What did you do to your Yamaha today?

My son and I got the 550 and 750 out to enjoy this heat wave in the NW. About 100 miles on the backroads. Good warmup for spring. I still need to fix the starter clutch on the 750. It will really bite me one of these days.

 

Unfortunately we're back to our "normal" march weather and it arrived just in time along with my new rear tire. I did manage to get another 150 miles on before the temps took a nosedive and checked the plugs to confirm my suspicions that it's running lean but without a garage things are going to wait. Running #122 mains and #42 pilots and I'm going to swap in #124's and see where that takes things... rather run slightly rich & cool.

 

Rode both '82 and '83 XJ650 on short 30 min rides each. Colder weather coming and not sure I"ll be able to ride them for 2 weeks. I did not winterize them and kept riding them every 3 weeks or less.
I need to hook up a db meter to them cause I swear the '82 is louder. May be my imagination. '83 bike warms up faster in the cold then the '82 does. Both running smooth. But the '82 has this cafe racer/ brat type low profile seat so its not nearly as comfy to ride.

 

@Simmy is that the original Yamaha fuel box you have on your machine? Could that be the culprit?

 

@Simmy is that the original Yamaha fuel box you have on your machine? Could that be the culprit?

 

Weather guessers are threatening us with a large snow event so I rolled another 120-some miles on today despite the winds and this brings me to a question regarding a moderate size windscreen; what is available or recommended for the XJ750 SECA? I don't have a fairing and really don't want one, I've seen a few other 550 members bikes with what looks like a shorty screen but can't seem to locate anything. I had a few gusts this afternoon that about took my helmet off along with my head and while there isn't much inside I do need something to hang my hat on.
Thanks in advance
Brhat

 

it is original but I stand by it.
This bike has rarely seen any rain, still perfect condition

 

"Weather guessers".........ha! That's exactly right..........

 

When they guess bad weather they're almost always on the mark.

 

I finally diagnosed my sidecar starter problem.
Once I had a full battery reading 13+V I measured the voltage at the starter motor post and got 13V.
The starter motor wasn't moving.
I put in a spare starter and it turned over with the button, all good.
It does still delay after pressing the button, I'll have to try another solenoid.
I went through all the plugs on the wiring harness which wasn't time wasted.
The alternator 3-way block was starting to melt on the female side so I salvaged a block from a spare harness.

I put the bike back together.
I started it up and and turned it off prime and let it idle.
The bike stopped, wouldn't start until I tried it on pri again.
Then I noticed it was leaking gas out the petcock body.
When it was in the on position it was sucking air so not opening the gas.
Then on pri it was spitting gas out the leak.
It wasn't that bad so I was able to warm it up and change the oil.
And topped off the coolant.
Once I get new rubbers for the petcock I will be ready for another summer.
I rebuilt this same petcock in 92 I believe. It leaked over a winter and destroyed a side cover.
The original rubbers lasted 10 years, the replacement parts went 32 yrs.

 

@Simmy, you surely do build some pretty bikes, and keep them looking and running that way. I want to have your patience and attention to detail when I go up. Unlikely though at this late stage.

 

Thanks @Fuller56 I'm sure your antique Guzzi has presented a challenge or 2, never had a spaghetti bike.
Next up I need to fix the starter on my KTM then clean out the carb on my BSA.
And I have new tires chain and sprocket ready to install on my KLR daily rider.
Not sure if I'll get to installing the big block on my Turbo this summer.
I have just received #1 and 2 Turbo head pipes to install wide-band O2 sensors, now looking for AFR kits.
Good ones are about $250, Chinese are about $100, thinking it would be good to have an AFR gauge on 1 and 2.

 

I really dig the color, now I will have a few mints

 

Since it was raining off and on went and dumped my recycled oil and picked up an oil filter at O'Reillys makes it easy since I have the spin on oil filter conversion kit. Changed the oil and cleaned up a bit noticed the right muffler was not draing moisture, found the drain hole was plugged completely. Using my pick tool cleaned out hole now drains nice the temp was in mid 50's so just enough for moisture to form . Bike is ready for summer now if temp would stay warm , but it is supposed to rain all week .

 

Decided bike was getting hard to start cold unless it just came off tender . So removed the AGM battery from my other Seca , starts much easier, the battery I pulled out was a Chinesium no name AGM battery it is a couple riding seasons old .

 

So what did I do to my XJ today? Pulled the carb rack and set the levels again and while I had them off pulled the intake boots and checked for leaks. It didn't look like they were leaking but I smeared the gaskets with some Permatex and did the bolts up with anti-seize along with the spark plugs.

I then moved to forking around with the front end, my cat gave his disapproval and I changed out the fork oil.

Left had maybe 100cc and the right side a dribble so I cheated filling them up using a syringe after removing the Schrader. Six plus another 4cc of 20W and they're much better. Not exactly to the book but it worked.

