What did you do to your Yamaha today?

I went for a ride.......... nice sunny day!
Froze my butt off...... went home and got a coat on....
froze hands off....... got gloves on.....
Not too bad now.
Next time I'll look athe the thermometer before I ride. 48 deg F
Nice sunny days can be rather decieving.

Also got a gel seat cushion, WOW is that nice!
Used to be with my bad back I was limited to about 150 miles at a time.
Now it feels like I could ride all day easy!
I really like the difference it made.

 

Canceled the licence plate. Sniff, sniff. Fuel stabilizer has been added, oil changed and it sits in the shed till spring (usually May). Will pull the battery one of these days as well. Already have a list of things to do for next spring. Repaint the pipe and wheels. Strip clear off the forks and polish. Probably replace wheel bearings while the wheels are off. Ride, and take photos of my XJ and the world's largest duck.

 

Thank god, i broke a leaky drain plug on the right side of motor (12mm allen wrench size), went to shop/salvage and got another one, plus an oil cooler!!! Went back to shop for the bolt to hold it on ha ha ha. Installed oil cooler and a make shift bracket for it. Did some polishing, plenty left. Used some seafoam in the oil, changed and flushed oil. Now for that ticking noise sounding like its coming from the YICS cover on the right side... Hopefully nothing too bad... Day after tomorrow: put a helicoil in the valve cover screw that is stripped out, with some gasket maker over the old valve cover gasket.. Eventually: save up for valve shims and shim tool, valve cover gasket, synch kit, and that clear spark plug thingamajig.

 

You mean the mistress.....

If it's got tits or wheels... It costs you money 8)

 

Lets see, I ordered a new headlight bucket and associated hardware.
Conceived several new ideas for the new paint job.
Looked online for new turn signals to replace the old boring, and broken stock ones.
Unfortunatly I didn't get to ride as I am over 3000 miles away from it right now.
Not much else, I am looking forward to getting home and installing the new tank and all the other stuff I bought to fix it after the accident...oops, I mean incident!!

 

Bought 3 quarts of 20w50. And some rainx for the face shield.

 

Do they have another one?

 

Installed Vetter Trunk and Saddle Bags, Started it up after 4 months, and ......... IT'S ALIVE

 

Dropped it in the f'n driveway and dented the tank + smashed one of my mirrors (well... that was yesterday).

 

schmuckaholic, They might have another plug, but as for the oil cooler not for a 750/650. They have several of the cooling part of it but only had one of the plates that fix to the block. If you have an 800 or something, they have several of them in a bigger diameter, but I had a hard time finding the bolt to fix it to the frame. Stole one from one of the bigger ones still on a block and not sure if they would have another of those or if you can even order that part... I told the shop that if they get ahold of anymore that I would gladly take it off their hands, I paid 35 for the cooler and 5 when i went back for the bolt. Not a bad price, keep my eyes out for another one to come in.

As for today, put in heli coil on valve cover bolt, cleaned and put some clear rtv sealant on gasket... Still some leaks though ha ha. Get one next pay day.

 

RTV isn't the best way to stop a Cam Cover leak. Ideally, you should just smear the Gasket's mating surface and the Head's mating surface with a light coating of oil and let the gasket ... slide and "Form - fit - flat" on the top of the engine all the way around.

If the Gasket needs some help keeping a persistent leak at bay ... then, you rip a page out of the Race Prep Handbook.

Using "Permatex HighTack Spray-A-Gasket" ... shoot a quantity of the Permatex into a Tuna Can.
Using a small, artist-type paint brush ... brush some on the "Locating Channel" for the Gasket to hold the Gasket in place when you invert the Cover.
While the sealant you just brushed into the Channel is "Tacking-up" ... brush some on the INSIDE pf the Gasket and position the Gasket, with precision, all along it "Locating Channel" and ~~> LIGHTLY <~~ "Seat" the Locating Tounge into the Channel.

When the Gasket is seated. Apply a thin coat of the Permatex to the Mating Surface of the Gasket ... followed by "Painting-on" a thin coat all around the Mating Surface of the Head.

Before the two surfaces begin to set and Tack-up ... Place the Cover in Position and start all of the Retaining Screws.

Tighten the Screws from the INSIDE ~> OUT.
The Gasket will position itself and "Squish-Down" on the sealant.
Apply the tightening Torque.

Your top-end is leak-proof!

 

Thanks for the advice, should I do that with a new gasket or just to fix an old one? I actually fixed most of the leaks, just leaks in one new place and one old one, should be better off for at least another week til i get paid. Just did a temp job on it. What would you recomend for spraying off the block, for the grease and oil caked and baked on? That wont harm the paint ha ha ha.

Oh, and reset auto cam chain adjuster, quieter now....

 

Dammit. Well, it was worth asking.

