New Member here, just saying hello!

hey folks!
My name is Crash, and I'm located in East Tennessee!
I'm 36, a psychobilly guitar player, and I have been a motorcycle and classic car enthusiast my entire life.
My last bike was an 86 Honda VT1100C. I sold a 65 Ford Falcon I had, and had some extra money...I was just browsing the bikes on my local Craigslist, and I came across a 1980 XJ650 Maxim. It was a beautiful bike, it had mini apes on it, new tires, and only had 15k miles on it...and while I wasn't technically LOOKING for a new bike...my brain just got stuck on this XJ.
After doing some research...I decided I had to have it...for a 35 year old bike, it was Damn near MINT. I'm A BIG GUY. 6'2"...260lbs...so I figured I'd need to get forward controls for it. I was literally looking at forward controls on TCBros when I got the text that the dude was home...and I could come look at the bike. When I got there to check it out...IT ALREADY HAD FORWARD CONTROLS ON IT! I'm knew this meant that this was the bike I needed. I didn't even haggle on the price (I got a KILLER deal on it anyway) and took it home. I have barely been off of it since I bought it. I'm so glad I discovered this bike, and I was super stoked to find this forum of other folks that shared my love of this under appreciated machine.

I love the look, I love the way it handles, and I love the performance.

So tell me...what's the most common thing that folks do to these bikes to get all that they can out of them.

Can't wait to meet some of you other cats that dig these bikes as much as I do.

Is there a common, reasonably priced LED headlight option out there for them?

I'm Going to attempt to attach some photos of my new love, and look forward to talking about these bada$$ machines with you guys!

I'd also be curious, after looking at the photos and knowing the low mileage on the bike...if anyone wants to try and guess what I ended up paying for it!

 

If you want to squeeze every last drop outta that mill, you gotta get it back to brand new with a good carb cleaning:
http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/in-the-church-of-clean.14692/#post-120723
and get your valves in spec:
http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/airhead-valve-adjustment-with-pics.14827/#post-122016
Keeping the bike in proper tune is essential. Learn tons here:
http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/the-information-overload-hour.27544/

 

Welcome to the club - we'll show you the secret handshake later . Nice looking bike - looks like the PO took good care of it. Regardless though don't trust anything they said in terms of maintenance.

Read this - http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/the-information-overload-hour.27544/

Change the rear brake-shoes before you ride it.

http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threa...r-brake-bike-owners-please-take-a-look.15874/
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Looks on my fone like braided steel brake lines on top but old ones from the wheel?
You want all steel.
And I don't know about taking the carbs apart of it runs good. Take the drain screws out of the float bowls and catch the gas, see how much crud comes out then decide.
I'll take a guess, you stole it at 700$

 

Welcome!

I was going to guess $800. The pipes look awesome, at least from the angles we're seeing. Actually, all the metal looks awesome. I'm guessing just the top brake line was updated to meet the length for the new handlebars. You'll want to replace the bottom line as well (rubber was only rated to last 4 years) and likely need to do a MC and caliper rebuild. Rear drum needs new shoes if they haven't been done this millennium. They like to delaminate, leading to randomly-timed rear wheel lockup (but usually at highway speed).

 

I'm not sure how old the pads and shoes are. I changed the oil this afternoon...and the oil was super clean.

As far as the metal..man, I haven't found a pit anywhere on it, except for on that luggage rack...which may be coming off soon anyway! Not even a pit on the chrome fenders. I am SUPER satisfied with it. I had to adjust the idle a little...it was idling high, so I adjusted the little idle screw and she purrs now.

I'm planning on taking it to a local bike shop and having the brakes, etc gone through as soon as I have an extra buck or 2...I agree on the braided cables...no clue why they went with one braided, and one rubber when they put the new bars on...but all of the cables, hoses, plug wires, etc seem to be newer and in great shape.

As far as price...I wish you guys were right. The guy had it listed on Craigslist for a grand, and after 2 days of bugging him and REALLY pissing him off, I got him down to 930.00. Which I thought was an amazing price for such low mileage, excellent condition, and the forward controls...that I was already planning on spending 225.00 on....but got a happy surprise when I showed up to test ride it, and it already had them.

