I suppose an introduction is in order...
Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 9:28 pm
Hi everyone,
I've been afflicted with this life long love of motorcycles that hasn't gotten any easier as I've aged! I'd started racing off road at 12 and tried just about every type of motorcycle racing there is, MX, Enduro, Hare Scrambles, Short track, TT, Road Race and put counless miles on all sorts of different bikes from Aprilia through Zundapp! Z50's to GL1800's. But I was at a point where I needed a simple commuter bike that I wouldn't get into too much trouble on and wouldn't break the bank. While skimming through CL a couple years back I came across a 92 Seca in Massachusets. Bike had 12000 miles on it, he was asking $800, showed me the bill of sale where he'd paid $1800 for it that spring! It was a little scuffed and scraped, PO said it needed a new starter, he'd taken the clutch cover and C/S sprocket cover apart on his own, not knowing any better I handed over some cash and loaded it in the truck. Little did I know this was going to be such a huge project!
Here it is over this past winter in all it's glory:
Of course, once I put together what the kid had disassembled and hit the starter button and heard it spin without catching I thought to myself, Hmmm starter clutch failure. As some of you know and I was soon to learn, that was not the case. The infamous broken starter idler gear had struck!
I should mention - I attended MMI back in 92, started working as a line tech right after graduation. I worked at franchised power sports dealerships for a little over 15 years, after which I tried a stint in outside sales with a national powersports distributor, relocating to Vermont for the job. Long story short, that didn't pan out too well as I'm now working as a Corrections Officer for the state for the last 7 years! But the job security has really got something going for it!!! I still help out at a local independent repair shop and really miss the bike industry. I keep a pretty good selection of project bikes in my shop, mostly as a (semi) self supporting habit. When money for a project gets really tight I'll crank up the ol' ebay store and pad the war chest to fund the next one. Right now I've got a CB750 cafe that's getting a 850 kit & cam, a KZ1000 that will likely be a drag bike, a SR500 that's getting a full factory resto and a couple small bore CB550's a 77 and an 85. I sold my last project (Yamaha XT350) to get my new mill this spring so I now have the ability to make my own custom parts in house which is waaay cool.
Anyways, back to the XJ - I pulled the starter motor and could see the tooth missing off the idler gear. I downloaded, then eventually purchased the FSM then pulled the engine.
I shopped all over for the parts used, cause hey, I'm cheap and broke! Two bad deals on ebay later left me pretty pi$$ed, but as they say third time's the charm and I found all good parts at great prices. I ordered the needed gaskets and seals, pulled it back in the bay and went at reassembly.
The engine went back together very well, I was a little concerned with the end of the primary chain tensioner, as some material had swiped off and was balled up at the end. I ended up cleaning it up and using it with no problems. THe PO had broken one of the teeth off the clutch basket, so I ended upbuying a nice used one of those, too...
I spent weeks chasing down carb parts, specifically the little acorn nuts that hold the needle jets in place. 3 of mine had been cracked and broken, once I figured out Hyosung uses the same carbs on their SV650 copy I ended up buying all my carb parts there at 1/5 the price of Yamaha and everything fit very well. To fill out the order I ended up buying all new screws for the carbs. Here's a shot of the carbs before cleaning; they had the nastiest mold inside hem I'd ever seen! I HATE CORN GAS!!!
The bike ended up needing new cables, new intake manifolds, float valves, rear tyre (I went with a Pilot road, stock size), brakes, along with the hard parts - gaskets & seals - for the case splitting project. A K&L fuel valve rebuild kit was wasted; no matter how I cleaned the old valve it kept leaking, so I bought a XVS650 fuel valve off ebay (cheeep!) that bolted right on and pointed the right way as a temporary fix. I had an interesting experience when I was taking the rock hard old tire off - one of my tire irons shot out of the tire and hit me in the face requiring 8 stitches and chipped a tooth! I was more than a little freaked out by that one, a couple inches higher and I could've lost my eye!
I bought and installed a used center stand off ebay that was missing the bolts and spring. I managed to get a nice guy in Great Britain to ship one over here for me (it wasn't an international listing) Bolts were sourced from a Yamaha Venture. I still haven't located the correct spring, apparently it had the same part number as the 83 XV920... I have one on there that's a little too long, and simply use a small zip-tie to hold the stand all the way up when not in use. It's too much of a necesity to be without!
I registered, insured and rode the bike for 2800 relatively trouble free miles last summer and fall. I had a really wierd oil leak that I couldn't place, the oil would splatter up on the tail section below the seat, but only if I was really cranking - 80 to 100 MPH. I parked it for the winter then tore it apart this spring to replace the head gasket, really the only place I could figure it was coming from is the two rubber seals around the pressure galleries on the right side of the cylinder. I was right on the money there - the rubber seals were dry and cracked. Cam installation is wierd on this engine to say the least, I ended up having to put some white enamel on the cam dots 'cause I couldn't see them no matter how I looked! Just yesterday I sanded & painted my exhaust and fired it up today with a new OEM fuel valve in place - at $15.00 more than the rebuild kit it's a no brainer! I will price out a new valve for now on! I also just replaced the front wheel bearings which led me to finding this forum - my 7 year old was messing around in the shop and misplaced the wheelspacer! Here's a big shout out to Casper who went above and beyond in answering my question! I also rebuilt the front forks yesterday, installed my own special 12.5 weight fork oil (mixed 10 weight & 15 weight, slows things down just a tad) and I'm in the midst of a spring service.
It's most of the way back together for this season's commuter bike duty, which with a tank bag installed it's really, really good at. I'll likely ride the wheels off this year and plan on some paint for next winter, I'm a big fan of silver & black, but we'll see.
