'87 Radian project

I've always had a soft spot for these funky, parts bin bikes. Don't really know why. My girl has an FJ600, so I know the motor is a screamer.
I missed out on a nice runner last year from a friend of mine, and when I tried to buy it last month the price had gone up by $600! No thanks...

I found this one on Craigslist. Not running because of "carb problems" but with a title. She was asking $700.



She told me it was running until about 9 months ago when she parked it because it started having an intermittent problem with just cutting off. She paid a local shop to go through the carbs and replace the side stand safety switch. It has new Yamaha manifolds and I have new Yamaha airbox boots in a box. The ones one the bike were fine and the shop didn't replace them (though they are missing the band clamps).
It was a little rougher in person than in the pics. I was still working on my friend about his '89, so I passed. I told her I'd have to really low ball her.

After a couple of weeks, I asked if there was any movement on it and she told me "No", and to make any offer as she was moving. I offered $250 and she agreed. Picked it up today and she had found the key, but lost it again! She said she'd take $200, but I told her a key isn't worth $50 and gave her $225.
Another reason she stopped riding is because of some memory issues she's having. She's looking for the key, but I found the numbers and will have one cut.
In the van...


...and her new home.

 

I found some of the things she told me about the cutting-off issue odd.

I asked how it would die....would it cough and sputter and bog like it ran out of gas? Or was it like someone hot the kill switch and turned off the key?
She said it was like the latter. Just cruising down the road and it would die.

I asked if it would restart and she said "Yes, but I'd have to rev the piss out of it for a while". I asked how soon it would start and she said, just long enough to make me frustrated, sitting by the road!

Now, all of these things point to something electrical, to me. Carb issues don't usually just STOP the bike. I was guessing kill switch or ignition switch...and then I found this when I got it home.

I knew the choke cable was stiff and was showing it to my buddy with the van, when I saw the choke plunger not moving.
Choke on, plunger lifted.


Choke off, plunger still lifted!


I can reach in and push the plunger back down with the tip of my pliers. Now I'm wondering if she wasn't riding around with the choke on and fouling the plugs? That would explain the "revving the piss out of it", to get the fouled plugs clean again.

It's late, and I'll investigate further tomorrow. I don't know if I can access the choke plunger to remove it without pulling the carbs. I'll also pull a couple of spark plugs and see what they look like.
I sure would like for it to be something simple like this instead of chasing electrical gremlins.

 

The bike only has 15K miles on it, but it needs some cosmetics...



One of the mufflers is dented, but I have some shorty reverse cones.


There's a dent in the tank, but it's shallow and not creased. I have a friend in the bodywork business and his "Dent Doctor" guys can pop that right out.



She said the tach works, but it's got the common broken-post problem for the cover. Other than that, the gauges are nice. I may swap them out for a low profile digital dash.
The side covers that are missing in the pics are in a box of spares that also included a manual, a battery charger and the original tool kit.
I topped off the battery tonight and will see if it holds a charge.

 

If it is the choke plunger sticking, I'd advise pulling the carbs and visiting the church of clean despite what any shop may or may not be claimed to have done (she had memory trouble right?). If the one plunger is sticking you can bet there's going to be a whole lot of other stuff not quite right with them (float heights/leaking needle valves for one, enrichment jet wells for another).

That said, if you want to try it then fair enough,
personally though I'd lay good money on the carbs needing to spend a day or two at the altar

CHURCH OF CLEAN

 

I have a soft spot for the Radian myself. They just look right, rectangular headlight and all.

 

I already planned on at LEAST pulling a float bowl or two to see if anyone has actually been in there or not. I'll probably end up pulling the carbs and going through them anyway....eventually.

I have to get the GF's FJ600 back together first, and I just finished swapping a CB650 engine into my '71 CB500, so I wanna RIDE!

I'll be doing a lot of reading, a lot of research, collecting parts and making a game plan. Then I'll REALLY tear into this thing!

 

Well, so much for the "fouling plugs" theory...

 

Well, I didn't mean to get this deep into it right now...



Last night, I topped off the battery and placed it on the charger. Went out this morning to see if it was taking a charge (it is) and the next thing I know, I'm out there in my bathrobe disassembling the front end.

All to get to this:


Dang! I think they grabbed an airbox and an ignition switch and built a bike around the darns things!

Eh, I was planning on doing something with the gauges and headlight anyway...

 

Cleaned carbs, my ass.
I knew I was in trouble when this came out of the drain screws.

 

Oh, and the locksmith can make me a key. He just needs blank YH-50. He had YH-46, 47, 48, 49 and....51.
On order and will be done in a couple of days.

