Dairy of an XJ Maxim: Resurection

Well, customer brought me a 1980 XJ 650 Maxim and a Seca. Bought both of them for 600 bucks.






Needed to be done on Maxim to make it a servicable bike:

Cam Chain tensionor toast, the guide tower on top was broken and laying in head, loose, chain had eaten through top of the cam cover.

Idled at about 4k plus upon starting, tons of oil in the airbox,

oil heavily fueled to the point it ran like water,

no turn signals, front tire bad,

kick stand bent

one dead cylinder

petcock leaking, tank has something inside of it (rocks and a bolit and nut!)

3 exhaust studs broken off in the head, muffler-slip on disconnected at the pipe, with wrong kind of fastener to keep them together (looks like auto motive clamp of some kind)

The real hours ended up being in the cam chain issue- we robbed the guide tower out of the seca, as well as the cam chain tensioner, and that worked.

Then we had to open up the carbs and clean them out, which worked like a charm, #1 cyl started working, and the idle returned to normal, etc. Carb boots turned out to be okay, no inner cracks. Still missing one airbox boot, however.

Had to weld on a tit to each exhaust stud to have something to grab to get them out.

well, that is the major stuff anyway, than, and it hadn't run in 20 years +

Here is the obvious hole in the cam cover, what you can't see is the crack that opened up as I welded the cam cover, it had been scored from cam to cam:



After welding:



Broken exhaust studs:


This is an easier fix than you think- I take the mig welder, weld the piss out of bolt, it won't stick to the aluminum, and loosens the electrolysis on the bolt to the head. Way better than trying to drill them out!

 

I'd get on eBay and replace that cover, it's probably warped from welding anyway.

 

How many pieces of metal shavings do you suppose is in
that motor.???
It had to go somewhere whille the cam chain was eating through
that cover.

 

at least it's aluminum; it'll "come out in the wash" so to speak...

 

wow... poor bike. Well the chain tensioners are one of the first things to go on these bikes. But gawd! Have fun!

 

Flushed the motor with Kerosene- about 4 gallons to make sure that shavings were gone. Cam cover has no leaks at this time. No warpage- the cam cover was barely hot to the touch outside the weld area when I was done- run a bead, stop, run a bead stop and let cool- only ran the TIG machine for 15 actual minutes, but took an hour to weld it-

I fixed an engine case for a Katana earlier this month, same technique, not a leak or warpage one.

 

Those parts come up on "the bay" for $20 and don't even get a bid.
You may have fixed it, but you have a scarred part.
The "Bay" part is "perfect".

 

True, pretty scar though LOL- and, on top of that, we have a part NOW, not two weeks from now. Buy it now usually doesn't ship out for 4 or 5 days, much less waiting for an auction to end.

Since this is not a show bike, but a commuter bike, customer is more than happy with the repair.

May be different for the Seca, he is contemplating bringing that one from the brink as well.

 

your customer, however, is DEFINITELY going to want to get rid of that before he sells the bike, it is not a selling point..

 

Well, the Alaska bike market is a funny thing- check out our craigslist sometime- prices are insane sometimes. He will get every penny out of that bike if it is still running as good as the day it leaves our shop, plus a couple bucks. Basically, the bike is worth 1800-2000 bucks in the condition he has it now from us.

 

So now there's one on ebay for some one else and this one is fixed, it holds the oil in, it's primary function. Not something to apply polish to.

 

Really???
Hmmmm.
Do you have strict registraton/resale laws there?
You can pm me with the details if you wish.

 

It is just how cost prohibitive it is to ship things to Alaska. You want an old bike, it makes no sense to ship one up from the "lower 48"- so, it is hard to find clean old bikes, especially if they have been stored outside in the heat/;cold cyles- this really kills electrical, the #1 reason for a down bike in Alaska. There just isn't clean 1k dollar examples of a bike 20 years old, really. Frequently, it is a diamond in the rough- low mileage, but parked a long time, and the parking did more damage than the miles, by far. The KZ I fixed up probably had less than 6k on it, and it was hammered by the weather! Total basket case just from storage, only because it had a clogged carb, and, back then, there was no shop here to work on them- so it was parked, and left for dead.

My business model now is resurrecting those old bikes.

Take a look here:

http://anchorage.craigslist.org/mcy/

And look at this 750:

http://anchorage.craigslist.org/mcy/1560808991.html