What did you do to your Yamaha today?

How would one make a gasket for the valve cover? With those two half circle parts that come down, be kind of hard, or any ideas? Those gaskets are decently expensive for a gasket, I would make one of those if I could.

 

Short answer: you don't. The mating surfaces between the valve cover and the top of the head aren't two perfectly flat pieces. If you were thinking of using the gasket stuff at the auto parts store, the sheets aren't big enough to cover the width of the engine anyway.

As for what I did, I just now finished re-vacuum syncing the carbs, ever-so-slightly opened up the mixture screws on 1 & 2, and even less on 3. YICS in place, floor fan pointed at the engine. If this thing settles down, I ain't touching the blasted screws again if I can help it.

 

My wife informed me that she was done riding for the winter, so I purchased and installed a battery tender for her bike to keep the battery up-to-snuff 'til spring.

 

Changed out my Alt Brushes, ended up not needing to, but since the @$&!ing screws were a bitch, I had to after words, Cleaned the rotor side of the stator, New Air Filter, and New Speedo Cable

 

Wow, This thread took off. :lol:

I finished swapping the seca turbo front end on to my 650 maxim today.

Had take apart and clean the master cylinder, both front calipers, and ran about half a quart of brake fluid through it bleeding with a mityvac. I also traced a short that was constantly blowing my main fuse, and got a chance to ride the bike again for the first time in probably 3 months! Just in time for the cold weather.. :evil:

 

Lastnight I repainted my front fender where it had been scuffed by the previouse owner and then I changed the grips...tonight I went for a short (5mile) ride. You know it's cold when ice forms on the clutch lever! I am new to both XJ's and the Forum. This is my first street bike, it's a 1992 Yamaha Xj600/Seca II.

 

Gave it a light bath, scrubed behind the ears and the belly. Polished her up some more. General inspection, found a few bolts to tighten and inspected the carbs to find a mixture screw to replace. Eyeballed the spark plugs and made #3 a little little leaner, was somewhat black and sooty. Read her a bed time story and tucked her in for the night. She loves the story about the bigger harley that couldnt!

 

Keep that Mono-shock Clean.

Every couple of weeks ... Clean the Operating Rod and then squirt-on some Hydraulic Jack Fluid.
Work the fluid down into it ... then, wipe it clean.

The major complaint with the Seca-ll is that Mono-Shock.
When the Shock you got gives up the ghost ... you might as well line-up a co-signer ... GOOD replacement Mono-shocks do not come cheap!

 

Did a compression test to find out if the leaking oil was coming from my head gasket... thank god it isn't. They read 130, 130, 130, 125. A bit low, but I hear as long as they are equal. Makes me happy i don't have to get a new head gasket. I am thinking the oil is coming from the valve cover. I will doing valve adjustments soon, so I am gonna wait a little bit before I get a new gasket.

 

Rode it 40 miles in 40 degree weather. Actually up in the hills it was probably colder....rode through some snow flurries. I was home for three hours before I started to thaw out!

 

Vacuumed out the air filter just to be sure that it didn't contain a squirrels nest. The hunt for a better running machine continues.

 

What tender did you get? The maintainer I bought before I had the XJ looks for a higher "charged" voltage than the batt will ever achieve, so it overcharges the poor thing.

Also, for polishing metal, many folks have recommended 1000, then 1500, then 2000 grit sandpaper. Where do you get that? Hardware store only had up to about 220 (and buffing pads, of course).

Bought a ton of 10W-40 for all the bikes, and a couple of quarts of 80W-90 for the 650. This Sunday for oil changes all around, I think. Need to get a filter for the XJ.

Took the dials off the 650 and discovered a dead bulb (turn signal) and a near dead bulb (tach backlight). Also found out that the low oil light is good, so the problem is elsewhere. From the looks of things, likely a short in the lead from the oil sensor.

Most of the turn signal wiring - both front and back - is missing. Fuse from the ignition switch has been bypassed. (I should post a picture. Heh.) New garage lights are fantastic for working on the bike at night, though.

Plan to run through all the tests on the voltage regulator and ICU tonight. Hopefully, between the parts bike and the runner, I'll have one of each that passes all tests.

Also decided that I'm going to tear the parts bike completely apart. Totally disassemble the engine and transmission. Ought to be easier to store that way. Ought to learn a few things about how the final drive is put together as well.

Oh yeah. Bought a set of drifts for the upcoming steering bearing replacement project and found the part numbers and prices for tapered roller bearings. Next month, methinks.

"This is why it's called a 'project bike'."

 

I work for CARQUEST Auto Parts, so I bought the one we offer (naturally). At the time, it was on sale for about $30. It's made by someone else, so there are others who carry the same charger under different names. Here's a picture from the last sales flyer of it:

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I'm not sure what our regular retail price is... maybe around $37?

Those grits are usually used for autobody refinishing. You'll need to visit a parts store that sells paint supplies or go to a autobody paint supplier... or, if you got a buddy that paints cars for a living, hit him up for what you need :wink:.

I found that these filters aren't normally stocked in most parts stores. If you still need filters and were hoping to walk into your neighborhood parts store to get one, you may want to call today and put one on order for tomorrow. Of course, the your local Yamaha dealer (if you have one) should carry your filters (I would hope).

 

I'll give the Yamaha dealer a call, but the one here tends to suck. I need oil filters and I need replacement dash bulbs. If they can't get them, I'll wait for Chacal to get back from vacation and hit him up for them.

 

As far as I know, the only two oil filters are made by Yamaha and Fram.

Most likely, the Yamaha branded filter is actually made by Fram. Not surprisingly, the Fram filter is cheaper. It also comes with a couple of O rings, something that you would have to purchase in addition to the Yamaha filter.

 

I'm back! And BTW, there's also the K&N oil filter which seems to be a higher quality than the Fram/Yamaha filter. Hpwever, you'll have to purchase the housing-to-block and the bypass bolt o-rings separately, as the K&N filter does NOT include those pieces.........

I also now stock the dash light bulbs, too.

 

I started stripping more bondo and paint off the gas tank.
I almost think i should replace the tank.

 

rhys:

You don't need Part Numbers for Bearings.
The Bearings are a Metric Sized World STANDARD!
The Number is laser-cut right on the race.

Juat bring the Old Bearings with you to a Bearing Supply House and save yourself some HUGE money getting the Bearings direct from the Supplier!

 

Sprayed my bike down with a power washer yesterday, spent about 1.5 hours between spraying and cleaning! Put fan on it yesterday night and ran it overnight, got on bike this morning and drove it after I got back from work ha ha ha! Horrid traffic, but I didnt mind, figured as much! Just glad it started easy today, saturdays can be worse than fridays sometimes....

 

I tore my carbs down.... AGAIN! The only things that did not come out were the air jets...
Now I'm done, 4 hours later.
Just took her for a spin -- runs like a scalded poodle! My knees are froze though.

Hell, I can do this in my sleep now... The carb cleaning FAQ is da bomb!