 

Pretty nasty.


I have the slides polished and clunking, the jets and float bowls are soaking, the choke circuit has been cleaned and doesn't stick now.

Then I ran into some issues.
Two of the screws for the needle set are stuck and buggered up...



All four of the slow jets are buggered up and stuck. One of the mixture screws is stuck and they messed up the head when they drilled out the plugs. The other three came out, but the slots on the heads of them are iffy.

I will get new bowl gaskets and needle jets. There's a carb guy down the street from me, so I'll see if he can help me out with the stuck stuff and maybe have some replacement parts.

 

I did get the bike cleaned up, engine degreased (it was really pretty clean, just getting it ready for a respray), and cleaned up the wheels a little.



Also removed the fender extender.

 

Looking at the last pics made me think that this would be a easy dirt/street tracker style mod. 8)

 

I would have just won all your money
shame somebody with no brain has tried to do the job before you, would've been a whole lot easier if they'd just not bothered but there ya go, this is where you're at & at least all the float pillars are there (inept people and old hands alike have been known to snap these off, think they're made of chocolate so make sure carb guy treats them with kid gloves!)

If you're lucky he'll have some easy-outs and other techniques to rescue the carb bodies, and Chacal (XJ4Ever) has all the parts including jets you'll need for a rebuild once the bodies are ready.

The rest of the bike seems to have cleaned up pretty well (and looks 100 times better without that bumble bee's butt sticking out the back like it's waiting to sting you!)

 

Oh, yeah...only one of the float pins came out easily. And whoever was in there before put them in backwards, so I had a hell of a time getting my skinny punch on the pin to press them out. I was pretty nervous that I was going to break a post but, with the help of my awesome girlfriend, we got 'em all out safely. I also polished them up .

 

Where do you find a woman like that, I need a girl that can handle rebuilding carbs too

 

She just did her FJ600 carbs the other day. The shop messed up and sent two #3 and two #4 manifolds, so we're waiting on that, then her FJ gets a valve adjustment and carb sync and she'll be back on the road this year.





And one of her on my XS650.

 

Got three of the slow jets out and my buddy helped get the third out. I replaced it. New O-rings under the mixture screws. New needle valves. Floats checked. Slides and bores polished until they pass the "clunk" test.
Just waiting on bowl gaskets.

The key guy said he found a key and should have me hooked up soon, too.

 

Carbs cleaned and waiting on new bowl gaskets.

 

A while back, I picked up this Brembo master cylinder. I can't remember the bore off the top of my head, but I was going to use it with a Brembo caliper on a single disc XS650.
I wonder if it would work on the Radian?

 

Sorry off topic, I noticed the paypal label was Pitney bowes. How do you find the customer service? I bought some stuff from bicwarehouse and they were terrible! :evil:

 

Those carbs were dirty. Some peoples idea of carb cleaning is just pouring carb cleaner into the tank (see, that's all the mechanic does huh huh huh).

 

I have no idea! I've had those parts for a while now (there's a Brembo caliper and custom bracket to mount it to an XS650 in the box, too) and they didn't all come from the same place. I have no idea what was in that box originally...I'm just using it for storage.

 

No worries, but just be aware if you consider buying anything from bicwarehouse, they take forever to contact you and forever to refund if it's not delivered

I know the twin-disc bikes had a 5/8" (just over 15mm) master but not sure on the single disc models. As long as it's matched to the brembo caliper it'll be fine though & that'd be a sweet mod to have IMO

 

No doubt!! My wife gives me the deer in headlights look if I just start talking sbout carbs. I'd be afraid her head would explode if I gave her one to take apart!

 

nice find!

 

It's amazing what a difference some Super Bike bars make. I was thinking about installing a smaller master cylinder, but this one just disappears with these bars. And it's brand new and genuine Yamaha, too!

 

Yanked off the exhaust today. Removed the mufflers in preparation for some shorty reverse-cones. Scrubbed the chrome with 0000 steel wool and Windex, then chrome polish. Treated the underside of the collector with rust converter (it's solid, just preventing possible future issues).



Taped it up for a little detailing...



...which included this finned alternator cover from an FZ600.



And that little cover may have been a blessing in disguise. The rotor was FILTHY. The brushes look brand new, but the rotor face showed little to no evidence of contact. I checked it and couldn't even get an ohm reading.
Cleaned the rotor surface with 600 grit steel wool and electrical contact cleaner (sprayed on a shop cloth) and rechecked and it ohm'ed out OK.
Think it's possible that a charging problem could have contributed to the cutting-out issue? The battery was dry as a bone, the rotor was filthy...it could have been struggling to stay charged, causing the TCI and other electronics to starve for voltage.

