New member, waiting for my XJ750

I just joined the other day, I am in the northwest suburbs of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois. I'm 28, just found but am waiting for delivery on my '83 XJ750 Seca touring model. Started riding in about '01 with a $250 '81 XJ750RH Seca that had been sitting in a friend's neighbor's garage for about 10 years. With absolutely NO knowledge of the bikes, but being a mechanic at the time, took it apart, got it running, and put it back together. Actually grew extremely fond of the bike, but after three years and over 17,000 miles, found what I thought would be a really cool custom painted '84 Honda VF1100S Sabre. What a boat anchor! So fed up with that, in the summer of '05 sold the Seca and the Sabre and bought a brand new '05 V-Max. That was fun! Sold that last fall with about 5,500 miles, but kept missing a bike, particularly my old Seca, so have been looking for one all spring, and finally found a good, complete bike to get back up to snuff. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to share going forward and be looking for PLENTY of advice!

 

Welcome! I'm putting my '82 Seca XJ750J back togehter after it sat somewhere - possibly outside - for the last few years. Looking forward to trading notes with you.

Funny how these old bikes seem to get so much love. Personally, I think it's because they just refuse to die. Where other bikes want everything to be JUST RIGHT or they won't turn over (hence, you hate them), the XJ just runs a little rough but keeps on ticking. (And the XJ forgives you when you get off your butt and clean the carbs.)

I don't know about you, but I may wind up putting in bypass connectors for the computer in my 750. Mine is fried, and they can be hard to come by. If I do, are you interested in the wiring info?

 

A touring model? Is that the one with the cool fairing and the nice sidecases? Those are very sharp-looking! Congrats! : -)

Ps. Post pics!

 

Thank you for your hospitality! I appreciate the offer, and actually that wiring info would be helpful as the bike does have some electrical demons. I remember the biggest problem I had with my last 750 Seca was the fuse panel being corroded and the fuse clips breaking, which was a pretty easy fix, but the computer looks like a huge can of worms! And yes, it does have the hard side cases, trunk, and the full factory fairing, thanks for your congrats, and I absolutely will post pictures when I get it.

 

Welcome! Bring some cheezies I like cheese.

 

A Cheezie For Spinalator

 

Fode,

Electrical demons can be tough if you have a problem that comes and goes. The best you can do is test and replace until you get it. What's acting weird?

For diagrams on the *stock* bike, I highly recommend the Haynes manual. Title is "Yamaha XJ650 & 750 Fours". It has the full wiring diagrams for all of these bikes. Given that and a multimeter with some good, long leads, you should be able to run continuity tests on your wiring at least to make sure you don't have breaks in it.

Let us know about those "demons". We may be able to help. I would never have fixed my blinkers without these guys.

 

Thanks for the advice, and I have definately seen that there is no end to the thorough knowledge of the members of this site! I plan on tapping into some of it as I go forward. As I don't have the bike yet, (should have it by the middle of next week!) I haven't had a chance to diagnose it, but the previous owner told me that when you lock the steering head, something shorts out. He said he fixed it by just not locking the steering head! Could be a pinched wire through the fairing? OR. . . this is an interesting side note and is a possibility, I had an '84 Honda Sabre VF1100S, and when I would turn the handle bars hard over when it was parked and running, it would die. What I figured was an electrical problem ended up being the choke cable being misrouted and when you turned the handle bars hard over, it would pull the choke cable closing the choke and stalling the bike! I started just messing around with it in the garage, and had someone turn the handle as I watched closely all of the wire harnesses, and I noticed a cable moving, and it was the choke! I probably won't be that lucky this time, but you never know!

 

Well, it is likely as simple as a short in the lock itself. Those locks are a pain anyway, but I'd be willing to bet that if you traced the wires from the lock, you'd find that they are worn and shorted someplace.

I agree about cable routing. Generally, on the XJ, cables are routed to and then along the center frame tube, above the coils and just inside the hubs that hold the gas tank. After that, I recommend that Haynes book again, since the choke/clutch/throttle cables don't have a lot of extra length in them, and you'll want to route them properly through the steering head or they won't even reach! Rule of thumb, though, is to route them through the headlight bracket BEHIND the guages (heh) and on to their destinations.

The PO for my 650 had routed the cables very strangely as well. I had to re-run them all to fix verious tension problems, and had to replace the clutch cable since the aforementioned "tension" had caused a patch of the cable to wear all the way through and start to rust. Bleh. Glad I had a spare cable...