First time FJ1100 owner in Adelaide, South Australia

[nchattaway]

Hello all. I bought an 84 FJ1100 from a friend a few months back. It had been sitting in his garage for 7 years, ridden there and parked on the centre stand with a full tank of fuel on the day he took delivery of his ZZR-1100.

I have basic mechanical skills and some experience working on bikes from my youth, but am quite time poor (6 kids, 50 acre farm, working 5 days in the city) so luckily I have a friend who is gifted in all things mechanical and loves motorbikes. He was willing to let me trailer the FJ to his shed where it's been for the past couple of months. Slowly coming back from her Rip Van Winkle session.

The carbs needed a complete strip down and thorough clean. There are some small cracks in a couple of the inlet manifold rubbers, but he's coated them with silicone for now. Brake master cylinder, clutch master and slave all needed a clean up and rebuild kits put through. The top front brake hose was clogged with junk, which has been flushed and cleared with wire, but down the track I'll be fitting a new set of braided stainless lines.

One fork seal was leaking, so the front end was dismantled and completely rebuilt. A few of the damping shims were missing (should be 3 on each leg, one had 1 and the other had 2) plus the bottom damping slides had been put back UPSIDE DOWN by the last guy. At least it has progressive springs. My friend has balanced the anti dive systems too, so the front should be OK for now. Headstem roller bearings packed with new marine grease. New front wheel bearings fitted. Front discs and calipers are OK.

The rear suspension has a fair bit of play. On the centrestand, you can lift the back wheel an inch before the spring starts to load! It seems all the bushes and bolts for the rear linkage are extremely expensive, so this is going to have to wait for a little while. The rear disc is down to 4mm thick and looks to have been getting extremely hot with my friend's regular two up riding. So that can't wait. I'll need to buy a good one from someone very soon. It probably makes sense to tackle the back end stuff like swingarm bushes, chain and sprockets, linkage bushes all together if my wallet can handle that.

Once the rebuilt carbs were fitted, new plugs, filter and oil changed, we fitted a battery and cranked her up. After a bit of fiddling around she started and ran OK. Blowing a fair bit of white smoke though. My friend assures me it wasn't using oil or blowing smoke when he was running her regularly, so I'm hoping there's a bit of junk in there that just needs a good run up to temperature with some load to clean out. Does this sound plausible, or am I probably looking at a damaged oil ring in one of the cylinders from sitting unused so long?

I registered her yesterday, and my mechanic friend took her for a ride this afternoon. He's giving it the thumbs up for now, although I think a bit of expert carby balancing and valve clearance adjustment is going to improve things. It's a bit rough under acceleration and tricky to start from cold. I think the coils and HT leads are probably way past their used by date. Anyone running a more modern ignition system? I live near Tri-power, who make an electronic ignition system for 4 cylinder bikes now. Wondering if this will make starting and running smoother?

Also, the headlight and taillight don't work. Front and rear brake switches do illuminate the brake light though. We've changed fuses and tested the headlight globe, which is fine. So it could be the headlight switch itself, or something wrong with the wiring. Any one seen something like this at all? For instance, is there a known dodgy relay I should be looking at first off? I haven't even ridden the FJ myself yet, struggling for time to go and collect it. But hopefully this weekend!

I'll post a few pics when I get organised. Anyway, happy to join your bustling community, and looking forward to learning from the collective wisdom of you all!

Cheers,
Nathan

[movenon]

Welcome Nathan. Sounds like you have a project now. Don't get over whelmed just fix one problem at a time. If you have time go back and start reading old posts to get an idea about the bike. Read through the files section, lots of good information there with a couple of good posts on carb rebuilds. Check out RPM's web sight to get an idea of some of things that are available and cost's. http://www.rpmracingca.com/products.asp?cat=39 at least to start with. There are lots of members here from Australia that might be able to assist with information or help. 
George

[roverfj1200]

Good to see another Aussie with a FJ.. Good to have you aboard and everything you need to know is right here. We have a Rally each year so look that up and hope to see you out and about soon.

Cheers

[Urban_Legend]

Welcome. It is great to see another aussie and another 84 on the forum. Even with your stated limit mechanical knowledge, you will find these bikes easy to work on. sounds like you are a busy man (family/work and a farm) but when these bikes are running at their best you will start finding the time to take them for a run.
Enjor the bike and look up Kookaloo. We have all had our kookaloo moments on these bikes. Love it.