 

Cleaned up pretty good. I got one run I'm not happy about, but I'll fix that later.

 

Give me your tail light opinions.

Option 1: Stock tail light (I'll fab up a license plate mount)


Option 2: Stock light but "frenched in".


Option 3: Aftermarket. Dual round lights. License plate lights and holder are already there. I'll probably black out the background.

 

Here are the turn signals I'll be using:



The headlight and ears came in today. Mock up on those will begin soon, as well as modification of the rear inner fender.

 

Is possible it was running "off the top" of the battery until it quit & then restarting once the battery "recovered" a little I suppose, as the battery was dry I'd do a charging system check to make sure it doesn't go over 15v when the revs rise too as a faulty reg-rec/loose wire could cause the battery to boil dry/blow bulbs/damage electronics...

I like the original rear light frenched look, better than stock & definitely better than those nasty (IMHO) universal "custom" jobbies

 

I will be doing a full charging system check, for sure. I'm hoping to use the battery that came with it to at least start it and hear it run, but I expect I'll have to replace it.

 

Broke out the cut off wheel and side grinder today. I won't be running the grab rail, so I made these spacers to mount the rear fender properly and to take up the space where the seat is cut out to clear the grab rail. I'll paint them later.

 

I also cut off the wire routing loop from the headlight mount...



..So I could mount this new headlight. Totally different bike with a round headlight, don't ya think?

 

The headlight I bought has this kind of plug (sorry for the crappy pics)...





And the stock wiring harness has the traditional style plug.



It looks like the wiring on the speedo would plug in to the new headlight, and I can figure out the wiring, but I don't want to mess up a perfectly good speedometer, even if I won't be using it.
Can I get the plug to match the headlight at an auto parts store? That plug doesn't mean anything special that I should know about the headlight, does it?

 

I also cleaned and rebuilt the petcock.

 

Anybody recognize these parts? I'm pretty sure that I didn't remove them. I think they were in the box of spares I got from the P.O.
What are they and where do they go?

 

Well, the key fit the ignition and seat, but I couldn't get the gas cap open. Took it back to the locksmith and he said the mechanism was broken.
He had to get medieval on it...



The mechanism was broken, rusted and had evidence that whoever lined the tank got liner in the gas cap/lock area.



While hammering on it, we managed to put yet another dent in the tank....grrr!

 

And if that wasn't bad enough, I found out that the liner is coming out.




If Radian tanks weren't as rare as hen's teeth, I'd just look for another one. Luckily, the dents that are in the tank are all shallow and not creased. My body guy can handle these with ease. I'm going to have him take the tank to a radiator shop he uses and have it boiled out and just start from scratch.

 

I kinda knew what I wanted to do with the rear fender/tag light/brake light, but wanted a second opinion. So, my Dad popped in today and, after a little consultation, we pulled out the cut off wheel and grinder and let the sparks fly!



Sectioned the fender extender...



...and made this. All Yamaha parts and it'll plug right in to the wiring harness.




I painted it and will reassemble once everything is dry.

 

I decided to go with the Danmoto Nano gauge. We took the stock gauge bracket, cut and bent and fabbed up a mount for the Danmoto. More pics to come when the paint dries.

 

I need to pull it outside for a better pic, but here's the gauge mounted.



Still have some wiring to do. I think I'm going to use the stock plugs for the dash lights and tachometer/tach background lights and just but female connectors on the end. The Danmoto should plug right in that way.

 

I think you need a new gas tank!

 

Possibly. Too bad they're so hard to find! My buddy can handle the dents, for sure. While they're large, the good thing is that they're shallow and not creased. He can pull those out no problem.
Now, the liner.... whew! He swears that the stuff the radiator shop uses will remove it and leave it in bare metal. I hope he's right!

Now, if you know where I could find a decent Radian tank, I'm listening....

 

Check the inside of your new headlight bucket. I think that you'll find the bulb has the standard headlight connector, and the smaller, inline, connector is just an extension so you don't have to open the bucket to install the light.

 

I looked for a replacement bulb today. The H4 bulbs won't fit. The ring around the base is larger than the opening in the bulb holder.
I have a pig tail on the way that I'll splice in.

 

So what is the size of the bulb? You better find out now before you need a replacement.

H1?

H7?

 

I can get a replacement bulb...I guess it's an H1?....but it has the pig tail with the small connector on it. The bulbs that fit don't have the three prongs.

 

Your supposed to direct the sparks away from your crotch, unless you like the heat. :lol: The round light looks good. Did you figure out the wiring?