yamaha virago

I am interested in purchasing a 82 yamaha virago, the seller indicated that the starter drive needs replaced known as the bendix.
Is this a difficult process and are the parts easily replaced, what are we looking at cost wise.

 

as rick once said
virago is Italian for run beside and jump start...i have seen amany of these on craigslist and ebay with the same problem, heck theres one behind my friends shop with the same problem... these go out all the time, and im sure somebody has found a way to replace these fast and easy, they probably do it everytime they change the oil... but im not sure how to do it...

 

There is no real fix for those bikes, Just a major defect in the design. You can go to the Virago forum and there is a guy on there that JB Welds some gears togeather and replaces springs and such but they are still junk. Unless you have hours and hours of nothing to do and the guy wants to give it to you for free. The parts are expensive.
I would stay away from it. Unless you live on a big hill and don't plan on shuting it off til you get back home.

 

I've got a buddy that has an '82 virago and he's trying to figure ut how to squeeze a VTX1800 drive train into it right now.

 

You cannot permanently fix a Virago with a bad starter.
You'll hear a hundred stories.
Weld, springs, shim, different gears, spacers, you name it.
Nothing works.
Nothing.

Virago's get passed-on to the next guy. You'll lose money.
But, you tried.
Don't try.
Don't buy the damn thing. Let some other sucker get hooked.

 

Thanks for the advice, I will pass on the bike

 

my best friend has an 84 xv750 virago he loves it and hasn't really had any problems ...yet!, the starter works but ive had chain saws that make less noise! he knows it's on it's way out just not sure how he plans on fixing it yet, i'd pass and look for something else.
Shaun

 

I had a Virago 1000 once........... never again. biggest POS i have ever owned :2cents

 

I had an 86 1100 virago for 3 years, bought it new and put almost 30000 miles on it with no issues. Infact the guy that bought it off me ran it another 4 years, unknown miles and then sold it running well.

I wasn't aware of any real problems but I do now. I was just looking at a 83 750 on CL with only 5000 miles for 750 bucks, "running well"

I think I'll pass it by. thanks for the heads up

 

I believe the starter issue was finally resolved on later models (1988 and later I think? have to google it..).

 

Kinda makes me doubly glad I didn't get that 920 I saw on CL a couple of years back.

 

Gagang, gagang,gagang,gagang,gagang,rrrrrrrrrrrrr,#%&#@$%**
1988 and later were pretty good bikes at the time. Just like our XJs.

 

a guy i work with has a 94 1100 and says it's the best bike he ever bought he has put over 60000 km's on it since he bought it new in 94 I know a guy here who does for XV's what Chacal does for XJ's and loves them but says run away from any of the 900 series xv's as they weren't worth there weight in scrape!! (I think you can quote me on that!)
Shaun

 

First Generation viragos up through the 84's had the starter problem. After that, they changed to a 4-brush design which gave a much more positive engagement due to available current to the starter. I have an 81, another 81 engine, an 85 xv700, and an 87 xv1100. I'm also in the middle of building a 'viragenstein" consisting of a mix of parts from all three.

Dave

 

there was a guy i was riding with at one point. he had a 82 920 virago and he had to jump the silonoid with a screwdriver to get it to crank and that starter was noisy as hell.....

 

Yamaha NEVER resolved the virago starter problems. In fact I had a 2000 yamaha vstar classic and even it had been through several starters and drive parts. The bikes have a habit of kicking back when you try to start them and bending the starter bolts. The vstar has the same engine as the virago 1100 which basically started out in the small viragos and increased in size along the years.

 

I would love to have the wheels..

 

Seen this on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Virago-S ... ccessories