What did you do to your Yamaha today?

I went for a ride.......... nice sunny day!
Froze my butt off...... went home and got a coat on....
froze hands off....... got gloves on.....
Not too bad now.
Next time I'll look athe the thermometer before I ride. 48 deg F
Nice sunny days can be rather decieving.

Also got a gel seat cushion, WOW is that nice!
Used to be with my bad back I was limited to about 150 miles at a time.
Now it feels like I could ride all day easy!
I really like the difference it made.

 

Canceled the licence plate. Sniff, sniff. Fuel stabilizer has been added, oil changed and it sits in the shed till spring (usually May). Will pull the battery one of these days as well. Already have a list of things to do for next spring. Repaint the pipe and wheels. Strip clear off the forks and polish. Probably replace wheel bearings while the wheels are off. Ride, and take photos of my XJ and the world's largest duck.

 

Thank god, i broke a leaky drain plug on the right side of motor (12mm allen wrench size), went to shop/salvage and got another one, plus an oil cooler!!! Went back to shop for the bolt to hold it on ha ha ha. Installed oil cooler and a make shift bracket for it. Did some polishing, plenty left. Used some seafoam in the oil, changed and flushed oil. Now for that ticking noise sounding like its coming from the YICS cover on the right side... Hopefully nothing too bad... Day after tomorrow: put a helicoil in the valve cover screw that is stripped out, with some gasket maker over the old valve cover gasket.. Eventually: save up for valve shims and shim tool, valve cover gasket, synch kit, and that clear spark plug thingamajig.

 

You mean the mistress.....

If it's got tits or wheels... It costs you money 8)

 

Lets see, I ordered a new headlight bucket and associated hardware.
Conceived several new ideas for the new paint job.
Looked online for new turn signals to replace the old boring, and broken stock ones.
Unfortunatly I didn't get to ride as I am over 3000 miles away from it right now.
Not much else, I am looking forward to getting home and installing the new tank and all the other stuff I bought to fix it after the accident...oops, I mean incident!!

 

Bought 3 quarts of 20w50. And some rainx for the face shield.

 

Do they have another one?

 

Installed Vetter Trunk and Saddle Bags, Started it up after 4 months, and ......... IT'S ALIVE

 

Dropped it in the f'n driveway and dented the tank + smashed one of my mirrors (well... that was yesterday).

 

schmuckaholic, They might have another plug, but as for the oil cooler not for a 750/650. They have several of the cooling part of it but only had one of the plates that fix to the block. If you have an 800 or something, they have several of them in a bigger diameter, but I had a hard time finding the bolt to fix it to the frame. Stole one from one of the bigger ones still on a block and not sure if they would have another of those or if you can even order that part... I told the shop that if they get ahold of anymore that I would gladly take it off their hands, I paid 35 for the cooler and 5 when i went back for the bolt. Not a bad price, keep my eyes out for another one to come in.

As for today, put in heli coil on valve cover bolt, cleaned and put some clear rtv sealant on gasket... Still some leaks though ha ha. Get one next pay day.

 

RTV isn't the best way to stop a Cam Cover leak. Ideally, you should just smear the Gasket's mating surface and the Head's mating surface with a light coating of oil and let the gasket ... slide and "Form - fit - flat" on the top of the engine all the way around.

If the Gasket needs some help keeping a persistent leak at bay ... then, you rip a page out of the Race Prep Handbook.

Using "Permatex HighTack Spray-A-Gasket" ... shoot a quantity of the Permatex into a Tuna Can.
Using a small, artist-type paint brush ... brush some on the "Locating Channel" for the Gasket to hold the Gasket in place when you invert the Cover.
While the sealant you just brushed into the Channel is "Tacking-up" ... brush some on the INSIDE pf the Gasket and position the Gasket, with precision, all along it "Locating Channel" and ~~> LIGHTLY <~~ "Seat" the Locating Tounge into the Channel.

When the Gasket is seated. Apply a thin coat of the Permatex to the Mating Surface of the Gasket ... followed by "Painting-on" a thin coat all around the Mating Surface of the Head.

Before the two surfaces begin to set and Tack-up ... Place the Cover in Position and start all of the Retaining Screws.

Tighten the Screws from the INSIDE ~> OUT.
The Gasket will position itself and "Squish-Down" on the sealant.
Apply the tightening Torque.

Your top-end is leak-proof!

 

Thanks for the advice, should I do that with a new gasket or just to fix an old one? I actually fixed most of the leaks, just leaks in one new place and one old one, should be better off for at least another week til i get paid. Just did a temp job on it. What would you recomend for spraying off the block, for the grease and oil caked and baked on? That wont harm the paint ha ha ha.

Oh, and reset auto cam chain adjuster, quieter now....

 

Dammit. Well, it was worth asking.

