XJ900 Refresh / Resto

Mods...please move this if I posted in the wrong place.

I was lucky enough to find an original and mostly complete XJ900 on Craigslist in the fall of 2016. I ended up buying a couple of bikes from the same seller and am just getting to the Seca now. I have it up on the lift, have gone over the bike, and am working with the nice gentleman at XJ4Ever to track down some needed items.

I have what I call a small collection of uncollectible bikes that I generally find in need of some repair, fix them up, and then enjoy them when the weather is nice. My main bike is a 2011 Concours that I bought new and now have about 67k miles on it. I also have a 2007 Yamaha FZ1, 2002 Kawasaki ZRX1200R, 2002 Ducati M900S4, and the mentioned 1983 Seca. Of all the brands of bikes I have had over the years...I have probably had more Yamaha's than any other brand and am not new to Seca's as I had a nearly new XJ900 back in 1984, a 1982 XJ750 project, and an 1983 Turbo project.

Back to the current XJ project. It is a low-mile, 2 previous owner bike, and appears to be nearly complete. Sat for an extended period before I bought it, but thankfully it was inside and the owner had drained and filled the fuel tank with race fuel....so there does not appear to be any rust. It looks like most of the parts I need I can get from XJ4 and it will just need a good dose of time and attention to get it up/running. I am planning to pull the OEM exhaust and box it up as it is really nice and I want to preserve it.

Thanks and I will do my best to post updates as I have them.

 

Posting some pictures...

 

Some more....

 

Last couple....

 

Bike is awesome man...

If I ever see one like that I'm definitely grabbing it.

 

Nice looking bike!

 

Pretty nice. What are the plans?

 

Nice !!!!! I'm jealous ....

 

A gentleman named Dave, aka @hogfiddles will want to talk to you about your bike. He has a registry for us delivered 900s.

 

Thanks for all the positive comments! I recognize how fortunate I am to have this bike and will do my best to be a great caretaker while I have it.

No big plans for the bike. I struggle to make changes to collectable bikes that cannot easily be reversed. Although I recognize the XJ900 has not reached the same levels as some of the other bikes of the era (CB1100F, GPZ's, GS-ES's, Interceptors, etc.) I anticipate interest in the model will continue to grow and as a result....I plan to proceed carefully. I just finished a ZRX1200R and I see the Seca in the same light....really cool but they don't seem to get as much attention as some of the other bikes I mentioned.

At present, I am working through a lengthy list of needed parts with the super nice guy at XJ4Ever and hope to get the order finalized soon. I also have a replacement header/exhaust on order (I want to preserve the original system), and then I have a few weeks of work to get it running and safe to ride. I work full time so my garage time can be limited by work, family, and.....upper midwest winter (cold NW wind makes it tough to get the garage warm). First is the front brakes and forks to be pulled, cleaned, rebuilt, and reinstalled. Once it is running, riding, and looking good....I will see how long it keeps my interest.....I tend to get done with projects like this and keep them around a while but I also start feeling bad about having a machine spend most of it's time under a dust cover. I sold a 86 900 Ninja last winter for that exact reason....spent a lot of time on it and it looked super but in the end I was getting reluctant to ride it (parts were about as hard to find as an XJ) and I got an offer from a collector a few states away and sold it in a weak moment. So time will tell I guess.....

Thanks Matt.....Dave kindly reached out and I provided him with my VIN.

Appreciate the warm welcome and the interest in the bike.

 

Smashing bike 1965 Soda.

 

Thanks Franz!

I had a chance this evening to start a more detailed tear down and am attaching a couple pictures. Went pretty well with nothing terribly unexpected found.....although I did end up with another list of parts I need.....I'm worried the patient guy over at XJ4Ever is going to get pretty sick of me.

I do have a question I am hoping I can get some help with from the experts. Before tear down I thought there was play in the steering stem bearing but on closer inspection, those seem fine. However, one of the fork legs has some loose-ness if you will. When I grab the outer fork leg top and bottom and apply some force, there is noticeable play around the inner tube. Any thoughts on what is worn that would cause this?

Thanks for any ideas!

 

Assuming proper fork internal assembly and bolt torques, etc. then worn fork tube bushings, most probably the ones in the lower tube.

 

Thanks for the feedback (along with all the parts help!). Premature I know....but I was thinking it must be something else considering the low miles on the bike but agree with your assessment, worn bushings are the likely cause. I will give those a close look when I get a little time to disassemble the forks.

Thanks again.

 

Man I am jelly

 

Hi gang. It has been a while since I posted on the project progress so thought I would provide an update. Things have been going along more slooooowly than I would like but still moving ahead. Forks have been rebuilt, brake calipers rebuilt, master rebuilt, valve clearance checked, new cam cover gasket and seals, tire reinstalled (previous owners shop had put it on backwards), carbs cleaned and rejetted, OEM exhaust cleaned and boxed up, MAC header installed, cleaning, small repairs done, more cleaning, fixing some issues created from the previous owners shop, and more cleaning, and I test fired it today! Popped right off and settled into a decent idle....unfortunately, I need to apparently double up on exhaust header seals or track down some thicker ones....exhaust leak will prevent me from setting/synching the carbs.

In the interim, I will start reassembling the front suspension so I can flip it around on the lift and finish up the work on the back of the bike. Have not started cleaning the body work yet...just like the rest of the bike, it is a mess of bugs, dust, and dirt (previous owner lived on gravel and it appears he did not own a wash bucket).

Here are some pictures as I stared the partial tear down and inspection;

 

Fork rebuild and final product....I was happy with how they turned out. Hopeful the little bit of 'slop' I could detect prior to the new parts is now gone.

 

Some shots of the OEM exhaust after I gave it cleaning and a bit of chrome polish. It is now safely boxed up and will be stored and kept with the bike.

 

Upon starting to remove the carbs, I found the previous owner or shop they hired apparently muscled them out at some point. The boots from the carbs to the box were not properly in place and the airbox itself had sustained a crack. Thankfully I was able to use a little heat to soften the plastic to get it straightened out and use some of the wonderful plastic weld stuff from XJ4Ever to get it back into usable condition. Carb cleaning and rejet went well. The mixture screws were terribly corroded but I was able to get them out safely and they are now operating nicely (thanks again to parts from XJ4Ever). Sorry about the cluttered workbench....it is not really as bad as it looks in some of the pictures.

 

Last pictures for now....turning the tire around on the rim went easily and the rim cleaned up really nice (I'm going to hold on posting that picture so you can see back on the finished bike). Here is the last picture I took today....most of the bike is pretty clean now and this is just before I hooked up my "test tank" to do the test fire. Aside form the exhaust leak at the head2pipe connection, the motor sounded pretty good.