What did you do to your Yamaha today?

I have finally gotten fresh oil and an oil filter in the bike and already it's behaving nicer towards me. I flushed it for about 10 min. with 10W40 that was free. Glad I did that as it came out almost as dark as the first batch did. Less grit in the flush out too. Next on the docket is to get some new plugs in to see if that will help me burn up all the fuel like it should.

 

WABBIT SEASON!

 

(Last weekend)
Dressed in shorts and tshirt!!!
Synced carbs using the cheap easy method(Rick)
Spent about 30 bucks total

Took her for a spin, 80 degrees F here.
Was a bit warm

YICS channel now sparkles like new.
Cant believe Yamaha sugests that does not need attn.

 

In New England ... we have these fiberglass Rods that are Orange and mark the driveways and sidewalks so you won't plow up the grass and hit the curb.

I cut me a section of that Rod and use it as my ram-rod to clean-out the YICS Passage.

I don't know why they do ... but there gets to be some serious carbon build-up in there.

I just open both ends of the YICS Chamber and Punch through some wads of Carb Cleaner soaked rag until the one I push through is as clean coming out the other end as it was when it went in.

On Bikes that have never been done ... you can send through a half-dozen or more before the passage gets cleaned right out.

I also put a right angle on the end of a small steel rod to probe the holes where the intakes open to the passage. It gets easier if you mark the rod for the depth inside the passage where the holes are.

 

Got my Progressive fork springs (with a 1.5" drop) and my Koni's for the rear (1.75" drop)! Figger I can make up the difference by cutting the spacer.

Also waiting on my "new" rear wheel. Won an auction for a Virago wheel including a near-new Dunlop tire. Not my first choice for rubber but the price was very right! Hmmm... Come to think of it, it might not be same circumference as the original. Looks like I'll have to do some math! *sigh*

So between the suspension and the wheel I should have a few hours of toil over the long winter months. Want to rebuild the brakes and maybe look into braided lines while the bikie's laid up, but we'll see... Some coils sure would be nice too.

 

I installed the Petcock Leak Insurance Valve. I'll get a pic up when I learn how to do it. All my space is used-up on here for pictures.

 

Stored it for the winter.

Unfortunately, in my eagerness to get as much air out of the gas tank as possible, overfilled it. Half an hour later I discovered a nice big puddle behind the fuel cap.

I did kind of want to repaint it anyway...

 

Just finished checking my swingarm to see how the range of motion felt, and for side-to-side play.

Motion was smooth. There was NO side play. None. Everything felt fine. Guess who isn't pulling his swingarm today?

 

Went out on a redline trip today.
Near 40 miles or so, sure getting dark early these days

Trying to test a theory regarding seafoam!

Results!-<Inconclusive>

PS also came back w/ a bug collection you would not believe.
Wish I had a camera!
10 miles in and I had to stop to clear mask!
I could not see my gauges, much less the road.

Did I mention it was DARK this evening!
Go figure

 

Took the old girl (the bike) out for about half an hour, a quick ride to clear the cobwebs for both of us. RH brake sticking a little looks like a rebuild is in order.

I should mention to you northerners how warm it's getting!!

 

Searched for some new latches for the hard bags on the ex. cop XJ, no luck finding a match as yet.

I did find out that I can get new bags, complete with latches for about $300 each ex Japan. Ouch!

 

I'll bite. What theory are you testing?

 

Yea ... I bet you OZ-ites are starting to splash-on the old sun-block about now.

It's your turn.
Enjoy it.

 

Kind of a joke, but I NEED reasons to go and ride the newly tuned up bike.
(All of my partner "riders" have recently become weekenders due to the new evening hours )

Darkness comes around 6, get off work around 5.
So 1 hour of riding MAYBE!

Took the bike through its paces with 6oz of Seafoam in a half tank.

Red line through all gears.

Not a "perfect" experiment, but the focus is on main jet transition cleaning.
Keep in mind I NEEDED a reason to go riding(Other responsibilities are always present)
Ultimately if redline hugging might work them clean better/faster.

