XJ1100 teardown: "We-e-e're off to see the welder, the wonderful welder of ours!"

[skids]

With a tube there is NO NEED to worry about the bead until you have air in the tire! TUBELESS tires will NOT inflate if you have room between the bead and the rim. Tubes don't care! Tube type tires, just SLOOWWLY inflate, bounce the tire/rim with about 20PSI in it, and add more air.

Well, I almost got the front tire off but as I was bending my cheap-ass aluminum spoon, I started thinking that it woud be better to take it to the shop. I got a call from the shop and the dude says he is having issues with balance. He asked if I hit something with the rim. I am thinking that that wouldn't change the metal distribution for balance anyway, and the wheel is straight (no wreck). He said that he was playing with 7 ounces of weights and that I could pick it up as-is or wait until Tuesday after he works with it some more. Really? No, I can't put an unbalanced wheel and tire on the front of the bike - keep working on it. This is a Shinko tire. The wheel had weights from the previous install, but I didn't account the amount. I didn't think it looked excessive.

[3Phase]

Skids, is the shop doing a static or dynamic balance?

With static balance, even if you hit something it wouldn't change the balance unless part of the rim broke off or some of whatever you hit stuck to the rim.

I've got a couple of wrecked XJ11 rims that are flowered open where they hit a guardrail post and their static balance is perfect. If I try to spin them....

[skids]

Skids, is the shop doing a static or dynamic balance?

With static balance, even if you hit something it wouldn't change the balance unless part of the rim broke off or some of whatever you hit stuck to the rim.

I've got a couple of wrecked XJ11 rims that are flowered open where they hit a guardrail post and their static balance is perfect. If I try to spin them....

I don't know. The shop is closed until Tuesday. I should have asked.

[XJOK2PLAY]

+1 on the RuGlide. Good stuff.

I've also done that with the large zipties.
Those are also handy to take along on a trip...

Lately, after I get the tire mounted, I take a ratcheting tie down band, wrap it around the center of the tread diameter, and crank it down a bit. Flattens down the center of the tire, and expands the sidewalls. Apply the air, and it usually seats right up. Release the band... air it on up. Easy-peasy.

XJ's looking good, Scott. Should be a dependable, sweet bike when you get her done. Too bad we live so far apart, bro.
Bob

[3Phase]

Thanks, Bob! I bring zip ties and irons on the road now too. This time around I got lucky. Both tires expanded enough all by themselves and didn't need the strap treatment to seat.

I'm going to have to use my spare '850 drive and ditch the one on the XJ that I snagged from Columbo. I think the housing is cracked or broken internally somewhere. Before the axle nut was halfway torqued the drive started to bind up and the wheel was difficult the turn. That's what turned the oil gray. The '850 rear axle nut is supposed to get 130 ft-lbs so the drive wasn't squished from too much torque on the 1100 axle.

All the spacers are present and accounted for so I tried the stock drive and my spare '850. Both drives get a little stiffer at full torque but not like the one I was using. Bummer.

[XJOK2PLAY]

Well, if you can get that 850 drive right, that'll be sweet for highway cruising.

I loved my XJ w/ the 850 fd after Cody and I swapped it out.

[3Phase]

The spare '850 drive fits and spins but the coupler isn't sealed yet, it still has the holes for the gear oil so they'll have to be plugged. That'll be the first job for today.

Job Two is safely transferring spline grease to the new drive. I greased the bad drive's input and output splines with Krytox GPL 217 EP (Krytox with Moly).
That stuff is way too expensive to waste so it'll have to be scraped out and put on the new drive splines.

Wear gloves while you work with Krytox and do not ever get it on the brake disks.

Krytox can't be removed with normal organic solvents, it needs a special solvent for fluorinated oil and grease. Even the recycled solvent is $16/lb.

(reclaimed) Solvent Cleaner for Krytox, 3 lb. Quart
$48.00
TMC Industries

[3Phase]

Felons, Firearms, and General Stupidity

A few days of drama at home almost got me and put a serious crimp in the engine work.

I finally got back to it today so the head's on, cams are set and the valves clearances are close enough to work out of the gate.

The new cam chain fit perfectly.
There was no room at all for error so everything had to line up exactly or it wouldn't go back together but it's over and done.
Whew!

T.D.C. and the timing dots all line up.





#01 Intake is 0.004"
#01 Exhaust is tight 0.011"

The valves were lapped and they'll all close up fast as they reseat.
I don't want to pop the valve cover at fifty miles to re-shim the valves.
#01 Intake along with #02 and #03 Exhaust get new shims tomorrow when I find my spares.




After the fiasco with my '80G engine and a pile of mystery sand in the oil pan,
the valves get covered and spark plug holes plugged.

[skids]

Scott, the picture looks like the dots are each just outside of the arrows, and that is exactly what mine looked like after a cam chain replacement. Maybe it is just the picture. Whatever, I feel better now.

[skids]

The problem turned out to be a bunch of sand in the engine. From the amount of sand along with other trash I thought someone was mad at me and sabotaged it.
I did eventually discover that my brother had accidentally spilled it in the open engine as he was taking a rolled up rug out through the garage to shake the mud off of it.
The little....
.

At least the engine never had rotating/reciprocating parts when the sand was present! It was good you noticed it before it caused real problems!!!

[3Phase]

At least the engine never had rotating/reciprocating parts when the sand was present! It was good you noticed it before it caused real problems!!!

The cam dots are dead on the marks, the wall-eyed look is parallax error from the camera.

Sadly, the sand wasn't found before running the engine and I rode it to the Colorado rally that year with Roo and Mike. For some reason, the rings just refused to seat so it was going through a quart or more of oil every 50 miles and blowing it straight out the exhaust without even burning it. For a couple of thousand miles, it looked like I was fogging for 'skeeters and I rode it that way to the top of Pike's Peak with everyone else. It finally shot a spark plug on the way home and I spent $600 to haul a $50 motorcycle home from Beaver, Utah.

At the time I still thought I'd done something wrong, I didn't find the sand until after getting another set of jugs and pistons from Andreas and deciding to do the job right and clean the oil pan before putting them on.

[3Phase]

Major Progress

Shimmed the valves. The clearances are loosey-goosey but they'll tighten up fast as the valves reseat themselves in the valve seats.

Reference


Ta da!

[motoman]

Nice job!.......see the red carpet was already rolled out for ya.

[XJOK2PLAY]

Lookin' good, Scott!

Hang in there... It'll all be worth it soon.

(And, hopefully...it'll run great for many years to come, too.)

You're making me miss my old XJ.

[3Phase]

Ha! Red carpet indeed! I like the carpet but I hurt now. I know it'll be worth it but, man! Ow!
(hypnosis==ON)Bob! You miss your XJ! You want another XJ! Leave your comfy Connie at home and get another XJ!(hypnosis==OFF)

I added an XS11 low oil pressure switch and ditched that dumb pipe plug behind the jugs, it should work hand-in-hand with the oil level sender in the XJ's oil pan. I have to think about how to integrate it with the Atari dash so it doesn't mess up the computer's self-diagnostic routine. I may just hang a red light somewhere and keep it separate.

I fitted up an automatic cam chain tensioner too, after I used the stock tensioner to set the valves and make darn sure everything is copacetic.