My Maxim XJ650

Here are the pictures of my new maxim.

Yamaha maxim again?

Well you read it right, after a long and tedious rebuild on my Honda Sabre it's boiled down to a parts bike due to the engine being to expensive to replace or rebuild. I have started Parting out the bike on Ebay and Craigslist and have sold quite a bit, which is surprising to me because I figured it would take me a year to get this all sold. The absolute great news is I'm making a killing on this thing and should recoup all my invested cash.

So with that being said yesterday I went and looked at another Yamaha XJ650 (no John is not an XS and it does have 4 cylinders) I have plenty of experience with these bikes as I do now with the honda's so this one should be a breeze. This one does run and drives but will need a back tire, it has low miles and looks really nice. Of course with any older bike it could use a good polish but other than that it's golden. So i'm back to the good ol' Yamaha and I hope to keep this one on the road for a long time. I'm not counting out my future purchase on another Honda Sabre but for now i'll stick with one.

The Saga Continues

Well as the story goes I have a loud knocking sound coming from my engine. I've Isolated it to the lower part of the engine using the poor mans stethoscope. I'm going to be pulling the clutch cover off again and checking for any loose bolts that may be hitting the case, but i'm sure that's not the issue. Also I have to check compression to see if maybe I have a bent valve.

If all is not good I'm going to be purchasing a new engine for this thing. Anyone want to come over and help me pull an engine?

It's Alive!!! the Honda is running

Well After a long rebuild I have finally gotten the bike running. I can't say that cleaning all the contacts and wire ends didn't help but the main issue was with the starter clutch. The goof that owned this bike before me rebuilt the starter clutch and when he put it back together he didn't align up the Punch marks on the starter clutch.

As you can see in the picture above if you don't align those punch marks the timing will be off and you won't get combustion.

Also in the above picture he didn't align the pin holes either... So the timing was so off it was never going to start, so i tore it apart and rebuilt it...  Now it fires and runs, although it runs rough it runs none the less..

Cleaning the Components

Today I started cleaning the electrical components, and let me tell you they were nasty - full of spider webs and left over grease it was like cosmoline on an old rifle. I spent most of the morning getting everything scrubbed and cleaned. Now on to the Bike to do the rest, it's going to be a fun filled cleaning day. 

Electrical woes

If there isn't one thing that will drive me insane it's troubleshooting an electrical issue on a motorcycle.. Now until someone shows me otherwise that there are easy ways of troubleshooting an electrical issue on the bike I will stay with my synopsis.

So right now I’m dealing with a possible ground issue or dirty contacts’ on one of the molex connecters. I guess I’ll just have to get a can of contact cleaner and some dialect grease and hit every connector on that bike. I have my multimeater at hand and 2 years of electrical engineering classes to back me up.... oh wait what's that?....... Oh.... ok...... Well I guess i don't have that experience so it's back to the books..



I'll take some pictures of the bike here and show you all where I’m currently at as far as tear down.

My first Post

Ok I got this idea from my brother - I'm going to document my pain and suffering trying to get my Honda VF700S Sabre up and road worthy... Enjoy