zagger

My Memphis shade deflectors use a separate mount to connect to each fork - not to the fairing (this is on a different bike than my venture, so don't look at the sig pic). Each plate has two holes which are held by two screws and machined parts which are part of the fork tube mount. Placement relative to the batwing fairing is up to you. In my case, the lowers really helped to raise the airflow and prevent buffeting. Hope this helps. zag

I've never had any problems with the gears over the 8 years I have had the bike and I couldn't find any evidence inside the gearbox that the gears had skipped in the past before I bought it. I did the washer update simply because the problem seemed to be well understood and I wanted to avoid future problems if possible. The two half washers were obviously worn where they contact the shaft - maybe a quarter or a third of their thickness was worn away. Pulling out the engine and splitting it open to access the gears fixing everything and reinstalling the engine, is obviously not a project which can be done over a rainy weekend! Regarding vboost: attempting to implement the automatic vboost function with servo motor, etc. would be quite a project and, in my opinion, not worth the effort. Finding the valves on ebay and rigging up some way to manually operate them is pretty simple if the area around the intakes isn't too cramped for the valves to be added easily. My bike has lots of space in that area but it is quite far from a stock configuration. zag

Kisa, If you cannot locate the correct Yamaha part, I suggest that you use a silicone hose with the correct inside diameter. http://www.ebay.com/bhp/silicone-hose My venture is very customized, so standard hoses would not fit - every hose was replaced with a silicone one. Silicone hoses seem to resist kinking (collapsing when bent) quite well. Good luck. zag

You might want to consider adding the vmax "boost" valves. These valves effectively double the air and gas by allowing a single cylinder to breath through two carbs. The full boost only is effective at high rpm's but I've found that the std. engine seems to run a bit better at all speeds by having the boost valves just cracked open a little. This is easy for me to set since I use a ratcheting bicycle shift lever on the end of the left handlebar to set the boost valve position and the first click (valves open slightly) is where I normally operate the engine. If you maintain the stock housing over the engine, you might not have room for the carbs to sit on top of the valves - but maybe you can modify things a bit. My bike is modified so much that adding these valves wasn't a problem. Just a thought. zag

Yes, it has been quite a few years since I did that fix, but I believe you are pointing to the right one. I had to improvise a press to remove the spring pressure so that the ring and two split ring halves could be replaced. My 2nd gear wasn't skipping yet, but the split rings had fairly deep grooves where they contacted the shaft. Here is a picture of my press - it only had to work for about 30 seconds. I survived so, please, no smart remarks about the method! I believe that the top piece of plywood had a hole centered on the shaft to allow replacement of the split ring and ring. I kept them as hard-won souvenirs and made them into a small hanging mobile for the shop (along with some other engine bits from other bikes). zag

anyone move the controls forward? I moved the controls forward about 24". No problems with the operation or feeling. I used ball joints on the ends of the extended linkages to avoid alignment problems. An example: https://www.google.com/search?q=ball+linkage&es_sm=91&tbm=isch&imgil=a4Afz_eMQwvByM%253A%253BvZKVczn51VvFQM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.tradekey.com%25252Fselloffer_view%25252Fid%25252F3580632.htm&source=iu&pf=m&fir=a4Afz_eMQwvByM%253A%252CvZKVczn51VvFQM%252C_&usg=__-DDk3YQO9_SPo4a2OZVmyHWNlQ0%3D&biw=1781&bih=898&ved=0CEwQyjc&ei=jy1lVZL8CcbosAW2toCIDA#imgrc=a4Afz_eMQwvByM%253A%3BvZKVczn51VvFQM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fimgusr.tradekey.com%252Fo-B3197135-20091025225946%252Frod-end-clevis-ball-joint-linkage-part.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.tradekey.com%252Fselloffer_view%252Fid%252F3580632.htm%3B200%3B162 The shift linkage needed a secondary rotating pivot to produce the correct motion (the foot control has a linkage to a rotating piece which has another linkage to the actual shift lever). Works fine. zag

True enough. If the tach stops working and the engine starts running rough at the same time (regardless of choke position), then I also vote for TCI problems since that is where the tach gets its signal from. It should be fairly simple to determine if the spark is absent on the questionable cylinders. If the rough operation when warm is determined solely by backing off on the choke and can be reversed by increasing the choke (thus every plug is obviously firing), then I vote for gas issues since the choke affects only the gas (and the tach operation may be an unrelated issue). Perhaps I'm not completely clear on what action causes the rough running - backing off on the choke, or simply warming up. The original posting of the problem doesn't clearly identify cause and effect - at least for me.

The diaphragms actually run the carbs. They make the sliders (vacuum pistons) move along with the attached needles. If they have holes (quite likely in an older bike) then they won't do their job. Your description seems to indicate that the carbs are unable to supply the necessary gas once the enrichment circuit is off (choke off). Looking at every component made of rubbery stuff (like the diaphragms) would make sense since they do gradually crumble away over the years. Of course, making sure the carb internals are not full of crud would also be a natural thing to check. Good luck.