Thanks for having a great forum here!
Tom
I've been afflicted with this life long love of motorcycles that hasn't gotten any easier as I've aged! I'd started racing off road at 12 and tried just about every type of motorcycle racing there is, MX, Enduro, Hare Scrambles, Short track, TT, Road Race and put counless miles on all sorts of different bikes from Aprilia through Zundapp! Z50's to GL1800's. But I was at a point where I needed a simple commuter bike that I wouldn't get into too much trouble on and wouldn't break the bank. While skimming through CL a couple years back I came across a 92 Seca in Massachusets. Bike had 12000 miles on it, he was asking $800, showed me the bill of sale where he'd paid $1800 for it that spring! It was a little scuffed and scraped, PO said it needed a new starter, he'd taken the clutch cover and C/S sprocket cover apart on his own, not knowing any better I handed over some cash and loaded it in the truck. Little did I know this was going to be such a huge project!
Here it is over this past winter in all it's glory:
Of course, once I put together what the kid had disassembled and hit the starter button and heard it spin without catching I thought to myself, Hmmm starter clutch failure. As some of you know and I was soon to learn, that was not the case. The infamous broken starter idler gear had struck!
I should mention - I attended MMI back in 92, started working as a line tech right after graduation. I worked at franchised power sports dealerships for a little over 15 years, after which I tried a stint in outside sales with a national powersports distributor, relocating to Vermont for the job. Long story short, that didn't pan out too well as I'm now working as a Corrections Officer for the state for the last 7 years! But the job security has really got something going for it!!! I still help out at a local independent repair shop and really miss the bike industry. I keep a pretty good selection of project bikes in my shop, mostly as a (semi) self supporting habit. When money for a project gets really tight I'll crank up the ol' ebay store and pad the war chest to fund the next one. Right now I've got a CB750 cafe that's getting a 850 kit & cam, a KZ1000 that will likely be a drag bike, a SR500 that's getting a full factory resto and a couple small bore CB550's a 77 and an 85. I sold my last project (Yamaha XT350) to get my new mill this spring so I now have the ability to make my own custom parts in house which is waaay cool.
Anyways, back to the XJ - I pulled the starter motor and could see the tooth missing off the idler gear. I downloaded, then eventually purchased the FSM then pulled the engine.
I shopped all over for the parts used, cause hey, I'm cheap and broke! Two bad deals on ebay later left me pretty pi$$ed, but as they say third time's the charm and I found all good parts at great prices. I ordered the needed gaskets and seals, pulled it back in the bay and went at reassembly.
The engine went back together very well, I was a little concerned with the end of the primary chain tensioner, as some material had swiped off and was balled up at the end. I ended up cleaning it up and using it with no problems. THe PO had broken one of the teeth off the clutch basket, so I ended upbuying a nice used one of those, too...
I spent weeks chasing down carb parts, specifically the little acorn nuts that hold the needle jets in place. 3 of mine had been cracked and broken, once I figured out Hyosung uses the same carbs on their SV650 copy I ended up buying all my carb parts there at 1/5 the price of Yamaha and everything fit very well. To fill out the order I ended up buying all new screws for the carbs. Here's a shot of the carbs before cleaning; they had the nastiest mold inside hem I'd ever seen! I HATE CORN GAS!!!
The bike ended up needing new cables, new intake manifolds, float valves, rear tyre (I went with a Pilot road, stock size), brakes, along with the hard parts - gaskets & seals - for the case splitting project. A K&L fuel valve rebuild kit was wasted; no matter how I cleaned the old valve it kept leaking, so I bought a XVS650 fuel valve off ebay (cheeep!) that bolted right on and pointed the right way as a temporary fix. I had an interesting experience when I was taking the rock hard old tire off - one of my tire irons shot out of the tire and hit me in the face requiring 8 stitches and chipped a tooth! I was more than a little freaked out by that one, a couple inches higher and I could've lost my eye!
I bought and installed a used center stand off ebay that was missing the bolts and spring. I managed to get a nice guy in Great Britain to ship one over here for me (it wasn't an international listing) Bolts were sourced from a Yamaha Venture. I still haven't located the correct spring, apparently it had the same part number as the 83 XV920... I have one on there that's a little too long, and simply use a small zip-tie to hold the stand all the way up when not in use. It's too much of a necesity to be without!
I registered, insured and rode the bike for 2800 relatively trouble free miles last summer and fall. I had a really wierd oil leak that I couldn't place, the oil would splatter up on the tail section below the seat, but only if I was really cranking - 80 to 100 MPH. I parked it for the winter then tore it apart this spring to replace the head gasket, really the only place I could figure it was coming from is the two rubber seals around the pressure galleries on the right side of the cylinder. I was right on the money there - the rubber seals were dry and cracked. Cam installation is wierd on this engine to say the least, I ended up having to put some white enamel on the cam dots 'cause I couldn't see them no matter how I looked! Just yesterday I sanded & painted my exhaust and fired it up today with a new OEM fuel valve in place - at $15.00 more than the rebuild kit it's a no brainer! I will price out a new valve for now on! I also just replaced the front wheel bearings which led me to finding this forum - my 7 year old was messing around in the shop and misplaced the wheelspacer! Here's a big shout out to Casper who went above and beyond in answering my question! I also rebuilt the front forks yesterday, installed my own special 12.5 weight fork oil (mixed 10 weight & 15 weight, slows things down just a tad) and I'm in the midst of a spring service.
It's most of the way back together for this season's commuter bike duty, which with a tank bag installed it's really, really good at. I'll likely ride the wheels off this year and plan on some paint for next winter, I'm a big fan of silver & black, but we'll see.
Thanks for having a great forum here!
Tom