or crud , engine was really clean inside, engine had 38,000 . I did a compression check when I got engine
130 psi across all 4, cylinders. I'm going to gamble this engine is good.

 

More progress with engine today.





Cams to fit next.

 

Finished adjusting valves on spare engine, I wiped out local yamaha dealer on his shim box , for a few sizes. So glad I checked valves they were tight , I don't think they had ever been adjusted. So decided to paint engine VHT gloss black ,left top of the head natural , turned out good . This weekend I think I'm going swap out engine ,just hope starter clutch is good , cranks over good ....of course my bike turns over good till it gets hot.

 

My XJ sat there, in the parking spot, by itself. I have no sitter so I can go ride