My New Vision

[Kojo]

Hey everyone, I'm a Vision newbie. This is my second motorcycle I've ever owned, my first was a Honda Twinstar CM200T. I started looking around for something a bit bigger, with enough power to get me to Sedona for the next semester. It's Kyle or Kojo or whatever...

Introductions aside, what you really want to see is the bike:



These pictures might look a bit familiar to you guys since you have a topic about the bike already. Also no new pictures yet since it's gutted in the back patio right now. Well, it sold, for nearly a song. The paint is a bit worn, and some of the rubber on the right footpeg is falling off a bit. There is a crack that someone tried to patch (Bu ultimately failed) on the gas tank (You can see it in the picture right hand side, the white spot), the right hand turn signal is a bit wonky clicks like mad and does not blink (Left works fine), the carbs need cleaning (Open on the back porch right now, what a bear to wrestle out.), the tires are weather checked, some of the gaskets are bad (The ones hooking the carbs to the engine are going bad), and it's missing the right mirror. But it runs. And for that we are grateful.

When we finished our business he told me about this site, little did he know I already found it. Seems like a great group. And there's supposed to be a Vision Guru or something up in Kingman. If there is, awesome! I'm over in Havasu. Anyhow, once it's roadworthy, I'll be a Vision rider instead of repairer.

[YellowJacket!]

Rick G is the Guru in Kingman.

Welcome to the ROV family. If you have browsed the foums a bit, you'll see that were a pretty close family here and we don't eat our young.

About 4 or 5 years ago I started my project with now idea of what I was doing and now have a beautiful bike to show off.  COuldn't have done it without all the help I got here.  Feel free to asl any questions and you will usually get many responses...all of them good answers too.  You may also want to browse through the frums and search for different things you may be interested in researching.  We've covered every square inch of these bikes and then some.


Welcome aboard!!

David aka YellowJacket

[Kojo]

Yeah, while my account was on hold I did some browsing. Most of you guys have enviable bikes -I'm looking at you YellowJacket- and some pretty neat tips. I was going to ask about how to get the carbs out but they popped out as soon as I got a mystery hose out of the way. Checking the manual/bible for what it is. Seems like a good group you guys have here.

[YellowJacket!]

Some of the possibilities for the hoses are vent hoses which come out of the tops of the carbs on the side near the chokle mechanism.  The drain hoses are below that.
Underneath the carb are the vacuum hose that powers the fule pump on the right side of the carb.  It goes to the front carb boot.  There si also the petcock hose that comes off the front carb boot and goes to teh fuelcock.
Lets see, if you have an "updated airbox" (the one with the vacuum actuated flapper), there is a small hose that comes out of the top of the airbox and attaches to the front carb. There should also be another hose going to a small (about the size of a half dollar) filter on the right side of the front carb.

Below the carbs are two other hoses coming out from the base of each cylinder which go to the YICS (triangular ait box on the right side of the carb)  Look for info on the forums about how to either disable it or seal it.  If its leaking your' bike will run like crap.

Take a look at some of my recent carb posts in teh tech talk about my "badly leaking carb"  I posted some good carb pictures there.

David

[YellowJacket!]

Oh, and I have to give my friend Lucky a good business plug, you should consider purchasing one of his CD/DVD's.  He has included a copy of the parts fiche, Haynes manual in PDF format, Wiring diagram and all kinds of other useful information.
Its well worth the money you'll invest in it.

I used an old laptop in my garage when I was doing my resto.  Had ROV open almost all the time and had Luckys CD (was just CD's at the time) in my CD drive.  Tons of valuable info on it.

David

[Kojo]

Well, the carbs are out, on a workbench right now. I've been cleaning them (One at a time, don't want to lose the screws/springs/jets), and all sorts of nasty gunk has come out. I've also managed to strip paint of all things out of the pan I was emptying the rust/dirt. Oops. Also, what does the YICS or whatever triangular module do?

