What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Dropped off the tank, side covers, and fenders at the paint shop. Ordered a used rear fender so I could try to salvage the tail light gasket from it.

Now it's mostly waiting... paint guy may not get to my stuff 'til week after next. :-(

 

WHAT DID I DO!!!
I CRACKED. Well actually in attempt to remove the carberator covers, i CRACKED the corner off a carb .. so now the search for new ones begin

 

Zig I read that, no good man!

I tore my carbs out today, and only 'bad' thing so far is a slightly stripped, now STUCK jet!

 

Hey Zig, I might be able to zag you a nice used carb body, drop me a note and let me know which one it is (#1 is far left, #4 is far right, #2 and #3 in-between).

Your carbs are the same BODIES as used on the 700-X models (the internal jetting is different, though, but you can rob all of those items off of your original carb).

 

Pulled the fuel rail and intake manifold to take them back to the powdercoating place to be redone, as the powdercoat they applied the first time was pretty but was not fuel resistant.

 

Zig, you may be able to fix that with JB Weld if you decide not to replace the body.

For me today, I rode and got caught in a sprinkle that I hope did not turn into a rain. The main reason was the thought that entered my mind. Are my coils good? Lucky for me, no full on rain.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I got to try out the horns when some yahoo cut in front of me. They are 136db, so I think he heard me loud and clear. I refrained from using sign language to tell him he was #1.

 

Sent the last couple of days fighting with the carbs and now battery...
Got the carbs back on yesterday, but seemed the float levels were too low, fuel starvation... so reset the levels... put the carbs back on... no leaking.. all looked good, but the battery died trying to start .. recharged, but still not enough life... then I noticed me batt fluid levels were low..... so busy playing with the carbs... never checked that ....... soooooo batt's charging again now... here's hoping....

 

Have yet to actually ride my Max... but I've put on new sprockets, chain, front and rear brakes, and am working on the fork seals now. I cant seem to get that allen bolt out of the bottom though, even with the reverse spark plug socket.

 

I took my fuel petcock apart....eww! I'm glad I had to do that anyway, after a PO rebuilt it with the vacuum line pointing the wrong direction, straight into the solid coolant line.

Now I get to clean all of the mess out and put it back together again with a new kit. I have a new fuel tank screen, too, but might leave it out.

Then comes the POR15 tank coating kit, finish cleaning the carbs & get them back together, and fire 'er up!

 

Did nothing to my Midnight today.

But I did change the rear differential fluid in my Venture.

Heading to the mountains to lead a group of about 8 bikes tomorrow. The weather is looking so very fine!

 

took the tank in to get lined
and put a bunch of parts up for sale the for sale section

 

Nothing today, but I did go out and buy some rain gear and waterproof boots and a balaclava...tomorrow my baby gets 2 new Dunlop 404's installed, then her and I are gonna go for a ride

 

Yesterday I "quickly" put it on the sidestand in neutral with the engine running on top of our gravel driveway while running to the mailbox..
Today I'm removing the shards of my windscreen and replacing the turnindicators

 

Finally got my sissy bar and package tray on. Had to compromise, the 2 spacers I needed for the Sissy bar were no good. One was a replacement and it was rusty. So, went to my favorite CT store and bought two 7/16 sockets with nice chrome on them and they became my new chrome spacers. It will be nice and sunny here on the weekend, I'll be able to take my wife to test it out.

 

Oil and Filter.

Un-boxed a new DieHard Battery, filled it, charged it and getting it ready for install.
Sprayed the Battery Compartment with Adhesive and blew-in some Crushed Velvet ... Just for fun.

 

I may be heading for a new battery myself, can't get mine to hold a charge, will be taking it down to the shop for them to run a test, but the voltage is taking a significant drop after sitting for an hour.......

Then I can test to see if the carbs are happy and do the fresh oil & filter thing as well....

Then some cosmetics..... but first...need to get her running happy, and some weather to test it lol ( I hate below freezing temps in the morning)

 

I'm almost done with the tear down. Got the carbs and swing arm off, now all that's left is to pull the motor. After that I'll be prepping the frame for paint. While the frame and tins are being painted I'm going to try something for my first time...clean my carbs. At least I know I have lots of folks to go to for help and guidance.

