XJ650RJ Seca Build

Worst case, you can just sell the bike to me and be done with it

 

Yes I bought new clamps and caps from Len. I will try and remove the intake manifolds and use the gasket spray. Hopefully I can keep the same gaskets which were installed a few weeks ago. I know I’m lens catalog it says they must be replaced every time, but we’ll see if I get lucky. Then I can rule that out as a possible source. I think I have a can of that exact spray on gasket material.

I’ll look into another copper crush washer for the colortune if I can find where to source some.

I’ve also got an old set of the rubber caps, if the problem persists after replacing the gasket seal, I’ll start swapping the caps to see if that solves the problem.

 

The gaskets should be fine to reuse (with the spray), unless they tear.

 

So I was able to reinstall those gaskets per your suggestion and this appears to have helped.

After building an aux gas tank I was able to do a proper carb sync and colortune on all for cylinders and she runs the smoothest she ever had since I bought her. I ran out of sun light and didn’t want to ride in the dark. So I’m saving the test run for today. But signs are looking good.

 

Onto the next issue -___- at least the silver lining of this is that after all of this is done, I will know this bike inside and out. haha

So Cylinder 1 is no longer firing. After pulling the plugs, I see that the plug is covered in gas. I've verified that I get spark, and that compression is even across all 4 cylinders. So this leads me to a fuel issue. So I will be pulling the carbs to double check everything. I did a fuel level check on the bike and noticed that the level was a tad low if anything. So I will pull the carbs and re-go through them to ensure that nothing bad made its way through the fuel line into the carb.

 

Well, I figured out why after getting the bike synced and running, cylinder 1 decided to stop. I found this inside of the float bowl when I took it out to inspect something. No wonder cylinder 1 was drowning.

After re-installing, I finally got all 4 cylinders to fire. Tomorrow will be for re-tunning everything. Fingers crossed this will be the last one.

 

I make my own intake gaskets...I have a roll of thick gasket material, a fine tip Sharpe marker and an xacto knife with a new blade, use manifold as a template trace around , and cut the gasket material to shape. The home made gaskets have worked great I put a smear of grease on both sides , if I have to pull manifold will come off easy . Your bike is coming along good.

 

todays activies:

• Carb sync
• Colortune
• Carb sync
• Oil change

After today’s activies the bike runs much smoother. I noticed a hint of gas in the oil. I’ve verified that my petcock is not leaking. So I’m hoping this came from cylinder 1 being flooded with gas while the jet came out. I plan to put some miles on the bike and then do another around round of colortune and another sync. After that it’s time to buy some new rear shocks to replace the factory ones.

 

Hagon shocks are a good upgrade but are not cheap.

 

Is it safe to assume if while the bike is idling, i fresh down on the sync screws and the idle drops that my butterfly plates are not properly set / sealed? Or is this back to the never end cycle of chasing an air leak?

 

Removed the card and reset the butterfly plates on the carbs. I noticed 1 had a little more light shining through than the others when the rack was broken. So I reset that. While I had everything in the bench, I rechecked the fuel levels and noticed 2 were just outside of spec. So I spent some time to get all 4 exactly at 3mm.
Over the last few days the bike has run much better. Still not 100% but deffinetly close.

 

What are you using to sync the carbs? spray starter fluid on the carb body where any leak is possible and on manifold boots to make sure everything is sealing properly. If it shoots up in rev that's where the leak is or around. Go slowly and make sure all excess fluid is wiped up.

I use a pair of hagon shocks on my bike an di am happy with them. Being 6'1" at 235 they work well.

 

So after some time I’ve gotten the bike dialed in. After a few additional minor updates to the carbs the bike is running the best it ever has. Took it out for a 100 mile ride over the weekend. She did great even on the freeways, and especially great during some backroad detours.

 

I picked up a complete XJ900 oil cooler setup. I plan to get that installed on the bike here shortly but needed some confirmation that I wasn’t able to find so far.

My understanding is that with the XJ900 oil cooler on a stock XJ650 the mounting hardware won’t line up. That’s fine, I plan to build some custom brackets anyways. I eventually plan to upgrade to the spin on oil filter, but until then, am I able to use the XJ900 oil filter as I have the complete XJ900 setup that includes the oil distribution plate, and the oil filter cover assembly. And then at a later date then I can swap out the filter housing with the spin on? Or are there issues with using the XJ900 oil filter components on the xj650?

 

Yes!

The XJ900RK/RL components are the same as used on all XJ650/750 models which used the factory cooler. The later version XJ90o's used a different type distro plate which may (or might not.......) work properly on the other models.

Yes!



The only issues that you may run into is the cooler hoses...........those are pretty specific to individual models because of their shape and length, the metal pipe part of the hose assemblies are pretty specifically shaped to fit particular frames and to have the proper length to reach the cooler location. Check your clearances around the exhaust header pipe(s), you don't want the metal tubes portion of the cooler hoses to get to near the header pipes, will defeat the purpose of an oil cooler!


P.S. cool pictures!

 

Thanks for the info. I’ll make sure that the line lengths work out. If not I’ll try to scout out some shorter lines. Fingers crossed.

 

So I got my XJ900 oil cooler delivered yesterday and got to cleaning. Not too bad for a finished result after some degreaser and paint. I did a quick mock-up / text fit and everything should line up. I will need to create a custom mounting bracket. So once that’s done, I can get this installed. The fresh paint should help match the painted engine, as well as replacing all of the mounting hardware with matching new chrome Allen head bolts.

 

Looks good.
If I did that I'd have to strip my whole bike down for restoraton so it'd match.

You will also need to modify the hose keeper, or get the correct one for the 650. The mounting holes are a lot different on the 650, in that there are two of them instead of one. When I ran the 650 Turbo cooler on my 750 I didn't bother using the hose keeper, and it worked out fine, so you might consider that option.

 

Oh good point, I didn’t check the positioning of the hose keeper. I will have to look at that when I build the cooler mounting bracket and see what work I’ll need to do for that. Thanks for the tip.

 

So I attempted to install the oil cooler today. Unfortunately I ran into a few fitment issues. Due to the bike having wrapped pipes from the PO which I initially liked the looks of, once I got the plate installed between the engine and the oil filter, I realized that I would not be able to get the oil filter on/off without removing the exhausts. Since I don't really want to remove the exhaust pipes every time I have to do an oil change, I realized I would have to wait until after I pick up the spin on oil filter conversion. But the good news is that the hose keeper positioning works out perfectly. So one day after I get the spin on oil filter, I will attempt to re-install the oil cooler. For now, it goes on the shelf.

But first, i still need a new set of rear shocks. Been looking at the progressive 412-4008B/C shocks. They are the same spring rate as the 12.5 shocks, but 13 shocks. I'm leaning towards this as my rear wheel gap as decreased due to my custom seat pan, as well as me being over 200lb's when i'm on the bike it could use with a little extra travel.

So future projects for the seca:
1. Re-wire the hand controls (the moto gadget m-button is acting up due to interference and giving me false turns signals)
2. New rear shocks
3. Spin on oil filter
4. Install oil cooler

Until then, at least I can enjoy the bike.