Finally finished! first ride impressions and a couple questions

[wakdady]

so let me start by saying what a great help the members of this forum have been! thank you all!

i have been looking for a sport tourer and i came across her in sept. decided to make it a winter project. initially i had envisioned this wonderfull fully rebuilt bike, but that fell apart when i realized painting and a few other bits would be too costly for me right now and all i wanted WAS TO RIDE!

so i decided to focus on what it would take to make it reliable, safe and fun. i bought it for $1600. she would start, but not rev. as soon as you touched the throttle it would die. also, the forks were leaking badly and the tires were very old. Last registration was 2009 so it sat for quite some time. mileage was 19k. some parts looked like they aged very well, others, such as the grips made me think maybe it actually had 119k. but how do i really find out right?





I managed to get a free yzf wheel that literally fell on my lap! but i was purple. i cant tell you how many hours, no, days worth of effort it took to polish the wheels!







Randy supplied me with the fork rebuild kit and all the carb parts to completely overhaul them and rejet it for my V&H 4-1 (which i got on ebay and was pretty beat up, i'll polish it and clean it up some other time).
I bought the best chain i could find and proceeded to get to work. i totally screwed up on the stem bearings, and ended up messing up the lower bearing on the fork bit. i should have taken it to a shop to have pressed in, but ended up hitting it with a brass drift and walking it around till it got in. but i badly messed up the cage in doing so. i tried to straighten it out and hoped that when it all got put together =. my first ride it was too lose and you could see it shifting, but once i tightened it up. all was well.
i went with sonic 1kg springs, but since funds were low , i didn't "spring" for the emulators, lol.

i synced the carbs as best i could, never having done it. and used the colortune for the mixture. BUT, i literally have gotten 100miles to 4 gallons, WTF?!? SOMEONE HELP ME

[wakdady]

I forgot to mention. The clutch slips pretty bad so ima get oem plates and the barnett conversion. I havent been able to give it WOT in 2nd to see if it pops out but i'll probablyfix it anyway so as to not have to take apart again. It also needs stainless lines. The originals are in right now

[markfj]

That FJ is looking nice.  Even the paint looks pretty good from here.  Hopefully the clutch issue won't be too big a hassle and you'll be able to report back on your riding impressions.

[wakdady]

Well, it handles a lot better than i expected! For such a heavy bike, its pretty easy to handle, even at slow speed. I did expect more power though. Hopefully i'll get a chance to ride a different fj at the rally to see how different it may be. I mean, its got plenty of power and she goes quite well, had her up to 140 and it felt very stable
And that corbin seat is soooo comfy! I love it!
The brakes were a bit of an issue. I got R1 calipers and master. But kept the old rotors. They had to bed in with each other so the first few miles were a little scary. They are much better now but stainless lines would make a huge difference. And the oe lines hit the gauge cluster at full lock.

My chicken strips are almost gone but im afraid i'll go too low and start scraping stuff
My renntec bars will be here monday so those will be on soon.

The rear shock is a white power racing unit, it looks pretty trick but i have no idea how its set up. There is a local suspension shop called catalyst reaction that i plan on taking it to so they can set it up for my weight

Overall, i love her and cant wait to rack up the miles! Hopefully i can improve the mpg's

[DailyDriver]

I forgot to mention. The clutch slips pretty bad so ima get oem plates and the barnett conversion. I havent been able to give it WOT in 2nd to see if it pops out but i'll probablyfix it anyway so as to not have to take apart again. It also needs stainless lines. The originals are in right now

Hi. Nice bike.

I mentioned that I had the same problem a while back and it was suggested by a forum member that maybe the master cylinder may be the culprit. I rebuilt the clutch master cylinder and sure enough, problem solved. FWIW.

[andyb]

Slipping clutch on something showing lots of wear and questionable mileage?  Measure clutch pack for wear and likely replace the fiber disks.