Another problem I've found. The previous owner had removed the carbs before (Uh-oh) and broke off one of the (All I can assume is that they're overflow preventers since they're not in the manual) off of the leading/front carb. It is originally shaped like a "T" with on end going into the carb and into a metal tube that stops near the top, the other end leads to the other carb, and both meet up and go who knows where... What is that, and can it be replaced? Are they snap-in (If so, I'd best take off the jury rig silicon sealing they used to glue them together, and try my own hand) or screw in (I can just rob a part from a scrapper, or find one online) I don't want to replace the carbs. If I can find my camera, I'll take pictures.

Other than that, situation same as first post.

[vadasz1]

You're right they are over flow spigots.  As long as the two carbs ar connected somehow it doesn't matter what it looks like.  Just make some sort of 'T' connection somewhere between the two carbs.

And if you hook up with RickG, whatchout as he spits out slow riders for breakfast. 8)

Wlecome to your new extended Vision family Kojo.

[YellowJacket!]

The YICS is a long debated often maligned device that is supposed to be pressurized during the intake cycle then release a burst of that pressure which supposedly causes the intake gasses to swirl and combust better.  SOme say it is for emmissions, some say it is for better performance.  If its leaking things dont run well.
Look at the pictures of my carbs in my leaking carbs post and you will see how I "T'd" the overflow hose to repair my broken spigot.  Its a common problem.

I've also posted detailed instructions as to how I repaired my YICS. Some say their bikes run better if you just cap off the ports and forget about it, I thing my bike runs a lot better when the YICS is on, sealed and working.'

I'll look for some of the links to my past posts and add tehm to this discussion.  Gotta go to bed now.  Its been a long day working in the ICU.

In the mean time, this may interest you: http://www.xz550.com/carbindex.html


David

[QBS]

You need to make Rick G. in Kingman AZ your new best friend.  Look him up in the gallery, he's there.

[vadasz1]

Hey Dave, you really do need some shuteye as your spelling is getting really bad.  Swollen pudgy fingers are the worst to 'typo' with.  8)

[funkamongus]

Im often in Parker, so, we'll hook up when shes done!! I want to hook up with rick g too, so, It'll be good!

[Kojo]

All right. Not much to see over here though, just long straight stretches of desert. Calling it a night after some more carb work. Cleaned the fuel pump. Looked like someone shut a raisin in there. Starting on the other carb tomorrow. Also: Would you guys recommend powder coat or rattlecan job? I've done rattlecan enough times it has stopped looking too bad, just get some good auto paint, right? As far as powder coat goes, can it be done to the plastics? Is it quite expensive? Either way, my paint is a bit matte and powdery. Matte is good, but it has to be uniform.

[YellowJacket!]

Hey Dave, you really do need some shuteye as your spelling is getting really bad.  Swollen pudgy fingers are the worst to 'typo' with.  8)

I absorbed too much carb cleaner through my fingers the other day.  They don't seem to be working right.  :-o

David

[YellowJacket!]

All right. Not much to see over here though, just long straight stretches of desert. Calling it a night after some more carb work. Cleaned the fuel pump. Looked like someone shut a raisin in there. Starting on the other carb tomorrow. Also: Would you guys recommend powder coat or rattlecan job? I've done rattlecan enough times it has stopped looking too bad, just get some good auto paint, right? As far as powder coat goes, can it be done to the plastics? Is it quite expensive? Either way, my paint is a bit matte and powdery. Matte is good, but it has to be uniform.

I used Rustoleum Premium Commercial matte black on my frame and it has held up quite well.  I really worked hard to sand down the rust first then prime it.  Its been 4 years...and lots of fuel leaks and its still holding up great.

I may eventually have the frame powder coated but I've put so much $$ into YJ that it will have to wat until after grad school when I'm making the big bucks.

David

[Kojo]

Well, the frame paint is pretty good (There are a few spots where the paint has rusted away, but easily touched up) but my main concern is the gas tank and the plastic sides. What should I use to paint those? Should I have it professionally done? Is it prohibitively expensive? I should get started as son as my POR-15 gets into town, maybe sand it down before that.