 

Installed the newly painted front and rear fenders. (Paint guy was done with them ahead of schedule)

Cleaned a lot of the parts under the rear fender (tool box, tools, etc).

Swapped in the SuperBrightLEDs.com flasher in place of the <sarcasm>combination flasher unit / temp gauge unit from Rumble Concept </sarcasm> - the Rumble Concept one would flash about 10 times as fast when the bike was warm as when it was cold.

More or less rebuilt my gas cap and installed it on the newly painted tank.

Installed new aftermarket grips from Chacal.

Clear coated my injectors to protect them from gas.

... the bikes coming along... will soon be really done.

Now just waiting on:

1. the fuel rail and manifold to come back from take two at the powdercoaters.

2. motivation to do a few extra tweaks I want to get done before putting everything back together

3. a bit of time for 1 and 2

Cheers,
Paul

 

I recovered the seat using a kit from B&H Specialties. Never had done anything like that before, but it was a piece of cake.

If anyone is planning on doing some upholstery work, I highly recommend getting this staple gun. It would not have been quite so easy without it.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/ ... _200328526

 

installed a nice set of clubman bars for the cafe look i was after and some new grips... go you good thang!!!

 

Well a bit behind but On Saturday, cleaned residue from my rubbing alcohol float test failure... ... don't use the cheap stuff folks...... removing the crap left behind in the carbs (enrichment ports and emulsion tubes most notably)
Got her up and running again, still need a new battery, but... she's alive and working good otherwise....

NEED new grips....

 

I Cruised along the beach it was suchg a great day out

 

Hello All,

I have an 82 Maxim 550 and am looking to replace the clutch, im pretty handy when it comes to wrenching, but ive never replaced a motorcycle clutch before.
Would i need any special tools, has anyone done one of these before and have any pointers for me???

Gerry~

 

Not exactly today but last couple of days I've adjusted valves (first time ever doing it myself), changed fusebox, engine oil, checked alternator brushes and some other things... Still have to change fork oils, brake fluids (maybe those lines too) and petcock gaskets. Then I think I'm done for a while 8)

 

Today I got my bike registered again after 16 years off the road. Have done the whole carbs clean,seals,floats,synched thing its running perfect. Still a few bitsnpieces to do but overall I`m very pleased with the results of all my work and a huge thankyou to the people in these forums, the information available here has been/will be very very helpful!!!!!

 

Put my second XJ in the garage, it's pretty rough, I walked around it, spotted out the obvious ... envisioned, and felt a huge smile coming on ... here I go again!

 

Hello all!

After being away several months from the forum and my Seca, yesterday i went to my favourite Japan parts shop th do shopping and just did some work today:

- Installed the tank i repainted 1 month ago (at least i'm sure this time the paint is hard enough!)

- New brake pads

- A little service, Oil (20 w 50 mineral) and filter

- Removed the old back light (and 2 bolts over 4 snapped as torched gently the key) and installed this one (yes, i have to cut the back fender...)

 

The other day I got the petcock back together, to find it happily leaking past the plunger o-ring. Fock! I file the vacuum-operated petcock in the file of "things that worked perfectly well and should have been left alone." I'll probably throw in an inline valve, I don't feel like putting forth any effort to fix it.

 

Finished putting her back together after painting. The powdercoating place ended up painting, rather than powdercoating, my manifold and fuel rail to ensure fuel resistance. I also painted the injectors and clear coated them for fuel resistance.

Also added a second MAP sensor under the seat to provide continuous baro sensing (for better mixture control when I head up into the mountains)



The color is Mitsubishi's Sunset Pearlescent Pearl. This second picture does it some justice, but I can't wait to see it in sunshine.



Cheers,
Paul

 

I finally got the bike running good enough till i get it tuned at the MCC the end of May.

 

Been BUSY on the 650. Really busy.

