Whoops, I did it again...

[gareth]

http://newyork.craigslist.org/fct/mcy/677705036.html

Picking this up tonight sight unseen. Talked to the guy, got some information, and then before I knew it there was that strange feeling that comes over me sometimes when I just KNOW that I am about to step off into the void and temporarily suspend common sense. I suddenly knew that I wanted this bike..

Made an offer...

My SF isn't even back together yet and the next project is ready.
I guess I just love the smell of carb cleaner in the morning.

Can't wait.

This should take care of any free time that I might have had late in the summer...
I know that there have been a couple of successful restorations of this bike by forum members and scanning the search results for the FJ was one of the factors that helped me to decide to buy it.
It sure sounds like a lot of fun to ride and the perfect slick cousin to the XS>

Will update as soon as it's in the shop...

Regards,

Gareth

[customaxe]

i know the feeling .. i collect .. custom guitars .. and that feeling you get when you know you SHOULDNT but are gonna anyway is AWESOME !!! its like the feeling of freefall b4 the chute opens .. and if your like me it is going to be a BOATLOAD more than you bargained for .. but you'll see it thru cause now its a personal thing .. and when your finally done .... you wont be able to even look at it without wanting to mainline a natural gas hose into your mouth .. good luck ... i just dumped 4k on one gtr... and man is it sweet ... and man is da wife UNHAPPY !!! .. but hey at least i can get my investment back .. with the gtr ...

[John]

Gareth

My wife has one of those, and they are a PITA to work on, and it seems had to find parts for, as a lot of Legends Cars drivers snatch them up from the salvage yards to get the engine, and then the chassis seem to get stuck out behind the shop until they rot away. I actually paid admission to an LC race, just so I could talk to some of the drivers, as I was desperate to find some body panels for WK's bike. That is where I learned about the fate of the chassis'.
The bike itself is very powerful and fast. The power seems to just roll on so smoothly. On two separte occasions, WK went blowing past me on my XS, and I was doing 135. She says she was going 145!

[Paintman]

Gareth

They are a fun solid Bike but like was said its a scavenger hunt to find parts anymore. my friend has one i redid after 6 months of tracting stuff down it live its has a set of modified cams. we did alot of head work it will fly so good Luck and i ahve teh same problem thats why i have 7 bikes now and 9 cars LOL.


John

[gareth]

Well, the bike is certainly complete. Complete with a couple of rodent nests, a lot of blown in foliage and all the other things that might afflict an almost covered bike that has been through a long winter.
No fluids in the clutch and brake reservoirs. There is general oxidation of the "satin" aluminium parts, the usual white powdery surface stuff. The aftermarket Vance and Hines is nice, the steel headers a bit rusty, some green mossy slime throughout. Engine turns, oil in the crankcase, could be a lot worse. I think I have a chance. Looks promising but a lot more diagnostic stuff to be done before I even think of jumping it and hitting the start button.

I think when I have the plastics off, blown off the fauna and flora, and have given it the once over (carefully) with Ye Olde Pressure Washer..it will look a lot better. I expect a lot of old horse bikes end up this way and their only real chance after a winter or two is the naive enthusiast (me) or what we used to call the "knackers yard".

Just for giggles, I am going to keep a log of how much time and money I end up putting into this bike before I end up on the road. It might be interesting to add a low dollar figure for my hourly labors of love and then see what it all ends up totaling. I long ago lost track of how much time I have spent tweaking the SF, let alone scouring the net for parts and advice..

Nice Bike Under There Someplace.

Regards,

Gareth

[fredintoon]

So what is it?

Hi Gareth,
by the time I checked your link to Craigslist they'd pulled the ad. So what did you buy?

[John]

Fred

The bike in question was an FJ 1100. Fast, smooth, and a real PITA to work on.

[Wildkat]

Hey gareth, welcome to the world of FJ

Faster than the XS... but 10 times more frustrating to deal with...
However... it makes up for itself enough to keep it...

A couple of things you might want to watch out for... The FJ is subject to the same gear slippage as the XS... but the Dremel fix works on these too...
Also, petcock diaphragm has gone bad in two petcocks so far and is extremely hard to replace... when you're looking for a Yamaha replacement...
I just took my petcock into a local bike shop and the owner was able to match it up with a diaphragm from a Kawasaki.... He put a larger o-ring on the plunger, cut off some of the disc that the spring pushes against... and it looks like it will work well... I should have it in and running tomorrow so we'll see...
The carbs are a lot more difficult to remove because the airbox is molded to fit inside its space and doesn't move (or come apart) like that on the XS... I'm looking into pods for mine at the moment since I have an airbox bolt that refuses to come out and won't let me drop it back to remove the carbs without some persuasion...

Yamaha has discontinued a lot of parts for these bikes so it can be a PITA (like John said)... but man they are SWEEEEEET when they're running...

You will enjoy it... even if it's eventually...

[gareth]

I'm still at the point of just looking at the bike and grinning. I did take off a couple of the fairing pieces and the next job will be to remove the tank and see what kind of shape it's in. I picked up a standard tank for the SF last week on the Bay and it arrived today and I am going to try the electrical method described in the archives to get the rust out.. and because it sounds cool and easy and not too many things are like that.

