What did you do to your Yamaha today?

Today I took off my rear wheel, removed the old brakes, cleaned everything out (including all the old crappy grease), sanded buffed and polished the rear brake cover, and put everything back together again w/ all new shoes and grease.

What's more amazing is......the brakes actually work and I have NO 'extra' screws, bolts or washers laying around ! ;-) They work pretty darn good to, compared to what they were before.

--josh

 

As here is storming since 2 days, i equiped myself with pliers, screwdriver and a staple gun and i changed the seat cover - that the cat of the PO loved to scratch - with a new one...went good!

 

Stared at mine in the garage while waiting on the thunderstorms to pass... and they still haven't.

 

Yesterday I replaced the crappy Uni sponge pods with a nice set of K&N filters (take off the gas tank, take off the old filters, oil the new filters put on the new filters, put the gas tank back on).

In the process I found that the rubber brackets that hold (and here I show my true ignorance) those little gold boxes that are part of the electrical system had broken, leaving those boxes dangling from their wires. Now there are three of these things (that I know of) - one under the seat, one under the rear half of the tank, and one under the front half. I'd used electrical tape to "fix" the bracket under the seat a year or so ago, and since that was still holding, and since I had the tank off, anyway, I decided to fix the other two as well.

Y'know, "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" is really a wise saying. With all the pulling and tugging I had to do to get these pieces back in place once I "fixed" them, I ended up exposing a short in the ignition system that took me two hours to chase down (replacing the filters - the job I'd originally set out to do - only took one).

Still three hours later I have a pretty nice-looking set of filters on my carbs, I no longer have any dangling electrical parts, and when I touch the starter, she fires up in a heartbeat, rather than grinding along for ten seconds like she used to. Net net, I'd say that was a good day's work.

Of course, now that I know how easy it is to take that tank off, I'm all itchy to repaint it something other than the crappy matte-black the PO decided to cover it with...

 

New tires mounted today, a set of Bridgestone Spitfires.....
Started cleaning the chain, gawd what a mess......
No more el-cheapo chain lube... messy, + leftover goo from the POs
... On the hit list before putting her back together.....
Finish the chain clean.... clean up the brake drums/shoes...
Sill in decent shape and no delaminating (yay!!)
Will double check the front pads too....

Wheel axles could use some grease, rear was almost dry....

Any ideas on lubing the springs insid ethe brake drum?
shot of silicone lube or some grease?
need something that won't drip or fling...

Anyone think of anything else I should do while I'm in there?

 

I changed the clutch and brake levers, installed my ebay mirrors, fixed the clutch safety switch. Stared at my dented tank for awhile then rode 50 miles.

 

Put her back together.... and OMG!!! what a difference new tires make......

 

took everything apart on the Xj650 cleaned er up some started cutting got everything off the back of the bike cleaned up the cuts started geting ready to weld the hard tail on

 

Waiting on my starter button from Chacal.... Can't start it with no button!

Put the new aluminum brake lever on so it matches my clutch lever. I couldn't stand having one aluminum one and one black one, it drove me nuts for months.

Then I decided to get it all pretty and shiny, and put on two coats of wax.

Had a cold beer and stared at the dent in the gas tank wishing I knew how to fix that.

 

If it's a simple dent where the metal isn't creased, you can try dry ice. Hold it in the center of the dent until the surrounding metal gets frosty. Then, use a hair dryer or heat gun to warm the metal. Open your gas cap. It should pop right out. You can also let it sit in the sun after the dry ice and sometimes that will do it.

Easy cheesy! You can look up dent removal with dry ice on YouTube.

Good luck!

 

If it's a bowl type dent, you can strip the tank, fill the dent in with bondo, and repaint.

Easy!

 

hey all had a good day today finally got the xj out of the shop, here are some pics..and here is a shot of my new ign switch

 

Yeah you make it sound that way, but you're talking to a chick that can't even paint her fingernails with out messing it up.

Some day when I have money (read I have four kids so I'll never have money) I'll pay someone to fix it lol

 

took the carbs off again and found out what size jets were in there found them to be stock. Took the pods off reinstalled the factory airbox. Resync'd
and colortuned. runs great then but a new front tire on and found that it was missing the spacer and dust boot on the right side trying to track those down and shes ready to ride.

 

Most women I know have no idea how to even ride a bike, much less keep it running. You've done a lot and should be proud of your success!

3 years ago I'd never even been on a bike, much less know how to repair one it's always easier to let someone else repair your bike, but you don't get the same satisfaction. You can look at your bike from across the drive and say, I know you.

 

Today I lost the key!! but yesterday i took it for a 140 mile trek around colorado topping oput at 14,230 ft. maxim 650 worked great

 

Today I swapped my old worn out rubber boot for that crazy alternative a flexible coupling 1 1/2!! It works awesome! The best part is, I didn't have to pull the carbs off to put it on!

I heated the part with a heat gun (read 1500v industrial hair dryer) until it was pliable, the slipped it into the recently vacated airbox hole. Tight fit! A little wd40 and I smoothed it into position.

What would have cost me nearly $40 ended up costing me about 3.80+ tax.

This site is AWeSOmE!!!!

 

I made everything far worse than it was by messing about with things i dont really understand!

 

Yeah, B can follow A like that.

Do you work for the government?

Would you consider a leadership position, say perhaps, at the White House, or the Treasury? How about Chairman of the Federal Reserve?


You are very qualified for high-level management positions of almost any type........

 

Re-wired most of it, after pushing it two miles to a friends house, cause it suddenly quit on the expressway....