Help me convince the Mrs I need to buy a 93 FJ1200 *many questions* sorry.

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Firstly, this is my first post here. Hi. So greetings from Sydney, Australia. Sorry if any of the questions have been covered in other posts, I'm have a combination of limited time and unlimited laziness.

I am seriously contemplating purchasing an old FJ1200 with 90,000km's on it for a two up trip around Australia, possibly even on to Asia. My plan is to pick it up soon, service it and get it the way I want, as comfy, as good a handling for as cheap as possible.

The reason for the tight budget is simple, I've got a good thing going with the Mrs and I don't want to mess it up. I have several bikes, I do the wrenching on them myself to keep costs down. I really don't want to sacrifice one of my bikes for the tour. I have a road reg gsxr 750, track only cbr 600, road reg husqvarna smr510, unplated ktm exe all cramped into my garage, if I can't get this tour done cheaply then I may have to sell one of them. My touring experience is moderate, we toured the southern half (syd-perth) of Oz 2years back on a hired BMW 1200GS and have humped heavy luggage on diminutive bikes through Asia.

Ok my questions.
What kind of mileage(km) are riders getting from their FJ1200's? if I add another 30,000 - 60,000km's and do as much (hopefully simple) roadside and minor garage maintenance along the way, will the engine last?

Does anyone have a link to the service manual?

Anything in particular to look out for when buying a used FJ? Steering head bolts? Bushes? etc?

I'd most likely want to upgrade the front end. To get more feel, improve handling and braking. Is there a simple front end conversion that'd fit? Again looking for the cheapest option. ie, does a later model DL (bad example, but there's a few front ends floating around my local wreckers) have forks and brakes that fit and are a step up over the stock items.

Or are there simple cheap internal fork upgrades anyone recommends.

Anything to look out for when servicing? Typically older bikes are easier to service than the newer ones, but any tips?

Lastly, am I being a complete idiot and have I picked completely the wrong bike for the task?

Thanks for taking the time to read through all that. I'll be back on later to followup.

[Arnie]

My '91 has about 125,000 kms on it and the engine has never been opened past the occasional valve adjustment.  I'm currently using about 1/2 L of oil between changes.
A couple of years ago I rode to Ayers Rock with a friend whose FJ had 180,000 kms.
The stock forks are OK, but could use stiffer springs.  I'd be careful to not go too stiff if you're going to be touring on it.  You could also install RaceTech emulators as well.  Before you do this, make certain you service them oil, bushings, and seals to know what you're dealing with.  The stock brakes are OK.  If you feel you want more control, replace the OEM rubber brake lines with stainless lines, they're most likely overdue to be replaced anyhow.  If you then think you want newer brakes, the blue or gold spot calipers as used on early R1, R6, FJR fit without needing any mods.
If you check and adjust the valves before you go, they probably will remain in spec for your whole trip.  Change the oil every 5K kms and filter every other change.

The FJ is a sturdy beast with few common problems.  As with any bike check steering bearings, wheel bearings, jumping out of 2nd gear under full throttle (fairly rare on the later model FJ's), Clutch slave cylinder does leak when seals are worn.  This is evident by paint missing on the oil filter and/or chin fairing cracking.

Only 'gotcha' may be the now uncommon size rear tire and wheel.  Tires are available, but choice is a bit restricted especially if you want radials.

If you get a clean one, you'll be fine on it.

Read some or all the files section for most of your questions on servicing etc.

Cheers,
Arnie 

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Cheers Arnie, thanks for the tips.

Glad to hear people are rocking FJ's with 180,000kms on the them, makes me feel more secure in picking up a well used one.

Didn't know about the uncommon rear wheel size, might look into switching with a slightly bigger wheel. Will see what the wreckers have lying around.

[andyb]

Rear wheel can be swapped to a couple of options at minimal cost (and you'll likely recoup the price within a tire or two).

Fork can be tweaked in a bunch of ways, cheapest is simply making it work the way it's supposed to, then springs and emulators.

Nearly anything from this era needs a good ride to test the engagement on second gear, it'll fall out of gear under load if there's wear/bent forks in the trans.  Clutch slave cylinders need rebuilt more often than not.  Fuel line routing will give you a bunch of issues until you can consistently put it together properly.

Past that, normal maintenance (bleed the fluids, pads, tires, chain, sprockets, valve lash[shim over bucket], fork seals/oil, carb cleaning, various filters, and lube everything that's supposed to move freely) isn't terrible, but it can be overwhelming and a bit pricy if you have to do it all at once.