What did I do today? Well, last night I had rinsed off the bike, and added another 1/2 turn to the center carb sync screw. Now, adding one turn between 3 and 4, and one turn to the center one had resulted in 3's plug browning up a bit, but nothing on the plugs for 1 and 2. Plus, the engine didn't sound quite right when not accelerating.

So, rode the thing into work today, and as soon as I got off the freeway, the engine started racing at about 4000. Blue smoke coming out of the mufflers. Okay, I did a Bad Thing. Before I left work tonight, I backed off the center sync screw one full turn. Racing idle go bye-bye. Engine still doesn't sound quite right, though.

So, it looks like I'm going to have to pull the carbs and bench sync again. How many motherfarking times am I going to have to pull these carbs? I'm getting sick of this shiznit.

 

When you get close to being dialed in ...

You don't make the adjustments in Turns, Half-turns or even quarter-turns.

The "Window" of Optimum Pilot Mixture (when the Bike is Idling good and there is NO Hesitation or Backfire coming off Idle) ... is:

About the width of a Nickel.
About the width of 2-Dimes held together.
Less than [.] <~~ That!

That's all the fine-tuning adjustment is. A couple of degrees. Period.

Within that confine is:
Lean enough for powerful acceleration and heavy engine braking ... -to-
Rich enough for smooth application of power and engine coasting.

Too lean will get you into trouble ... one way or another. You'll notice oil consumption if you are running too lean. Keep an eye on "The Window"

Too rich will bog you down out-of-the-hole. Too much gas happenin' and not enough air to burn it right. Low power in the off-idle to bottom of the power band.
Too rich sucks.
Bad for the oil, the combustion chamber and likely to foul plugs.
I hate when that happens.

Don't treat the Carbs as a 4-Pack when you are close to being dialed-in.
Threat them individually and just tweak one or two ... however many NEED to be adjusted.

Just remember ... If you have it close.
The "Sweet-Spot" is only a couple of degrees away!

 

That doesn't explain why the left two cylinders still appear to be running lean. I decided to go by your description of the plug colors; that, and before I started this, I checked the header pipes whilst warming up to make sure all cylinders were firing. They were; in fact, #4 was much warmer than the other 3. Its plug color bore this out. I added one turn between 3 and 4 to try and even things out, which it did to some degree. The one turn on the center sync screw was an effort to try and bring 1/2 in line with 3/4.

Now, if I only had that exhaust gas analyzer...

 

You two are talking about different screws.

 

I kinda suspected as much. Unless I miss my guess, he's talking about mixture screws, and I'm thinking carb sync screws.

That being said, I'm curious as to why I shouldn't "treat the carbs as a 4-pack" -- they're all the same make and model of carb. They should all function the same way with the same settings.

 

Today:

Ordered new battery for the 650. Will get distilled water later today for the old battery, but the old battery - if it still provides any voltage - will be used mainly to provide power to the 750 for checking its electrical system. It'll never *start* another bike, I don't think.

Got the fogging oil for the 750's likely-to-be-bone-dry cylinders.

Got motorcycle-sized jumper cables.

Wrote a bunch of e-mail to various XJBikes.com people looking for rear blinker stays for the 650.

Located *exactly* where they keep all the oils I need for the bikes at the power sports shop (no $$ for that just yet). Fortunately, I won't be running the bikes much before the cash gets in. I'm thinking 80W-90 for the gear oil and 10W-40 for the XJs. (I put 20W-50 in the CBR and the Ninja in general, although those are switching to 10W-40 for the cold as well.)

Updated the "to do" list. Day-umn, there's a lot to do for these poor bikes...

 

The Final Tweaking ... after reading the Plugs ... will depend on the condition of each separate Cylinder.
Various factors come into play. Valve condition, ring condition and the sensitivity of each Pilot Screw makes treating each Carb as an individual Unit as one will require more or less Mixture Adjustment as another.

The Plugs will tell the story. If you have one that shows its running a bit more lean or rich than the others ... you'll only have to tweak that Mixture Screw ... not all of them.

Generally, the outside pair run cooler than the two Siamese middle two.
So tweaking the Pilot Mixtures separately is needed.

 

Put a new front tire on (Kenda Cruiser), put some "engine" clearcoat paint on the gas tank to hopefully stop the clear coat from going to crap when I spill gas on it (which seems to be quite often), fixed the speedo drive...woo hoo.... (now I'll have to see how accurate the new gauge is) and put on a cool little filter on the crankcase breather that matches my pod air filters pretty nicely!

Then I took it out and rode around for 20 minutes or so. I'll be getting it inspected this week so I can ride without worry about being pulled over. Then we'll fill 'er up and see how she runs for a good ride. She's been pretty much in moth balls since I brought her home in May 2004. Time to let her breath in some of that cool fall air in the northeast!