Seems like an interesting idea. But I just looked online and it seems that the max. temperature that device can display is 230F. Is that high enough for a warmed up engine? I would have guessed that the exhaust pipe temp would be higher.

It has been quite a long time, but as I remember, I made simple restrictors by inserting the threaded portion of a bolt into the tubing so that the only airflow has to pass down the tiny passage created by the thread. The restriction can be adjusted by changing the length of the threaded bolt. Without a restriction, the pressure measuring guage will jump all over the place. You can experiment with the restriction for the best gauge reading. Many years ago I tried a U shaped tube with liquid inside to measure the vacuum (I forget whether this was on my venture or another bike). You cannot imagine how quickly the engine slurped that liquid in one gulp! Fortunately, the tubing ID was pretty small and the engine didn't even notice! That's when I switched to liquid-free gauges.

If you load the engine at all, it will become pretty obvious if all the cylinders are firing with a full charge of gas/air. I made notes in my service manual when I rebuilt my carbs several years ago - as far as I know, the enrichment circuit is not shown in the Yamaha XVZ1200 service manual cross-sectional drawing of the carb internals. When the engine was first started, you probably had the choke activated which has the effect of adding additional gas through the enrichment circuit. As you release the choke, less additional gas is provided and the engine may stop firing on any cylinders which are not getting an adequate supply of gas/air from each carb. I would imagine that you will find a problem in one or more carbs with the normal gas/air flow when the enrichment circuit is turned off at the handlebar. I will assume that you went through the various diaphrams in every carb, checking for cracks, etc. Proper operation depends on all the rubber diaphrams being in good shape. I'm ignoring the spark question because it seems like the engine runs ok when cold (choke probably ON). Good luck!

Yup. Plenty of snow here. Temp is +10F right now but headed down to -15F on Sat night. With our normal 10mph wind, the windchill will be -35F. Geesh. zag

Just seeing the ground instead of snow would be a nice early sign of spring! zag

What's a Harley? zag

A "billet" gas tank made from a 534 lb. block of aluminum??? Now I HAVE heard of everything! Is there a huge sheet metal shortage or something? zag

Hey Cowpuc, Thanks for the nice pictures. Is there enough clearance between the tool and the rim so that scraping up the sealing surfaces on the aluminum wheel isn't going to happen? zag

Very true - as long as you completely trust the work that was done. My daughter bought a pickup truck a couple of weeks ago that the previous owner (some newbie tinkerer) had made into a sort of "monster truck" with huge wheels and the chassis lifted up high. The door sill is about 4 ft off the ground, making it a real treat to climb in! I mention this because a few days ago she was driving in town with a couple of friends and the driver's side front wheel literally broke off the hub and went rolling away into someone's yard, narrowly missing a parked car! Since she was only going 25mph or so, she DIDN'T roll the thing and get killed. Geesh! Turned out that the mounting bolts stripped out of the extended wheel hub and simply let the tire go rolling off on its own. I rode with her a couple of days before this happened and nothing seemed weird, so go figger. My conclusion is that buying someone else's fixed up or customized vehicle can be super risky unless you know alot about the expertise of the person doing the work. PS The truck debacle isn't quite over yet. She found a set of slightly smaller wheels and tires which bolt up without an adapter hub and may actually make a profit on the deal by selling the super big ones. It is pretty cool looking but as her father, I'm happier when she drives her Civic! zag

I'm at primitive #7. Looking forward to seeing everyone. zag

"where my cutoff will be with my project" I don't think that many old project bikes would survive a "cost/benefit" accounting analysis. The best rational for working on an old bike is "because I wanted to". The finished project will be worth more to you than anyone else and it will be special to you because you made it that way. Good luck! zag

Road Rides | Madison Motorcycle Club New Years Day should be nice:Madison, Wisconsin (53701) Conditions & Forecast | Weather Underground zag

Seems great to me! zag

Just crawled around it with a flashlight and I'm sorry to report that the label seems to be gone. So many mods were done to everything, even the frame, a label wasn't likely to survive. Frankly, I have no memory of seeing it, but I did so many things to everything on the bike I don't think that I would have made any attempt to preserve a label! I would be interested to see your file. I'll PM you with my email address. Thanks! zag

Not sure how to find that. I got the VIN from the title. I don't see anything stamped into the steering neck, but maybe I just missed it. If it had a sticker on the frame, it is a good bet that it is long gone! Odometer reading is listed as "exempt" on the title, maybe because it was crashed? I tossed the original speedo back in 2006 so I cannot easily check miles on the odometer. Interesting project you have taken on! zag

1983 XVZ12 JYA26H00XDA007331 Purchased in 2006 as a crashed and totaled wreck. Not sure of total mileage - best guess: around 100K miles. zag