Also Parts I want/Need (Names are not 100% clear, I'm a newb, and I cannot find some of it in the manual):

O Ring for Cooling
Right hand mirror
Footrest Rubber bits
Rubber "Hose" that connects carbs to engine proper
Flasher (I can probably find a replacement at AutoZone)
Front Right Hand Turn Signal Plastics

If anyone has these parts, since they're ridiculously expensive anywhere else, I'm willing to pay what they're worth (Not their weight in gold) as well as shipping.

[vadasz1]

Kojo, painting can be done by yourself if you are good at it.  You can go with pro-quality paint or go the rattle can way.  There was actually a post up last month or the one before about how to get a pro-looking DIY paint job.  (Here it is:  http://ridersofvision.net/rovforum/index.php?topic=10545.0)

If you take it to someone to do all the plastics and the tank you can expect anywhere from $150-$300 dollars for a straight forward paint job.  And some thing fancy will be $$$$$$$.  I have painted a few bikes for Tiger and will be painting for any other ROVers as well. (Discounted price for the ROV members).  But I usually charge about $300 for a good quality one colour paint job.  Then the owner is responsible to make it nice and shiny, about 2 months after the paint has fully cured, by buffing and polishing it.

The parts you require can be asked for here, or do a search on EBAY for 'Yamaha Vision', 'Yamaha XZ550', 'Yamaha XZ 550' and make sure to do a 'world wide' search as to get the best results.

[Kojo]

Thanks, I read through your post there, loads of great tips, you fixed where I went wrong with my last gas can (It went matte). Since it is a load of trouble to hand paint, and I do have an air compressor I'll look into that as another option. And to decide the color.. Hmm...

[YellowJacket!]

Get to know someone who works in a paint shop.  In my case, my neighbor is a painter in a local chevy dealers shop.  I asked him about painting my bike and he told me to give him a list of colors that I liked.  He told me that whenever he had a job coming up that was one of my choices, he would throw them in the paint booth and shoot them as well.

In my case I was incredibly lucky as I got my tank, fender and all other plastics including my tailpiece painted for $100.00.  I had to do the prep work on all but the fender but it was worth it as he did a perfect job including clearcoat and finish.

David

[Kojo]

Well, we'll have to see about painting it. I might strip the current matte black and just re-do it to a uniform scale for the time being. The good thing about paint thus far: it can be stripped off and re-applied any time. Yay.

Also, just emptied my wallet at the motorcycle shop. New tires are here tomorrow. Posting pictures as soon as I find my gull-durned camera.

[YellowJacket!]

You can strip the paint off the metal tank but I found out the hard way that the "aircraft paint stripper" gel is not plastic friendly.  Ended up with some gooey parts.

For my first paint job I boughet a 10 gal compressor from lowes and a decent paint gun from harborfreight.  I got my paint from the now defunct paintforcars.com as a kit.  The kit was about 100.00 and included the paint (1 gal), hardener and catalyst, masks, strainer, mixer, paint thinner and a lottle bookelet about how to paint.

I stripped all my paint off my first tank and found about 2" of body filer...uh oh.  Got that repaired.  I ended up having the triangular part of both tanks cut out replaced and re-welded.  It looked like the tank had sucked itself halfway inside out.  I rattle can primed and sanded the tank then practiced a bit with my new sprayer.  When I was comfortable with the spray pattern and texture, I set out to paint my bike.  The fender and plastics actually turned out pretty good but I ended up with some "orange peel" on the tank so I sanded it down then re-sprayed it until I was happy.  It wasn't perfect but looked pretty good from a few feet away.

Alas, that tank rusted through in several places underneath and proved too difficult to repair so I sold it and found a brand new tank in Germany.  Thats when I had my neighbor re-do everything for me.

LOL about the camera...every time I need mine, the batteries are dead.  It will kill a set of batteries in two days even when its turned off.

Daivd