 

Re-lubed the throttle cable and throttle grip, was sticking on me yesterday morning.....

Checked the plugs after last weeks tweak, left side tan, right side still a bit too gray.... more tweaking tomorrow, may pull the carbs and clear out the enrichment tubes as they seem to be clogging.... (inline filter still letting some fine crap through it seems... :/ )

 

Couple pics. A little blurry. The speedo pic just shows that it worked (has a couple miles on the odometer).

Speedo works! Ta da!


Nubs on the tire...mmmm....you can see my welding helmet hanging on my welder under the bench in the background. I'm easily amused.


My crankcase breather filter to match the pods:

 

Not a whole lot. New battery is on the way. Filled the old battery with water and set it on the charger. We'll see how that goes...

 

schmuck, you consider them seperate carbs because each one supplies it's seperate cylinder.
You fine tune each cylinder to run perfectly but then you have to adjust sync screws to get each cylinder to work in unison with the other 3 so they are all 4 working together.

By cranking those sync screws more than the nickle you are surely getting some cylinders to do more work than the others and also causing some cylinders to work harder too.

If you really want to do fine tuning there are some tools that I feel you absolutly MUST have to do the job.
Colortune
Sync Stick or guages or E.G. Analizer (I prefer them in that order)
YICS tool ( I've done it without... just not as good)

Then there is the need to learn to use those tools correctly.

If you adjust your sync without those tools, your just asking for trouble!

Sorry for sounding so negative, but it's the cold true facts

 

I was talking about Pilot Mixture Screws.
Sync Screws ... that's a whole new ballgame.

You have to start with them Bench Synced and Pilot's Preset to 3 Turns Out.

You should have the YICS Tool or Stuff the YICS Passage closed.
Sync the Vacuum Ports.
Get them Butteryflys synced right ... that's the first key element.

Move to Pilot Mixtures.
Get your bike able to Idle and respond to the application of power out of the hole.

The rest of the story is Tweak City!
You Tweak individual Pilot Screws as needed (or as wanted) for the best dialed-in performance you can tune the bike too.

 

I bought a gel seat cushion.

Now I want to say that with my bad back 150 mile trip is pretty uncomfortable.
Now the pad takes away the vibration and distributes my weight a little bit better.
I think I can ride all day now.....well let see.

 

threw the frame out
terminal case of rust cancer

 

Pulled the carbs and cleared out the enrichment ports...slightly clogged....
some sediment in the carb bowls... grrrrr filter definately letting stuff through... (add buy new inlines to the list), tweaked the mixture srcews a bit while they were off. Bought some brake fluid, figured I would give the lines a flush and top off with some clean fluid.... hehe, you guessed it, screws in the master cyl are stuck.... something else to work on over the next few days...

Did a test run, she has a nice growl now for a twin Will let the plugs tell the story later in the week....

 

Those damn master cylinder screws. I now have a nice c clamp as "bling" for my XJ.

 

Ouch..that's NOT what I wanted to hear
Soaking them in PB blaster...will do so for a couple of days and try again...

 

Those screws ought to come right out if you use an Impact tool.

Worst case: Drilling them out!

Even if you have to drill them out ... (Like I did) ... there IS enough meat on the Cylinder to allow for drilling and tapping it one oversize.

Yo have to enlarge the Screw Hole on the Cover too. But, it will make a nice seal and look great if you bump-up a size and use stainless steel Cap Screws to hold the Cover on.

 

Rick - did all that. But... take it from me... be VERY careful when drilling it out. The screw head didn't leave enough "body" to remove from the master cylinder. When drilling out the body... the bit broke off, deep in the hole.

IOW, FUBAR.

Those bits are very fragile.

 

I've had to drill the left bolt in the master cylinder twice. After the second time, I made sure to clean the bolt hole out thoroughly with brake cleaner fluid.

As for the bit, I used a fairly small bit. The idea was not to so much drill out the screw as to give my Easy-Out bit something new to grab onto. Drill a little, then take a #2 phillips screwdriver you don't like so much and bang it into the head. Between the weakened bolt shaft and the extra places to grab, the Easy-Out pulls the bolt right out.

Added water to the battery. Some of the cells were quite low. Attached charger to it for a while (not in the bike), but I could hear the batt bubbling quite a bit, so I disconnected it. I didn't *see* any bubbles, but neither did I look all that carefully. I'll have to see if the new batt behaves similarly when it gets here on Wednesday.

Batt still shows 13.x Volts, so not totally useless.

 

I'm goning to have to disagree. I've posted my experience with the Colortune plug I had gotten from ebay in the past, and it was NOT a good one. I sent the bloody thing back to Britain, and flat out told them I was never using a Gunson product again. If it says Gunson on it, it's not touching my bike. Hence, my wanting an exhaust gas analyzer.

