BK's Winter RestoMod Project - 82 XJ650 Seca

Disclaimer: One week from this first post I will be gone for two weeks. This, uh, "build" will be off to a slow start.

Introduction: Been wrenching on cars and 4x4s for 15 years now. Brand new to bikes. Bought my first bike four months ago; 86 Honda XL 250 R. Great little bike. Shopped around for a winter project that in the spring will be better on the road for me. Picked up an 82 Yamaha XJ650R Seca. This isn't going to be a total mod of a bike, but moreso restoring it back to where it should be.

The bike the day I brought it home for $750:


Had an aftermarket fairing:


The guy I bought it from said all the plastics were original; along with the fairing. Yea. Sure.

Got home and the first thing I did was remove the fairing:


The instrument panel was held with zipties:


So I got to plugging along and fixed the instrument panel. I knew I had electrical gremlins to figure out since the kid had so eloquently installed a switch for the headlight. Also the brakes were locked up pretty good. Didn't get any pics of it, but the caliper slides were all frozen. Popped them out with a c-clamp, lubed them up with lithium grease, and went on my way. Brake pads were new though. Strange.

 

Last night I spent about 2h in the shop. On the agenda: wiring.

And this is mess I opened myself up to:









Nevermind these bastards crawling all over:



One thing I wanted to figure out was the high and low beam. The kid had cut the wires to the headlight and ran a wire directly to the battery with a switch in the middle. I had no gauge lights either.

Once thing that was curious was this plug is removed (blue zipties):


I split the harness open and figured out that the instrument panel and headlights were curiously connected to this plug. After 2h I called it a night and went to look up a few things.

So that plug is a headlight relay. Well, that makes sense. It must have been trashed so the kid unplugged it and hardwired the headlight right to the battery. Now, I read that you can bypass it connecting the Bla/Blu wire to the R/Y wire. I'll do that today, but when I return in a few weeks I'll replace the whole relay.

Also the fusebox is old school. I'm going to buy a new five slot panel today and wire that in. Looks like one of the fuse holders broke off and the kid wire nutted an inline fuse. If you ignore the electrical tape and exposed wire, I guess it turned out great! (dumbass)

But that's where I am today. This bike will sure keep me busy for awhile.

 

Welp, I'm out of time for today. But, I have the electrical sorted out. It...actually wasn't all that bad. I went to NAPA and they wanted $26 for a fuse box; it'd be here by Thursday and wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Sadly, I just went with the old glass style fuses. $8. Run it. Soldered several wires, the connectors, and away I went. I had to cut back like 12" of the wiring harness from where the exposed wires were. Spliced/Soldered in from there, to the fuse, to the headlight relay. I lopped off all the wire nuts he had on there. He installed five wires and a switch to run the headlight. That's what a lot of it was. I cut all that shit out and jumped the headlight relay. Bam. High beam. Low beam. Everything worked perfect. He gummed up all the electrical over a $30 part. Another option, though a pain in the ass, he could have done was leave the relay plugged in, start the bike, then jump it the relay with the engine running. Though, I did make the mistake and bypass the relay and started the bike. Killed the battery. Trickle charged it for an hour and finally got it running. Leaving the headlight unplugged for now until I get back from our trip. I'll order the new relay then. From there on its intake manifold and rear brakes. Little cosmetic work, but all in all it's looking really simple.

Sadly, this "build" isn't going to be as intense I thought it was going to be. I figured I'd be wiring for a week. Nope. 4h. All done.

 

If you want the build to be more "intense" you could take a bit of time and start making a spare wiring harness or two

Looking at how much surface rust there is on the frame I'd suggest that you consider tearing the bike down and cleaning it all up. At least have a good poke around the lower left frame loop. Yamaha did not put a drain in the tubing, and the tubing was not dipped, so water can collect there and eventually put holes in the frame at that point.

 

I've assembled wiring harnesses before. Blech, not one of my top hobbies.

I'm going to pull the carbs out and give them a good cleaning. Buy a carb synchronizer too. Anything under 3k RPM and it runs really rough. I'll install a new intake manifold while I'm in there. It really doesn't look too bad. I should hose it down to get all the cobwebs out though, haha.

Has a hard time finding neutral too. I need to rock the bike back and forth to get it in there. Always jumps right to 2nd. Not sure if that is normal or not.

Choke cable has like, three strands left holding it on. I'll have to replace that as well.

Not planning on getting too technical with it. Just the major things to get it road worthy.

 

Valve clearance is major.

Gary H.

