81 yamaha xj550 maxim spring cleaning

Ok so today I officially began Operation Spring Cleaning. Pulled apart alot. Added a inline fuel filter. About to put in a huge order with chacal.
To Do List
Brakes:
New Lines
New pads front and rear
New rotor
Rebuild caliper and master

Engine:
Sync carbs
adjust mixture

Drive:
New chain
New sprokets

Overall:
Make everything clean and shiny

Already done:
Replaced fuse box with modern updated one.
Shims in spec
Fresh oil
charged and maintained battery
rebuilt carbs.
clutch rebuilt
fork oil replaced.
new seat cover
new plugs
new caps
added fuel fiter
Open to any and all suggestions during this operation. Wish me luck.

 

Good going.

Use mineral spirits and a stiff brush to clean out that front sprocket area; be careful of the neutral switch wire.

The spots of corrosion on your sidecovers and alternator cover are under the clearcoat. You're going to need to use Aircraft Paint Remover to strip the clearcoat before you can polish them. If you put a quadruple-layer of masking tape over the "YICS" badges and then are careful, you can leave them in place. (The YICS badges, not the covers.)

There's one more thing you should probably do now. The tach drive will start leaking about 200 miles after you put the bike back in service, both of my 550s did. There is an internal seal and a D-section o-ring involved; I did a how-to: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=19538.html Otherwise it'll be one of those "oh, what now?" moments when you discover oil spatters.

 

Thanx Fitz. I always have a problem with the tach coming loose. Should I use locktite to keep it in place? When I first opened that cover I thought all that oil was from the engine but looking closer I saw it was from the chain. So glad it was. One less thing to fix.

 

Okay so today started reassembling the bike. New chain new sprockets new brake shoes and pads stuff like that. Discovered my master cylinder wont pump out fluid anyone know what causes this.

 

A need to rebuild it. New brake lines too I hope?

 

You mean tach CABLE? At which end? (There's a trick.) And it actually applies to both ends, and to your speedo cable.

Did you ever notice that the cable has FLATS on the ferrule, right by the collar?

If you use a small wrench to hold the cable by the flats to keep it from turning while you tighten the collar, it won't "wind up" the cable as you tighten it. If the cable is allowed to turn as you tighten the collar, it "preloads" the cable making it want to apply "unscrewing" pressure as it vibrates. So it keeps coming loose.

 

I am waiting for my new lines to arrive. I disassembled the master cylinder and cleaned it. I am waiting for the rebuild kit but I was trying to see if it still functions. It sucks but pushes zero fluid through it. I saw on here people saying. To use a vacuum pump to get the fluid through the lines. But I thought the master would posh fluid through kind of like a squirt gun. Am I wrong on that

 

Oh the tach cable always comes loose on the engine. I thought put some loctite on the threads.would.stop that

 

One major thing I noticed that you forgot to do was to have your valves adjusted. This should be done before you set your carbs so get those valves set and then redo your carbs (sync and color tune) if you want your bike to run at it's best. It really makes a huge difference. You really don't need a pump for your break line. It is rather easy and can be done in a matter of minutes with new lines, master cylinder and new union bolts.

 

From the 1st post it looks like her's already done the shims. 2nd on the list of already done is "shims in spec" I agree with Fitz on the cable "preloading". Had to figure that out on my own when I first got the bike.

 

Yeah the shims are in spec. Hopefully when I rebuild the master cylinder it will be all that was wrong with it.

 

Well the bike is finished and running great. Ill have to post some pictures of it here soon. Had to rent a vacuum pump to do the front brakes. THey work better than ever now. Feels good riding again.