What did I do today? Well, last night I had rinsed off the bike, and added another 1/2 turn to the center carb sync screw. Now, adding one turn between 3 and 4, and one turn to the center one had resulted in 3's plug browning up a bit, but nothing on the plugs for 1 and 2. Plus, the engine didn't sound quite right when not accelerating.

So, rode the thing into work today, and as soon as I got off the freeway, the engine started racing at about 4000. Blue smoke coming out of the mufflers. Okay, I did a Bad Thing. Before I left work tonight, I backed off the center sync screw one full turn. Racing idle go bye-bye. Engine still doesn't sound quite right, though.

So, it looks like I'm going to have to pull the carbs and bench sync again. How many motherfarking times am I going to have to pull these carbs? I'm getting sick of this shiznit.

 

When you get close to being dialed in ...

You don't make the adjustments in Turns, Half-turns or even quarter-turns.

The "Window" of Optimum Pilot Mixture (when the Bike is Idling good and there is NO Hesitation or Backfire coming off Idle) ... is:

About the width of a Nickel.
About the width of 2-Dimes held together.
Less than [.] <~~ That!

That's all the fine-tuning adjustment is. A couple of degrees. Period.

Within that confine is:
Lean enough for powerful acceleration and heavy engine braking ... -to-
Rich enough for smooth application of power and engine coasting.

Too lean will get you into trouble ... one way or another. You'll notice oil consumption if you are running too lean. Keep an eye on "The Window"

Too rich will bog you down out-of-the-hole. Too much gas happenin' and not enough air to burn it right. Low power in the off-idle to bottom of the power band.
Too rich sucks.
Bad for the oil, the combustion chamber and likely to foul plugs.
I hate when that happens.

Don't treat the Carbs as a 4-Pack when you are close to being dialed-in.
Threat them individually and just tweak one or two ... however many NEED to be adjusted.

Just remember ... If you have it close.
The "Sweet-Spot" is only a couple of degrees away!

 

That doesn't explain why the left two cylinders still appear to be running lean. I decided to go by your description of the plug colors; that, and before I started this, I checked the header pipes whilst warming up to make sure all cylinders were firing. They were; in fact, #4 was much warmer than the other 3. Its plug color bore this out. I added one turn between 3 and 4 to try and even things out, which it did to some degree. The one turn on the center sync screw was an effort to try and bring 1/2 in line with 3/4.

Now, if I only had that exhaust gas analyzer...

 

You two are talking about different screws.

 

I kinda suspected as much. Unless I miss my guess, he's talking about mixture screws, and I'm thinking carb sync screws.

That being said, I'm curious as to why I shouldn't "treat the carbs as a 4-pack" -- they're all the same make and model of carb. They should all function the same way with the same settings.

 

Today:

Ordered new battery for the 650. Will get distilled water later today for the old battery, but the old battery - if it still provides any voltage - will be used mainly to provide power to the 750 for checking its electrical system. It'll never *start* another bike, I don't think.

Got the fogging oil for the 750's likely-to-be-bone-dry cylinders.

Got motorcycle-sized jumper cables.

Wrote a bunch of e-mail to various XJBikes.com people looking for rear blinker stays for the 650.

Located *exactly* where they keep all the oils I need for the bikes at the power sports shop (no $$ for that just yet). Fortunately, I won't be running the bikes much before the cash gets in. I'm thinking 80W-90 for the gear oil and 10W-40 for the XJs. (I put 20W-50 in the CBR and the Ninja in general, although those are switching to 10W-40 for the cold as well.)

Updated the "to do" list. Day-umn, there's a lot to do for these poor bikes...

 

The Final Tweaking ... after reading the Plugs ... will depend on the condition of each separate Cylinder.
Various factors come into play. Valve condition, ring condition and the sensitivity of each Pilot Screw makes treating each Carb as an individual Unit as one will require more or less Mixture Adjustment as another.

The Plugs will tell the story. If you have one that shows its running a bit more lean or rich than the others ... you'll only have to tweak that Mixture Screw ... not all of them.

Generally, the outside pair run cooler than the two Siamese middle two.
So tweaking the Pilot Mixtures separately is needed.

 

Put a new front tire on (Kenda Cruiser), put some "engine" clearcoat paint on the gas tank to hopefully stop the clear coat from going to crap when I spill gas on it (which seems to be quite often), fixed the speedo drive...woo hoo.... (now I'll have to see how accurate the new gauge is) and put on a cool little filter on the crankcase breather that matches my pod air filters pretty nicely!

Then I took it out and rode around for 20 minutes or so. I'll be getting it inspected this week so I can ride without worry about being pulled over. Then we'll fill 'er up and see how she runs for a good ride. She's been pretty much in moth balls since I brought her home in May 2004. Time to let her breath in some of that cool fall air in the northeast!