Did I mention its still abnormally warm here. Thought I would be posting on this thread.................painted bike, or changed front for seals, or checked alternator brushes, or replaced crappy mufflers, or replaced front tire, or fixed my non working speedo, or anything else.

I guess I should not complain, a cold front is slowly moving in...BURR

 

Continued with the ongoing saga: In Search of Working Blinkers! (UK title: "In Search of Working Flashers", which means something completely different on this side of the pond).

So thanks to Haynes, I have pretty much determined that both of the flasher relays I have are bad. Won an auction on eBay for a used one for only $10! We'll see if it's any better. More on that in a second.

Thanks to some gracious XJBikes.com members, I have all of the rest of the pieces I need to get four working blinkers mounted and wired. A couple of bolts and bulbs need to be replaced, but they should all be functional.

So back to my original problem. All of the mounting brackets I have received, though functional, are bent. HOWEVER, the same guy who was selling relays on eBay was also selling a pair of rear blinkers that look pretty raw, but the brackets on them are straight! As a "thank you" for essentially selling me the relays so cheap, I went ahead and paid his "buy it now" price for the rear blinker set.

SO... with any luck, I should soon have four working blinkers attached, WITH straight brackets! Woo hoo!

 

Redline running will only rush fuel through the Main jets and flush-out the Fuel Bowls.

To get that stuff to where it needs to be ... do "Hole-shots" with deceleration throttle closings.

That will spread the cleaner throughout the passages and give the Pilot Jet Passages a chance to have the cleaner drawn through them a little moroe than at full throttle.

You probably got the combustion chambers cleaned-up a little bit which will help the Idle it there were and carbon deposits causing hot-spots which can ignite the intake mixture before the spark plug actually fires ... smoothing out the Idle a good deal.

Sounds like somebody wishes he could turn back the clock and have a few days of Daylight Savings Time and a warmer outside climate happening for doing the final tweaking-in of a big tuning job.

Those day are down in OZ at the moment!

 

Temps are not a huge prob, light is!
I guess the tweaks will be limited to when I get a Colortune.
Centerstand tweaking.
Idle is "as steady as the atomic clock"
Gonna try to tune her in a hair lean for the cooler temps
Riding season 364 days a year, Olny about one snow day.
Most of the members would Laugh at my snow days

 

If you are deliberately tuning LEAN you need to MONITOR what's going on VERY FREQUENTLY!!!

Plug Reads.
Magnifying Glass.
Look CLOSELY at the Ceramic surrounding the electrode.

Clean will probably be happening.
But, look for erosion and hairline ... (Tiny hairline) ... fractures.

If you detect erosion or hairline fractures.
You are too Lean and in the "Danger Zone" ... add some gas!

 

I tried to convert an old universal cell phone charger (3,6,9,12V at 1A with different connectors) to work as a trickle charger.

Its hard to tell if its working or not, but I guess I'll just wait to see the next time the bike won't start up, then hook it up and see if it'll start after a while.

Was also waiting on a new horn and some fairing bolts, but the sun has gone down behind the mountains and my driveway no longer has direct sunlight. And seeing as how it was a warm 45 degrees today, no sun will drop it down rather quick. Oh well, I'll just get to do more work on it this weekend when my break starts!

 

While Rick et al at that particular latitude and higher are contemplating dusting off the snowblowers, getting ready to shovel the snow off the drive, and fire up furnaces and fireplaces, we here in Oz have the prospect of a string of 26degC days ahead (it's OK, you can thank me later for reminding you) - I can feel a long Sunday ride coming up.

What I did to my XJ900 yesterday was...fight off a big hairy Huntsman spider. Not sure what it is about my XJ but I reckon at some stage every Spring over the last 3 years I have had a Huntsman crawl up from underneath the instrument panel and go for a constitutional across my speedo/tacho and handlebars. Once while I was riding down the highway at 60mph/100kmh!!!

Maybe it's 'cos I park it under a tree at my place sometimes and the spiders drop down for a visit and stay on the XJ.I have a range of sprays but all they seem to do is create even larger critters the following season...honestly, it was THIS BIG!