 

Neutral is easy to go past. It takes a bit of practice, and I still sometimes glide right through to second.

Yes, valve clearances are major and are also the least most likely maintenance item to have been ignored.

 

Done it before on my XL. I'll do it on this bike too. Its easy enough.

Its not so much for driving, but to fire it up, let the bike get warm while I throw on my jacket and grab my backpack. Throwing in neutral while I run in the house is what I'm talking about.

I killed the battery again this morning. I seem to keep flooding it out. Question. The fuel knob. RES mean reservoir. ON means, on. And PRI means ? Primer? Should I start the bike with it on PRI?

 

PRIME is for filling the float bowls when they are dry, or for draining the fuel tank.

ON is for normal operation

RES is for reserve, which gets you about 20 to 30 miles of riding before you will start walking.

Leve the petcock set to ON for starting, unless the bike has set for a few days without running; then set it to Prime for 30 seconds to fill the float bows, and back to ON to start.

 

I second this. My frame looked really good but I had to have it repaired on both sides of the cradle. I only caught it because I stripped it down for powder.

 

Ah. That makes sense then. I had the tank off the bike over night. During my awesome time wiring, I did hit the start button a few times to ensure the starter would kick over. Must have tapped the carbs of all the fuel in the process. Went to start the bike with in "ON" and it was a bitch to start. Along with that, and bypassing the headlight relay, I killed the battery.

 

Take a peek at the starter and rotor brushes.

Gary H.

 

So I'm back at this. I bypassed the headlight relay with a switch I mounted through the headlight housing. Works perfect.

I bought all the stuff to make a manometer too. I am going to pull the carbs and clean them out. I'll order an intake manifold and get those all dialed in. But can't do that until I know what I want to do with the exhaust. So, there's this:



Open sounds badass, but I have a rising suspicion that after the first 20 miles of listening to that I'm going to regret it. Its loud. Like, way loud. I'm going to feel like such a prick if I leave anytime before noon firing up the bike and waking every known creature within thirty miles.

But that's where I am now. Yea, slow going but now that we're home and I have time to tinker I'm hoping to get this thread built up a little.

 

Open pipes are for racetracks and asswipes.

 

Yea. I cannot stand hearing them, but once I sat on my bike with it I was all smiles. It'd piss a lot of people off I'm sure. I'll probably end up putting that flat black pipe on it.

 

i think neutral is easier to get going down from second, rather than up from first.

 

Spent a few hours in the shop today. Learned that gasoline really burns the lips.

Made a manometer:









It works...ok. My carbs are way outta whack though. With that said, I cleaned them up a bit.

Removed the carbs and cleaned them out. They were pretty dirty.



Little gunk in the bowl



Now, question. There are these screws:



Center of the screen. Bottom of the bowl. What are those for? All four a totally stripped out. Not sure if that's going to cause issues.

I also learned how the carbs all work. I just need help dialing them in.

I know I'm premature on synching the carbs (I need to check valve clearance and get new intake manifolds), but few questions.

With the ATF in the lines, all four lines are even. Good. I start the bike and one tube will dip down and another will jump way up. There are the three screws I can turn. So say tube three is down. Which screw controls that tube? There's three screws and four tubes.

Also, the fuel supply. I dumped out what was in my tank and put two gallons of 93 in it. I set it on a ladder and put it on prime. Since I had the manometer hooked up, the vacuum petcock couldn't be connected. I siphoned the fuel (BLECH!) and heard it go down the fuel line. But then the bike would run out of fuel. I siphoned the fuel again and put a pair of vice grips to hold the suction; no luck there either. So what are my options to supply the bike with fuel? 2L bottle flipped upside down, vent on the bottom of the bottle, and a feed through the cap? That's something I need to figure out.

So yea, the bike runs. A little. But it only runs on full choke. I have to lay into the throttle to keep it running. I'll pull the valve covers to check the clearance. I'll have to get that little tool if I need new shims. The carbs are going to take a bit to get right though. The three screws are really what are throwing me off.

Got a decent amount of work ahead of me.

 

If I'm looking at it right, it looks like the bowl drain screw? Mine are totally stripped aside from one.

 

Watching this video:


I need to redo my clean job. No biggie. Carbs were easy to remove. The boots are a pain in the ass to get right though.

 

Don't watch that video (well watch it, but don't rely in it).

Read this link: http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/in-the-church-of-clean.14692/

and this one: http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/threads/the-secret-life-of-carburetors.14751/

and this one: http://www.xj4ever.com/setting fuel levels.pdf