Newbie with his latest project bike!

Custom XJ builds, restorations, major modifications or just a topic dedicted to your own bike. Look here for long term cool projects.
Post Reply
User avatar
Jimbo
XJ Enthusiast
XJ Enthusiast
Posts: 541
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2012 7:24 am
Location: Illinois

Hello everyone,

I wanted to take this time to introduce myself and write about my current project. I am a newbie to this site, but far from a newbie to these bikes. This is my 5th Yamaha Seca II that I have owned over the 35 odd years of riding. My latest bike project is a 1994 model in the less common medium to light blue color (I affectionately call it “Smurf blue”). I found it about a little more than 2 months ago. When I went to see it, the seller said “it was a great running bike that he rode all summer, but developed a starting issue recently so it probably just needs a little tune up”. Yeah right (I thought to myself). It was obvious that this bike had not been run a minimum of 4 years. Why must sellers insist on lying so badly? The bike only had about 9K miles and overall physically looked OK and all the parts were there. Yes, it had fallen on the left side lightly breaking the end off of the clutch lever as well as the rear turn signal and scratched (but not cracked) the front faring and bar end. I hooked jumper cables to it (battery was completely dead, surprise!) and could see the entire electrical was in working order (all the lights worked, engine cranked easily and there was spark at each plug) so that was good. I opened the gas tank and could instantly tell the fuel smelled bad. Shining a light into it I could see it had a brownish tint and there was a separated layer down below (water more than likely). The seller was asking $800 for it. I offered $500. He took it immediately. He obviously didn’t have a clue to how to repair it. As you can see in the “before” picture when I got it home it was partially taken apart by the hapless seller. I used the Permatex plastic weld on the broken rear turn signal, hence the black duct tape holding it in place while it cured (see photo). Great stuff BTW. I pulled the sparkplugs and ran compression checks (150, 140, 150 & 136). Not bad. I think the low #4 cylinder reading is a tight valve. I’ll confirm that soon enough. So I knew the electrical was good with easy cranking engine and spark. I then proceeded to drain the nasty gas from the tank. I then treated it to an acid wash and isopropyl alcohol rinse followed by a WD40 spray. I then added fresh gas with Seafoam. This is another great product too. I then turned my attention to the rest of the fuel system. To flush and test the fuel pump, I rigged up a funnel filled with xylene to the intake hose. I then used a disposable pipette that I pumped it to simulate the vacuum from the running engine. I continued to do this until clean xylene flowed out. I then reinstalled it with new hoses. I then replaced the air filter (nasty, probably the original) and pulled the carbs (also nasty with plugged jets and rust in the bowls…but it ran great all summer according to the seller). I cleaned them and used the $0.10 carb mod as outlined by this group (neat idea). I set the floats with a micrometer and double checked with the clear tube on the outside. I set the pilot air screws to 1.5 turns out and fired it up. Boy was it loud! The Vance & Hines was almost deafening inside my garage, but it did run pretty good. So now I had a running bike (still a bit rough in the low rpms and idle), but I figured I would run a couple of tanks of gas (with Seafoam) to clean out any last remants of crud that might still be there before diving into it again if need be. Now to address the little things that make a good bike great, i.e. start spending money on the lesser critical things now that you know it runs. I found a stock exhaust on Ebay (silence is golden and I’m selling the V&H right now on Ebay) and picked up a tank bra on this site from Radare (Thanks!). I had a tank bra on another Seca II and liked it a lot. On this bike I also like the fact it tones down the “Smurf blue” and hides a few nasty dings on the tank. A under belly faring (if I can find a cheap one) would complete the look I want. Hope you enjoyed my long winded story. Check out the before and after pictures attached (hope they loaded right). More importantly, I hope someone else finds my story helpful in their project.

Jimbo

Image

Image

Image

Image

This topic has 5 replies

You must be a registered member and logged in to view the replies in this topic.


Register Login
 
Post Reply