- Replaced the gear oil. I'm embarrassed that I haven't done that at least once already. Came out a mucky green. Will have to do that again soon.
- Replaced the engine oil and filter. Actually managed to do this without getting oil all over the place, despite the position of the 4-into-1 headers.
- Completely rebuilt the forks. Took them all apart and cleaned them in a buddy's solvent bath. Replaced the oil seals and wipers. Replaced the oil seal clips. NASTY oil came out, so I'm glad I did it.
- Completely rebuilt the front brakes. Caliper rebuild kit, SS brake lines, new union bolts, new crush washers, cleaned the union block, rebuilt MC from Chacal. THE WORKS.
- New handlebars (stock) to replace the ones bent by a buddy of mine last year (crash)
- New rear brake shoes
- Replacement headlight, bucket, and bracket
- New brake light switch
- New clutch switch
- Replacement guages from eBay
- Tapered roller steering bearings (again from chacal)
- New mirrors (more chacal!)
- New side covers (eBay) and grommets
- Replacement lower steering clamp from the parts bike
- Packed a ton of moly grease into the speedo gear box and the cable end
- Replaced the crimp-on end to my left-front blinker lead with a crimp+heat shrink end
- New grips (both sides). The hair spray trick is a must for that left one.
- New gas cap (chacal once again). Going to see if I can't get at least the ignition re-keyed to the same key.

Not bad for a computer geek, eh? Oh yeah, she runs great, and the front end isn't nearly so %!*$ bouncy as before. New bearings and rebuilt forks are awesome!

 

Well, I took the wife out for her first motorcycle ride today, it was great. She did better than either of us thought. I think she is hooked cause she already wants a new helmet, Hee Hee! Gotta love it.

 

^^^Cool^^^ I can't wait for my wife to be able to ride with me. She's 6 months pregnant now, so we will have to wait

All i did to my bike today was jump start it and ride it for a few hours. That was fun enough.

 

xulf, congrats on the little one to be. I assume, a future XJ rider no doubt.
Gregg

 

First time idling/running good in a month!

Back on the road, and she's got way more pull than I did two months ago.
Scary pull!

 

today i took off the old flat black exhaust off my bike and put on the pretty chrome exhast off of my parts bike.

 

New Oil and filter... painted the headlight bracket, tightened the chain and steering head bearing.... and added air to the tires too....

 

Today and yesterday I switched the firmware from the stock Megasquirt II code to MS2/Extra. The change adds closed loop idle control (main motivator), a different crank position algorithm, a higher resolution fuel table, and Toyota's EAE acceleration compensation code.

I also switched to a block temp sensor instead of the oil temp sensor I had been using. This was easy to calibrate for with an IR thermometer, and provides better data for the ECU to distinguish a warm restart on a cold day from a cold start on a warm day.

So far, I'm pretty pleased. The bike starts quicker and idles better. Now I need to get it back on the dyno for some full power tuning.

Cheers,
Paul

 

^------------- WHAT


Computer geek, AND motorhead... and that confused the piss out of me! haha

Congrats SQL, when you are done, come do mine

 

:lol:

Well, bit of background: The engine management system I used on the bike is Microsquirt. It's designed and built by a couple of guys who do this more or less as a hobby. They also wrote the firmware that runs it. The firmware's called Megasquirt 2. Megasquirt 2 actually runs both on Microsquirt and on it's bigger, older, brother the MS-II ECU. MS-II can be purchased as a kit, it about the size of a book, and would be a bit inconvenient to mount on a bike... though people have done it in the past. Microsquirt uses the same CPU, but all surface mount components, and is not available in kit form. It's about the size of a TCI box, so is much more convenient for motorcycle applications - in fact, motorcycle use is one of its main design goals.

Anyway, in the Megasquirt community there was a bit of a schism at one point. A separate set of developers went off and made their own firmware for the Megasquirt (and Microsquirt) hardware. This second set of firmware is called MSExtra (or MS2/Extra depending on which version of the hardware you're dealing with). One difference between the stock Megasquirt firmware and the MSExtra stuff is that MSExtra can be compiled with free GNU tools. To compile Megasquirt you need to buy a Codewarrior compiler (about $1000). So, there is more of a possibility for community involvement/contribution to MSExtra, which makes it a bit more feature-rich, and also more bleeding edge.

For my bike, I used a Ford Escort throttle body because it was a good size and because it had a built-in idle control valve. With Megasquirt, you can set up a curve to say, "At x degrees, keep the idle valve y percent open." The idea is that temperature is going to be the main thing affecting how much air you need to provide to keep a certain idle RPM. I had gotten that to work pretty well with Megasquirt on my bike, but there were still some annoying points where the idle would be higher or lower than I wanted (generally lower right after startup, and higher after about two minutes riding, then just fine from 10 minutes riding, on). What I really wanted, though, was a system where I could just say, "The idle should be 1050 RPM." and have the ECU automatically adjust the idle valve while at idle to maintain that. MS2/Extra has this feature, and it works pretty nicely.

