David's XZ550 Space

Thanks to Mark Schrader of Schraders Custom Cycles and Collision for doing the welding and work on the 83 Venture brackets so they would fit the Vision.  He did such a good job that the brackets and bags look like they were made for the bike.

YJ is really taking shape as my daily commuter/sports touring bike.

 

David

Since the ROV forums have been down for a while I decided to create my own XZ550 forums.  Its been a hit with 22 new members just in the last two days.  Its great to be able to "get together" agian and talk things over.

 

Visit the forums at:  http://xz550.forumotion.net/forum.htm

 

David

Really bummed out since the ROV site has been down.  I've had so many great things to share...and ask. 

 

Did te annual garage sale thing again this year with another $5500.00 sign on YJ and got another serious buyer.  It took over 30 minutes to talk him out of it and explain that I was just joking.  He wasn't happy.  Immagine that...a Vision sold for almost $6k!!!

YJ is out this week for the first "work" that I haven't done on her.  I'm having the Virago saddlebag brackets modified to fit the Vision and when done, the bags will be a perfect fit.  In the mean time, I've been building a wiring harness for my driving lights.

 

I've been looking for some backup alternatives for ROV such as twitter - not very effective otherthan getting someones attention, Yahoo, MSN and google spaces - lots of spam and trolls, and Facebook - most of us oldtimers don't use FB.  Other than that, creating another website with forums is an idea but costs money and most of the inexpensive ones have limited bandwidth.

 

David

Well, I spent the last couple weeks fixing, replacing and repainting the damage to YJ and I must say that things turned out quite well.  In fact, I found out something pretty interesting that had the bike not fallen over I would have never known about it.

For the last couple years there has always been a difference in pressure between the front cylinder exhaust and the rear. No amount of tuning would change it significantly but she ran and ran well.  Many of the guys on ROV suggested that it was just due tot hte length of the piping that caused the difference.  Anyway, I had taken the mufflers off to repaint them and fix them up a bit and finally after much persuasion with heat and hammer, I got both the baffels out.  Well, I know why it was loud now....no packing.  Well, some remnants of packing but that was it.  Cleaned them off and repacked and put it all back together but still the same.  Big pressure between the two pipes.  Then in a moment of genious, I decided to stick a broom handle up the pipe and it went in only about 8 inches.  It was one of those combined DOOOHHh, Wooohooo and It cant be moments.  I pulled the baffel out and looked through it and lo and behold, no light at the end of the tunnel.  There was something blocking it!  I got a length of pvc pipe and my favorite BFH and beat the fire out of it until a solid mass of aluminum foil that was literally welded to the inside of the baffel popped out.  Ahhhhhaaaaa!  I repacked and replaced tehbaffel and the bike fired right up but the carbs needed to be readjusted.  SO after paying witht the jse settings for a few minutes, YJ became a beast.  Took her out for a quick shakedown ride and she ran like a scalded cat!  NO more hesitation, bogging and backfiring and no more raw gas smell.  My guess is that I was pretty much running on only one cylinder and the front one was dragging the goos one down as well.  Now it feels like I am pulling full horsepower and its like having a different bike!

 

Most of the parts that needed to be repaired and repanted are done.  I have a few more wet sandings to do on the fairing before I put it back on and my replacement windscreen should be here in  a couple days.  So once that gets here, she will be all back to normal.

 

My next project is to pull the rear swingarm off and paint it black as well as install the better 83 monoshock that I have.  After that, I'm going to try to fab some barackets for the saddle bags, get them painted and on the bike.

 

Until next time,

 

David

Yesterday was a bad day.  Parked under the awning at work as I usually do and rode the bus into work.  We had a late afternoon thunderstorm of monsoon quantity and YJ sank into the mud and got blown over.  My first indcation that something was wrong was when the bus driver asked me if I owned the yellow motorcycle.  She told me what happened and that there were two girls out in the parking lot - in the pouring rain - trying to hold my 500lb bike up and keep it from falling over again.  A noble effort at best, but in the final analysis, probably caused more damage as it fell over several times.  In any event, they tried to do the right thing....have to remember to reward them.

The initial damage assessment of course was not good.  The glass headlight cover on the fairing popped out but didn't break.  The turn signals on the right side were both bent and one cracked.  The right side engine guard was pushed into the coolant tubes.  But worst of all, the fairing sustained heavy damage.  The windscreen was broken and the fairing cracked and badly scratched.  Its repairable but I have little time to work on it.  After hosing it down today and cleaning everything off, it looks a little better.  The tank isn't damaged as bad as I thought.  My exhaust is scratched up pretty bad though.

I'm going to file a complaint at work.  The security guard already filed his report so there is a record of it.  I have been asking for a more stable place for us bikers to park our bikes for over a year and hpefully this will be a catalist for some change.  I'mm going to rally the 40 or so other bikers to approach administration for a solution for our angst.  Hopefully we can have a small paved area on the gravel to park.

 

David