I have the four vacuum gauges, and the homemade YICS. I know where I'm at as far as sync screws go, but I still think I'm going to pull the carbs and start from scratch. I'll probably also recheck the compression while I'm at it, and I need to make a new gasket for the alternator cover, because the last one kinda fell apart on me when I went to check the brushes.

(edit: Just checked, and compression is almost dead even across the board: 130/130/130/125. I think I followed protocol: warm engine, no plugs, throttle wide open.)

 

Today I cleaned, and polished, and cleaned and removed grime and cleaned some more. Lots of riding in the rain last week and I also used some spray grease on some items like foot pegs and the side stand. The overspray combined with road grime made a nasty sticky mess all over my pipes. I know not to do that again!

Oh and then I went for a ride to show off my hard work!

 

if it were me I wouldnt pull the carbs to sync if you have the guages and they work right.
I wouldn't just arbirarily turn one of my sync screws though, I hook the sticks up and use the homemade YICS tool.

 

I replaced the rear brake shoes. It took longer to get out the tools, and put them back away than it did to do the job.

 

I pulled the alternator cover, cleaned off what was left of the old gasket, and set about making a new one with the stuff I got at Pep Boys. While I was in there, I figured I'd check the brushes again, for grins. It turns out that the brushes I thought were well within spec... well... weren't.

Oopsie!

 

I rode it and remembered that I need to do both brakes soon. Anybody know a good place to get shoes and pads?

 

I took my 4 hour riders refresher course, so now I can get on my 750, got to ride her for the first time in 5 months. as far as work, she got all the lights wired up, now I have LED Lights on my Vetter Trunk...... Pics to follow

 

Allright ... you guys inspired me! I'm having starter clutch issues, so today I decided on a total overhaul. The engine is now out ... my bike is going to be awesome!

 

Today I used it to jump start the missus's Skyline lol

 

Discovered that the steering bearings in both of the 650s are going bad. The bearings in the parts bike are quite gone. The ones in the runner are developing the same problem ('notch' in the center and corners).

Additional electrical problem discovered. I'm pretty sure that when I first turn the key that the oil light should come on. I've run a bike with no oil before (long story) and though I do hear some suspicious tapping in the engine on the left side near the carbs, I don't hear the horrible sound of unlubricated valves clacking, so I'm fairly certain that it's something simple like the light itself or lack of continuity in the wiring. I suspect something similar with the rear blinkers.

Also got some more disappointment in the continuing saga of the front end. I finally figured out how to get the front end up the cheap way (center stand + jack stand under the frame just below the headers), only to give the wheel a spin and discover that the wheel and/or the rotor is not true. Going to take both front wheels to a shop near here to have them checked for sure. If it isn't the wheel, it's the axle, something in the bearings, some weird thing in the forks... (all of which are already suspect anyway).

On the plus side, found a guy who will ship me the stays for the rear blinkers and put a new battery in the running 650. Actually starts now! Will have to take it for a longer spin and see if the charging system is working. If the charging system checks out, I'll get on the wiring.

Oh, and the front brakes are still not grabbing all that well. I suspect many things, including very worn pads and a very worn rotor.

Little by little...

 

FYI:

Bearings used for Headset, Front Wheel and Swing-arm are a Universal Standard. They are easily replaced for HUGE savings by buying them directly from a Bearing Supply House ... rather then buying OEM which are marked-up over 50-Percent or more!

 

To check your charging system can you just disconnect your battery, push start it and see if it runs? Ha ha ha. Refilled battery acid, got rear tire changed, running on all new rubber now! I was having to push start my bike, took a full foot-foot and a half of pushing each time. Took me a few starts to see notice that, guess my charging system is good. Refilled fluid and didnt even have to charge the battery! Light is still coming on so guess I need to check the connections again...

 

Jack,
I would strongly recommend against trying to run one of these bikes without a battery attached. You WILL fry the electrical system!
Quote:
"IMPORTANT NOTE: on no account should the engine be run when the battery leads are disconnected, because the resultant open voltage can destroy the rectifier diodes" (Haynes Manual).

If you have had to replace the electrolyte in your battery, it is toast.
Get a new one ASAP.

 

Making a gasket? I thought gaskets were stamped strips of material that had to fit the piece in question. Do you have a blank and cut them, or is this one of those liquid spray/brush-on liquids that forms a seal as it dries? (a la caulk)

I guess the alternator cover gasket doesn't need to make a seal so much as it needs to separate the two metal parts, though, yeah?

 

You can buy gasket material at the local auto parts store for a couple of bucks and cut out your own.

 

Sprayed wheel cleaner on my front rim. Got some on my case savers and dulled the paint. Polishing didn't fix the problem, need to repaint them damn it.

 

cut your own gaskets??????????

Definatley a lost art!!!

I've been cutting my own gaskets and making my own o-rings for years.