Another thing was that I was using an oil temp sensor in the oil pan to tell the ECU how warm the engine is. The problem I had here was that the oil takes a pretty long time to warm up and cool down. The main reason that the ECU needs to know the engine temp is to compensate for how much fuel is going to stick to the walls of the intake port rather than vaporizing and going into the cylinder. With the Bosch (Porsche 914) head temp sensor that I've now screwed into the back of the block, I can give the ECU more accurate information about how hot or cold the intake port passages are.



The EAE stuff is a system to further compensate for wall wetting when accellerating or decellerating. Basically, it looks at several operating stats (but mainly engine temp) to say that, if I want to, for instance, add 20% more fuel, about 20% of that 20% is going to initially stick to the walls, so I need to actually add 24% more, but, later, when I let off the throttle, I can actually reduce the fuel a bit more than I would have expected because the fuel that stuck to the walls originally is now vaporizing off and adding to my intake mixture.

The crank position algorithm has to do with how the firmware reads the 36-1 wheel on the crank end and from there determines when to begin dwell and when to fire the coils. In Megasquirt, the system decodes the wheel to figure out where TDC is, then kind of counts from there until it's close enough BDC to begin dwelling the coil. MS2/Extra instead calculates which of the teeth should mark the beginning of dwell and starts dwelling when that tooth passes the sensor. In theory (and it seems to hold up in practice) the MS2/Extra "Every tooth" algorithm allows the system to more quickly synch up when cranking and to more quickly recover in case something causes the system to lose synch. What I'm seeing is that, when I was running Megasquirt 2 I had to crank for about 2 seconds before the engine would first try to start; with MS2/Extra, it's pretty much instantaneous when I press the starter button.

 

Re-adjusted the steering bearings yesterday at some length. Tightened them quite a bit to remove all trace of play. (I dunno WHAT I was doing before!)

Took it for a test ride tonight. Steering is working perfectly...

...as is the RES setting on my petcock! Ran out of gas when I was almost home, but only on the usual setting. Flipped it to PRI and then to RES and got to a station.

Anyway, bike is in pretty good shape at this point, but still has some weak points. Rear shocks are very bouncy. Going to have to find some $$$ to throw chacal's way for that. Also need to figure out where the rhythmic shudder in the front end is coming from. Only happens at 80+ mph, and doesn't translate into any kind of wobble. Just vibrates, stops, vibrates, stops. Weird.

Also, the bike races for a second when the throttle is closed (doesn't fall straight down to idle). Doesn't get great mileage, either, so it's pretty much time to crack open the carbs and have a look.

 

I installed some driving light on my bobber today and did some wiring work to clean up the front end of the bike. I just mounted them under the headlight for now. I might fabricate some kind of light bar soon to get them up on each side of the headlight.

 

SQL, what in god's name are you talking about?


haha

 

Washed it first time Then some cable and chain lubing and adjusted rear brake. Dropped front end about an inch, looks better and seems to affect positive way to driving Could be just my imagination, but good thing anyway 8)

 

OK, I'll keep this simple (for dpawl ;-) ) :

I played around with fuel tuning a bit and took the bike out for a couple of test rides. She's pulling really well!

Can't wait to see how she does on the dyno.

 

I added a Right Hand Relaxation Modification.
Riding the Max for more than an hour makes my Right Hand go numb.

I modified that today.

I took a Pair of Foam Rubber Crutch Grips.
Split one at the SEAM and Opened it up and placed it on the Throttle Grip.
I needed a SECTION form a second one to FILL the GAP.
Paramount was making PERFECTLY NEW SEAMS when the fitting was done.
Here's a look.
I was a little too heavy with sanding off the glue from the seam.

It's cool though.
No squeeze fatigue even wearing gloves!

 

HAH!

All I did was lose a pair of glasses on the highway

 

I installed my sparto taillight. Gotta get a pic of it.

 

Cobbled together a muffler from the Yamaha dealership's junk pile and wrapped the headers (see pic in gallery)...what a Frankenstein!

 

how do you add a pic to the post?