I then set the handlebars to fit me and bled the front brakes as a follow up, not a bubble from the bleeders.
Now it's wrestling with the airbox boots and setting the cables, weather is changing for the better Thursday and I'm going to roll some miles on the clock.
All the work was done with the proper supervision

 

Brhatweed
I have always wondered if that is an acceptable way to change fork oil. I'll be curious to hear from others on the approval or disapproval.
What did you use to get the right angle to dump the oil in that way?
I don't mind pulling my bars though to come in from the top.

 

I'm not sure how many bikes had the air valve on the side, but not connected between both forks. Just the 750 Seca? It would leave a half teaspoon of oil inside the ring, but that's probably a good thing for the health of the o-rings. Just don't do it if your forks are connected for common pressure! And he was properly supervised by disapproving furballs, so it seems correct.

 

That's a good question, maybe Chacal could better answer the question of the fork air valves as I can't find much of anything in the factory manual. It appears that only the 650 & 750 SECA has these. So what I did was load up the syringe with a measured amount of oil then screw it into the port and push it in then pull back the plunger to equalize the air pressure, doing this five time plus an add'l 4cc brought it to the factory spec of 304cc. I did blow out the forks with compressed air before filling so the overall level *should* be factory spec.
This is how I checked and set the floats. Clear tubing and #12 solid wire for supports and they're all set to the "higher" side of the factory spec, doing it this way gives me a much better picture overall of where things are at, I have two old intake boots bolted down that are angled to duplicate the real world on the bike. I was way off on my last settings doing them on the bench individually.


Today's shakedown run.
Bike overall had a much better and more "confidant" feel, I wrestled the carbs on last night after a final blow level check and took it out on the loop raw meaning they are still on the previous balance & pilot settings and I only had to add a little idle speed. Start-up was easy with only a 1/3 enrichment lever and it settled right down without hunting, I normally give my motors 5 minutes to get some heat on the jugs and this gives me time to get into my road gear. I'm in a small town that give me both real street and highway riding and starting out the motor felt a little soft on a light launch, definitely rich on idle and transition, balance & pilot will smooth this out. Made my way up and around the local airport and did a "sane" run thru the gears shifting around 5000. Felt smooth and confidant despite a full-on 30MPH head wind, where the bike shined was in the front end, that road is like a corncob and I didn't get the secondary bounce feeling. Braking gets the anti-dive right away so I'm going to reset that, 1/2 brake I can feel the valves click in unison so they're working. Made my way down and round to county road 6 which has some good turns but had to back off with the cross winds. Even at the lower speeds the front was far more predictable. The county road ends at MN Hwy 47 and this I went south. The highway was completely repaved making it very smooth, there are several open areas where one can see all the driveways & roads and this is where I went hard through the gears shifting at 9000. Turbine Smooth is the best way to describe this. The motor really pulled hard from about 6500 on up to the shift but it still feels slightly lean over 3/4 twist, not flat by any means but it had more "bite" backing off to about the 1/2 twist point and this is where it felt the strongest going to the century mark. No slip from the clutch or other hiccups, the motor sounded very "clean" all the way up. The run down 47 is a measured 8.2 miles to the stop sign and this is where the anti-dive saved my bacon. Ogilvie schools were letting out and the student parking lot is on this intersection, kids don't know to look for bikes and I had one girl pull right out in front of me despite hitting her with the high beam and me having the right-of-way. The bike stopped on a dime. After this it's east on MN 23 back to town and from my door to my door on this loop it's a measured 30 miles even. Do a lookup of the roads around Mora MN to get a feel for what I have.

...and a little about me
Overall it was a good run that gave me a better idea of what I have here, I'm no stranger to bikes having spent my youth on 2-wheels blowin' 2-stroke oil but things are far different in the dirt. My last real street bike was a 1980 Honda CBX and that pulled like a truck but it was heavy and was better on straight roads. I got stupid in the late-90's racing a rice-rocket on a private industrial road that was supposed to be vacant and instead we encountered a tractor-trailer and had to lay them down. The CBX crankcase & cylinder cases were smashed and my buddy went head first into the trailer wheels and was paralyzed, he died six years later.
From that point I gave up riding and fell into a depression after being traded in for a younger model, took me over a decade to climb out of the funk and this is where the two fat kitties come in. The black & white one is Buddy Cat who really live up to his name and the dark gray one is my little girl Mattie Cat. Both are rescues that I adopted, Buddy was from the local trailer park and suffered two BB shots one of them in his right eye... I had words with the guilty party, at my size I get my point across. Mattie came from a hoarder whos teenage son used to terrorize the cats with his yelling, took me almost a year to earn her trust. Now they're my kids and reason for staying clean, I actually live at a pet rescue called Kitty Krusaders and I'm the Chief Petting Officer who interacts with them Check them out on facebook if you want to see what we work with, sometimes it takes all my strength to keep myself together.
Both Buddy & Mattie will inspect the what I'm working on and do their Cat Scans, Mattie takes on the supervisory role while Buddy expresses his opinion flicking his tail. They are my life so I have to make sure the bike is safe, someone has to scratch their butts and put food in the bowls. Tomorrow gets the carbs sync'd & balanced on the gauges then the relay mod for a 100 watt halogen in the lower headlight.

 

Cat Scans .