[andyb]

Sorry for the late additions:

-The camchain and starter chain are probably getting near the long end up near 50k or so.  The guide for the starter chain certainly so.  Unfortunately, there's really no good way to cope with these, short of splitting cases and swearing a lot.  Fortunately if you're okay with kinda just getting by, odds are you can use earplugs to muffle the starter chain's racket, and get a set of slotted cam gears to put the cams back to where they should be (the wear will let them move out of spec).

-The shock, it's going to be worn.  Meh.  If you're going for more of a touring bent (or if you can ride "around" problems a bit in the twisty bits), you'll be fine there.

-Carbs will wear the emulsion tubes out periodically.  Not the end of the world, figure a 3 hour fix the first time you tear into that area (with practice?  I'd say 30min tops), and expect to spend $100usd for bits to make it right.

It's really a pretty primitive sort of machine.  Expect noise, vibration, and you won't be turning laptimes that put fear into the hearts of pro racers.  That's ok, but go in knowing that you're going to see this sort of thing.  It's a low stress sort of thing, if you want to be running it really hard for any distance it's probably not appropriate for the ride you have planned.  If you want to stick it into top gear and just roll the throttle around, the tach will go from 2k to 6k (or town speed to having cops shoot at you speed) very easily.

The big danger to the FJ, like many big-bore bikes of this age, is that some idiot owned it and "improved" it.  Beware the prior owners....  I bought my `90 in ..uh.. `04 (took some digging to find that out!) with about 9800 miles on it.  When I got it, it had a big stumble around 6krpm and a top speed of 135mph.  Turns out it was 1) jetted hilariously rich and 2) had a bad spark plug wire... all at under 10k!   Needless to say after fixing those issues I very nearly re-injured an old shoulder separation the first time I got into the gas hard!!  

Like any old sporty bike though, stupid shit breaks.  Expect half the tabs for fairing/bodywork to be buggered up.  If you really want to be cautious, pull the countershaft cover off (and the clutch slave has to come off first, a fine time to look for signs of leaked brake fluid in that area) and doublecheck the cases to make sure that a chain hasn't gone whizzing through that area and torn things up.  A compression test and a leakdown test would also be useful things to know before plunking down a big pile of cash.

That brings us to the other problem of the FJ:  It absolutely demolishes consumables.  Maybe it's just me, but I find the torque will snap a cheap chain easily and wear a decent one very rapidly.  Tires?  Forget it, the front cups rapidly and the back develops a strange flat spot right down the middle  It's a big heavy beast with more power available at low revs than it has any right to have, and this can cause some problems... but if you weren't interested in those sort of problems, you'd not be looking at an FJ, eh?

[carsick]

Bravo, guys. Cliff's notes for FJ's. Decades of knowledge distilled into a paragraph. The editor in me rejoices.
Doug

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Thanks massively to all the reply's! Great work andyb, thanks a bunch! I don't mind putting a bit of elbow grease involved in keeping an older bike running smoothly, gives me greater pride in understanding and improving the bike.

How decent is the ABS model? It's not essential to me, but if the system on the 91 (I think) isn't to primitive and is effective, would anyone recommend sourcing a 91ABS instead even if its possibly slightly pricier.

Still working on getting the Mrs onboard with the whole plan. Now that I know what upkeep is required, can anyone advise me on pillion comfort levels? Any seat or support upgrades that noticeably cause less aches to the pillion?

Thanks again.

[mikeholzer]

I ride a '92 ABS model. I just rolled over 90,000 miles this morning, and the only ABS issue I ever had with it was caused by a perished front brake light switch. $50 later the problem was solved and my brake lights worked again, too. The ABS system has pretty good self diagnostics; there is a TON of information for servicing the ABS system in the late model Yamaha FJ1200 Service Supplement which I believe you can find in the files section here.

As far as operation, it's not as nice as the ABS in my car, but it does prevent wheel lock-up without significantly increasing your stopping distance. It recently saved me from crashing into the passenger door of an asshole in a Mercedes who couldn't wait his turn in traffic any longer and decided to launch into an illegal left-hand turn immediately in front of me in order to bypass a traffic signal. I was pretty happy to have had the anti-lock at that particular moment.

[FeralJuggernaut]

The only thing my gal requests is a back rest for the really long days.   Swing that request into a corbin gunfighter w/ lady and a backrest OR   a top box with a back pad in place, whichever suits your fancy better.    "...but honey, I spent all that money for your comfort!"