What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Saturday...pulled old crusty rod knockin' 650 motor out of bike and install smokin 750 motor. Tried pulling the rotor off the alternator and cracked it, so bought another of the 'bay. Got everything back together and no power to the instruments, scratched my head, walked around, double checked wiring around battery, then looked under the bike. The ground wire for the ignition hadn't been reaatached, did that and everything lit up good. Sunday, Went to parents for lunch, went grocery shopping with family, then had a couple of hours to play with bike. Looked over some posts here, then took a gear puller, bunged it behind the rotor, one sharp smack of the hammer and voila, rotor in my hand. Checked the damage, smoothed the cracked portion out, verified there was no electrical damage, then installed the rotor on the new motor. Put the Bassanni 4:1 i have laying around on, then went to put the footpegs back on, tightened motor mounts, etc. Bunged the threads on the left side footrest so couldn't ride. Not a problem, get a new bolt at work Monday sez I. Fired up the motor, ran decent, then quickly shut it off and put 3 quarts of oil in bike. I guess that was the point at which i was getting too tired. So monday, get the new bolt, notice a puddle of oil under the bike. Checked the drain plug, yep, its loose. Had to pull the header off for access, so i put the stock exhaust back on, tightened down all bolts again, checked the drain plug and went for a bit of a ride. Nice power, especially midrange, smokes a lot off the motor, turned out the P.O. didn't tghten down the 2 front bolts at the head/cylinder union, so i put a pair of 10mm nuts on there and stopped the oil flow. Bummer is i lost the left sidecover going on my test ride, but i picked another up off eBay. So going to ride to work now, caffeine overload.....cruzerjd

 

^^^ Damn dude, you're like the Tasmanian Devil with tools!!!

 

today, i put photos online.. availalbe in another thread here or on my facebook..

the previous days, taking apart the damaged bike to see what i need to replace.

luckily i've sourced a parts bike thats 'been beside the garage' for awhile... here's hoping!

 

i covered my headers in thermo tec tonight
motor took a crap on me while riding
adjusted some stuff and rode the crap out of it

 

I got the last carb cleaned, new shaft seals and o-rings across the board. Assembled everything and got them put back into the bike (huge PITA for sure). It was late, mufflers don't have baffles, and my 1 year old was sleeping so I put new battery acid in the old battery (it was empty when I got it from the PO for some reason) and hooked up a brand new Harbor Freight charger and it didn't work, wtf. Luckily I also bought a battery tender while I was there and that sat on the battery over night. Hopefully today after work all will be well and she'll start up.

 

Been busy. This spring -repainted tank and side panels, changed oil & filter ( trying Shell Rot 15-40 ), replaced stock mufflers with harley ones off a sporster, installed Iridium plugs, tracked down electrical problem, syncd carbs, changed brake fluid, touched up some of the paint on trim pieces.

Runs pretty good now.

Things I did through the fall/winter - had gas tank cleaned and lined, recovered seat, tracked down better side panels, changed handlebars & mirrors, replaced tires, replaced carb boots, replaced carbs, changed fork oil,checked timing, replaced timing cover.

All I can think of for now.

 

MikesSX clubmans, napolean bar end mirrors, chacals spin-on oil kit, new oil and air filter. Want to do pods but know nothing about carbs (shame shame)

Need to replace my forks... old rust left pits No idea how to do that either

 

Replacing the forks is quite easy, but quite expensive. Is the pitting on the tubes (top) or the stanchions (bottom)?

 

Well, it looks like I sheared an o-ring on one of the fuel pipes and I have a fuel leak to fix. It gives me a better reason to take the carbs off one more time to check the jets since it seems that at least one of the holes is burning awful rich. While I have them off, I'll also be double checking the float levels just in case as well.