Mark

PS would love to see a picture of the bike.

[nchattaway]

Here's a couple of pics of my 84 the day I picked her up from one friend's garage and delivered her to another friend's workshop. As you can see, it's certainly not a minter. Those mufflers have been patched with Guinness cans...

I'll be looking for a LH mirror, a pair of mufflers, a rear disc rotor.

I rode her home to the farm this afternoon. It felt great to be back on a bike. It's been five years since I sold my Bandit 1250S. The FJ feels very long, low and comfortable. There's a near perfect slight lean forward to the bars for me, and the pegs aren't jammed up my butt. At 182.5 cm it fits me very well, although there is still plenty of room to slide back on the saddle for taller riders.

It's definitely running a bit rough around 5000rpm. Is this where the carbs transition jets? I suspect some gunked up old fuel varnish is clogging the little filter domes on the primary jet assemblies. My mate didn't strip those parts down, nor clean up the pipes with the pinholes in the sides. So it may be we need to strip the carbs down a third time, unless this is electrical.

As I was riding, I heard a loud whistle or squeal that I initially thought was a front wheel bearing, but these were replaced with new and have done about 20km. When I turned onto my corrugated dirt road and hit a fairly large bump the sound stopped. I think it might be a piece of the foam seal coming loose from the air filter and blocking or blowing around in the airbox. Must check before I ride again.

[nchattaway]

A couple more pics...

[The General]

  Welcome Nathan. Nice classic you have there. That little squeal is cause she`s excited, but also her speedo cable might be a bit dry.....sometimes it`s in the instrument too. Graphite powder or light oil may be the trick.

Hoping to see you next March at Harrietville. (You`re monica on Zeemaps would be good too.)

[Bones]

G'day Nathan, Welcome to the forum. I have read where the 1100's swingarm bushes can be replaced with roller bearings. Pretty sure it's an easy enough swap and works out cheaper than buying new bushes etc.. Maybe someone who has done it will chime in.

With the white smoke, make sure you haven't over filled it with oil, should be just above the sight glass markings, plus when you get it running good enough take it out somewhere deserted with a long straight, put it in second gear and take it to red line then back it off without brakes a couple times. The rings could be stuck in the grooves from sitting around and doing this will help free them up.

Like you said with the headlight, could be a dirty switch block. Wouldn't hurt in fact going over every connector block with a spray cleaner to eliminate bad connections in the future. These are pretty simple machines and easy to work on, so go through everything and pretty soon it'll run like clockwork. There's heaps of info on here, all you gotta do is find it. The search function on here is pretty useless so google it with FJ 1100/1200 in the search query.

[nchattaway]

Guys,
Thanks for your welcoming notes! Also, it's great that you're giving me ideas already.

"That little squeal is cause she`s excited, but also her speedo cable might be a bit dry.....sometimes it`s in the instrument too. Graphite powder or light oil may be the trick."

Hmm, interesting. I wouldn't call it a little squeal though. I could hear it no worries at 80 - 100kph! The speedo needle is bouncing around about +- 10kph either side of road speed and the odometer and trip meter aren't clicking over at all. The friend I bought the FJ from said the odometer stopped a few years after he bought the bike (he's owned it since 97) but he reckons it's done about 50,000km ish. Showing 24000. So, the speedo definitely needs work. My mechanic friend said he had to McGyver the speedo cable drive at the front wheel, perhaps I'll puff some graphite powder down there. Or just shell out for a new cable. Any ideas on getting the odometer to work? The fuel gauge does work but I don't like to rely on that, I'd rather know how far a full tank will get me based on the trip meter.

How far should I expect from a reasonably tuned 1100? The tank seems to hold well over 20 litres. 24 from memory? On the open road at touring speeds, solo with a Gearsack rear topbag, could I expect 400 kays between fills?

Nathan

[mr blackstock]

G'day,

welcome to the fold!  Looks like a very nice 1100!  I am envious.  This forum has almost everything you will ever need to know about FJ's, or Randy at RPM has heaps of really sweet parts.  I personally would recommend his starter motor, great four brush one.

When you get a chance, put your location on the FJ registry:
https://micapeak.com/reg/bikes/FJ/

You may even find your bike on there already...

Good luck,

Gareth