The PO of the FJ had changed to pod filters. They are right there above the aftermarket wasps nest.I poked the nest a couple of times with a long stick to determine if there was more life in it than in the bike. No insects that I could see.. Then I sprayed every bolt and nut that I could see with penetrating oil and the thin oily gloss that it left on the bike made it look better.. I don't have an ignition key for it though. I hope I can just get a key made, but job one will be to remove the ignition set-up and see if there is a number on there somewhere.

Partly naked, the bike seems much more manageable. It looks more like bikes that I am used to. The "go-faster" look of the fairing suggests that there are all sorts of impenetrable black-box systems being carefully hidden and protected, but that doesn't really look like the case. The FJ looks fairly orderly under all that plastic and the landmarks ( carbs, filters, engine, headers..etc ) all seem to be where they should be. I was nervous that I would take the covers off and be confronted with the bewildering dense maze of wires, tubes and smooth get-lost-don't-touch-this-non-user-serviceable parts that are the hallmark of modern cages.
The bike has a Corbin seat which is a nice expensive upgrade as far as I can see from current web auctions and right now, before the inevitable annoying issues crop up, I haven't lost that lovin' feelin'.

That could soon change if buyers remorse kicks in when the first "what the....$#@@*?" diagnostic moment arrives.

I ordered a set of factory manuals on CD from a seller on eBay and I suppose a parts list would be handy to cross reference to the later FJ1200 models.

Early days yet, but it's still looking like a can-do project.

You want a nightmare machine?
I have been a woodworker for over 30 years. You have never experience frustration like that involved in the maintenance of a mid-1980"s Italian edgebander. What with rudimentary limit switches, pneumatic controls, heating and thermostat circuits, high-speed servo motors, gear motors and multi-voltage systems, when they start to act up they would drive anyone insane. Especially if they are essential to a project that is already late due to...edgebander issues.

Motorcycle maintenance and repair is therapy for me.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Regards,

Gareth

[Guy_b_g]

Maybe the guy who wired up your edgebander is the same guy who wired up 70s and 80s Italian motorcycles...'cause they are in a dead heat with British bikes of the same era on the "electrical frustration index".

The voltage regulator and diode bank on my '78 Lemans looked like it was engineered and built by Bubba on a bad day after a case of beer.

The bike was always on a battery charger and would only charge at highway speeds.

My 72 Rickman 125 enduro had a glitch at one time where the horn would sound when you turned on the headlight (a minor irritation since it could only be heard by dogs... and then only on a very quiet day)...took me hours to find the short in the wiring.
Also, my points would short out from condensation after any contact with water (a serious shortcoming on an enduro...unless you live in Barstow, CA)...I finally solved that problem by drilling a hole in the ignition cover and venting the ignition to the atmosphere with a tube running up under the tank.

"Hail Lucas, Prince of Darkness"

[gareth]

The good ole days

When I was growing up in Ireland, every school morning started with the same question. Will the car start?
Six volt systems, loony reverse voltage systems, points and condenser dampness problems. Weekends, evenings too, spent on essential maintenance to just keep the ridiculous machines running. We used to charge the battery every night and install it the following morning, every morning, late September through February. I think someone could make a correlation between the demise of the British Empire and the legacy of half-assed, profanity-inspiring machines it left in its wake.

My father was an early adopter of the Japanese import cars when they first hit the Emerald Isle in the early seventies. He never looked back. The Datsuns, Toyotas, etc, would rust in a minute and have holes the sizes of dinner plates in the body work after a year but they started first time and ran and ran and ran...while us kids huddled in the back seats pushing floor mats up against the holes in the bulkheads...
The Good Hole Days...

Anyway, what's this got to do with FJ maintenance? Not a lot really. Just that having seen what can happen when a machine is poorly designed, and having to deal with the consequences, makes me appreciate the well designed ones. I like the XS and the XJ, I consider them solid, well-crafted art/science in-motion. It gives me a thrill to pull a good machine back and get the best out of it. And it makes all the nights holding a flashlight steady while my father swore under his breath, almost like a fond apprenticeship.

G.

[Paintman]

The Devils wiring

can i dare say LUCAS after working on alot of old Morgans and jags we use to find the problems buy how much smoke would rise out from under ther bonnet LOl i said it rt.
John

[fredintoon]

AKA Joe Crap

Hi Paintman,
yeah "The Price of Darkness" and all the rest of those classic tales. When I was an apprentice we installed Joseph P. Lucas electrical equipment on Bristol aero-engines. So we asked the foreman "Is this the same unreliable garbage we have on our vehicles?"
"By no means." he answered " We pay top price for excellent equipment. For the price the British vehicle industry is willing to pay it's a miracle that Lucas can produce equipment that works at all."

[DiverRay]

In my 74.5 Jensen Healy, I needed one headlamp switch and one alternator. I drove it about 60K miles. had a GREAT time. and was NOT left in the dark, but once for the switch.

[dewibp]

Small world we live in as I am looking for just your type of project too! I've been doing alot of reading on mid 80's bikes and am looking for a Suzuki GS1150ES or even an FJ like yours. Thought I would never ever consider any thing like this but picked up a little RZ 350 last fall and been put putting around with it (not quite put putting when you hit 6,000 rpms) and really like the handling qualities verses the heavy xs11's. You need to get us some pictures ASAP so we can see it! By the way, is it red white and maybe a little blue in it?