The Yamaha emblems on the tank had been painted black when I got the bike...and I was just going to take them off, but I was KIND of disappointed when I took them off and found out that the tank was indented under them. SO, I decided to paint them red, to match the color scheme on the vt1100c I've been riding for years... but after a day, decided I hated them in red, so I made them black again. Such is life

How many miles do you guys usually get out of a tank of gas on your xj's?

 

I agree with Polock. If it is running well, the full carb clean seems unnecessary. You can subtract a couple of bucks from your sale price, because not cleaning carbs is worth money, right? That's not what we usually see on here though. Check this one out for examples of what is more usual when picking up one of these:
http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/previous-owner-masterpieces.57929/
When you compare this with what you don't have to do to yours, 930 bucks is a steal. Most spend at least $800 on top of the bike's price to get everything sorted.

 

Wow...so I checked out the masterpieces link, and it made me run IMMEDIATELY down to my garage, and look under the ol' seat. Like just about everything else on the bike, I was pleasantly surprised.

Looks like the fuse box has been updated



And all of the wiring seems pretty clean. There was ONE instance of a wire nut being used to join some wires together, and immediately after taking these photos, I pulled it off and used a nice butt connector to do join them CORRECTLY and so that they couldn't shake loose
The white wire was spliced into the brake light to connect to some brake lights that are actually mounted on the sides of the sissy bar...which I thought was pretty cool...even though it appears that I have a bulb to replace tomorrow


And one lonely black wire was not attached to anything...can anyone help,me out with what this is supposed to go to? I looked up the wiring diagram...but it may as well be in Latin. I'm horrible at reading those things

 

Oh...and for the member who commented on the metal and pipes looking to be in good shape, I snapped a couple of vanity shots. I couldn't be more pleased with the condition of this 35 year old bike! I did however notice under the fluorescent shop lights in my garage...my pipes age going to need a little chrome polish tomorrow!

Good night folks...and safe riding!

 

Even the tool bag is in mint condition. Did you buy that bike from a time traveller? Maybe a museum curator? Now you've got me hunting for something wrong... anything... anything at all!
Got it! Is that a bit of oil seeping from the head in the last picture?
Trust me, this is symptomatic of my jealousy. Don't ask me to post pics of my ride!
I'm also jealous of your screen name. It rings a bell somewhere deep in my memory... Where did you come up with Crash Fistfite?

 

Wait a minute... there's a sticker that goes on the final drive housing?!

 

Updated fuses, and tool kit condition (as well as the rest of the bikes appearances) indicates to me that we MAY potentially be looking at a rare find of the POnon-jerkimaximus.

Crash - for what it is worth, there are many fine tutorials and knowledgeable people here who can walk you through repairs. A lot of shops don't know and love these bikes as much as they should, try rebuilding the brakes yourself, not hard and you can get all the right parts from XJ4Ever (upper right hand corner of this page).

http://www.xj4ever.com/rear drum brakes.pdf
http://xjbikes.com/forums/threads/how-to-rebuild-your-master-cylinder.18377/ (pics aren't showing)

 

Yep. Reminds you of what gear oil to use. Chacal has them if you need one.

 

Welcome to the club. Nice bike.

Gary H.

 

Thanks everyone. I'm super excited about the bike. It appears to have been well loved, even before I got it...it only has a bit over 15k miles on it. I couldn't be happier.

NO...that's not oil seepage lol. Just a little dirt I had to clean off...and as far as my name...well, I'm a guitar player in a psychobilly band...and we were all trying to come up with stage names. Crash Fistfite (intentional misspell on fistfight) was just about the most badass thing I could come up with...so that became my name. Then, I got ordained online because my sister's fiance was dying and they wanted to get married while he was in ICU..so I became "Reverend Crash Fistfite" my real name is Josh..but my friends call me Crash, Reverend Crash...or simply Rev

 

"Rev Crash on a motorcycle" sounds like a bad weekend.

 

Or a really good one.