 

I've done quite a bit on my XJ750 Maxim in the past week... When I first got the bike (couple weeks ago), it wasn't running on all cylinders. 1 and 2 were not firing. After swapping in different coils and ignitor box, still the same deal, so we determined it must be a carb issue. Pulled off the carbs and started the cleaning process, old school style. During tear down, all went smooth until I got to the last pilot screw (carb #4), which someone had destroyed at some point in the past. Got it out, and ordered some pilot screw bits from Chacal, including a new screw. I received these today. I think the reason that 1 and 2 were not firing right before was that the floats on those two carbs were stuck real good. They were gummed up quite well.

With the carbs off, I've pulled the stock air box and ordered pod filters... received those a couple days ago.

Today I polished my bores and slides. They passed the clunk test, but I figured, lets make them even better. I sanded them down with WD40 and 800 grit followed by 1000 grit (couldn't find anything finer).

Now I'm just waiting for my DynoJet kit to show up, so that I can start re-assembly. Can't wait to fire her up again... hopefully this time on all fours.

 

I forgot to mention... I also swapped out the boxy stock head light for a round head light from an XJ550. It's a perfect fit, though the wiring is a tight fit.

 

EVERY BOLT BROKE (except for one) ON THE CARB FLANGES! i drilled them all out, however 2 of them walked out of the steel bolt and into the aluminum head, and now i have a big mess to figure out.

 

tubes. pulls oil out and pushes dirt in. I get a very attractive line of dirt on each tube at the top of it's compression

 

I don't know if you can sand that out safely. If you replace the seals, it'll help for a while, but the pits will tear them up soon anyway, so that'll be about $60 (counting the dust seals) and a lot of work down the tubes (har har).

It might be worth finding out if you can replace just the tubes. I doubt that part can be bought separately any more, though.

Ask chacal. He's a member here by that name who sells lots and lots of XJ parts. If he doesn't have it, post something in the Sell/Buy/Trade forum. Also, hit Google, eBay, and BikeBandit. BikeBandit is probably the most expensive solution by far, but it'll be the right part.

 

When you are changing the fork oil add include about 1 oz of seal swell or an automatic transmission seal conditioner to the volume of each leg. This works wonders on keeping the fork seals from hardening.

I've used this many times over the years and if the seals are just leaking slightly this will usually cure the problem without replacing the seals. I also just use a straight 10 weight motor oil in fork changes.

 

I changed the oil. I dont think it had been done in YEARS! Felt good to do something myself to my 1st bike.

 

Lately I've been touching up the paint on the tank and plastic. Repainted my side cover emblem - mediocre results! Today I licenced it and took it for a 50 km. shake down ride. Everything is just fine. I added about 175 ml of Seafoam to a full tank of gas and I'll run it until it's on reserve.

 

well its been a while, so ill update....
recovered the seat (not bad for first time)
replaced front and rear brakes.
replaced air filter/ oil filter/ spark plugs and oil.

 

Well, got the o-ring fixed and the rich burn was the result of me not allowing enough slack in the cable (dumb a$$) which resulted in the enrichment being propped open a bit. I left work early Friday, got my temps, and registered my bike (donated almost $150 to WI DMV >>> OUCH!). Got home, fixed said o-ring, assembled everything and she fired right up. It was sounding good so I thought what the heck and took her out on her maiden voyage (with me). I only put about 3 miles on but she rode nicely and now I see why y'all like these bikes. I took her out again Saturday and put another 10 miles on the odometer practicing on the side streets around my house and once down a more major 6 lane road in traffic. I've got plenty more practicing to do, but this weekend was a good start.

I am replacing the mufflers on Wednesday so I won't wake my toddler up going down the driveway and that should help keep the neighbors at ease and richen up the air/fuel mixture a bit.

 

Put my father on the 650 to see if he could learn to ride a bike. Took him a little while to get used to it, but he got the idea after a couple of times around the circle. Might have to take him riding some more this summer!

Not ready to sell it to him just yet. Bike still has some quirks and I love my father too much to give him a quirky bike while he's still a newb. Maybe next year.

One fork from the parts bike still open, but no progress on it since. Freakin' job keeps interfering with my wrenching...