XZ550 Lemon?

[Lucky]

I'll have to find the pic or take a new one, but over my bikes i have a plaque that reads:
"Vision is the gift to see what others only Dream"

[simcha]

Right, I have met Rod Gibson today at the local bike show at Donnington. He is very sincere about wanting to do an article on the bike. As you guys have said he is looking for some words for the article from the view point of what the genuine faults and short comings are on the bike and what we have done to overcome them. I believe one of the forum members has agreed to do this from what he said? He has also agreed to come and see me to take pictures and ride if possible my Xz(s). We have provisionally said in May (when the weather is better here). The article would then appear in the autumn of this year.
I had quite a long chat with Rod and contrary to what you may think after reading the article he is genuine decent guy and bike fan. The "Lemon" feature has been running for about 2 years and despite all our rants about the XZ he has only ever had a complaint from owners of the Kawasaki Z750 twin. Again he agreed with them to review and ride the bike. They never turned up to give him the chance...... In this case Rod did know what he was talking about having worked for Kawasaki for some years. He says they will apologize and correct what was said in the XZ article if it incorrect after the review of the bike. The author of the feature "Lou Spokes" as  I suggested is not the guys real name. Rod would not tell me who he was only that he is a (was!!) well respected author in many bike magazines. He apparently got his information from the Yamaha dealers and magazine testers at the time.
So I guess this is it, the time to put the XZ / Vision where it should be as a good motorcycle that did have some flaws but was badly marketed at the time to a public that did not really want or was ready for it. Its your words guys and pictures and my bike in the feature. Better may sure I get it finished!!

[QBS]

Simcha, thanks for effort to get and keep this project viable.  Please post a few pictures of your bike, if possible.  Cheers.

[Cdnlouie]

Good work Simcha, I would never want to be the defense for someone who is "guilty as charged" such as the Kawi 750, but for the Vision I think we have a pretty good chance to refute the non-issues and address the real issues.  You can be certain he is going to give the XZ a good going over so I would suggest we chat about how to dial your old girl in to shape for the test ride.

Find out the potential rider weight so suspension can be properly set up when the time comes.  We still to need to chew on the 'address and refute' stuff. I am wondering if there is anyone else who has any Yamaha documentation on any of the early issues just in case something comes up.  I think my dealership only sold one or two and I only performed the carb airbox update and the starter clutch fix on the 82's.

Additionally, are there any other Yamaha mechanics around from the time period? Any fellows with race experience also who did tweaks to the Vision for competition?

CDNL

[YellowJacket!]

I think the title should be "How to Make Lemonade From a Lemon".  Of course I'd be glad to volunteer some pictures of my lemon yellow Vision too.  ;D

David

[simcha]

just running through the Xz pages on the net I came across this article. If any of you have read the magazine article I think we now know where he got his (mis)information from!

http://www.umgweb.com/member1/yvee1.htm

[kwells]

nice comprehensive research he did

ha

what a joke

[h2olawyer]

The first story even made mention of the "six speed gearbox".  Wish I could find one of those.   ::)

H₂O

[Cdnlouie]

Good research.  With all the good stuff on the web, one has to realize that there is equally enough bad stuff.  These are meant to be entertaining "bike rags" and certainly not proper evaluations.  CMM just cleaned it up a bit to make it sound like a proper evaluation, but you have to understand British humour (no disrespect intended here to our fellow Brits) which capitalizes on tongue-in-cheek story telling  :P.  You cannot take this article as gospel, because it is not meant to be serious.

I think Tiger got the just of this (being a converted Brit himself a.k.a. Canadian) saying the fellow was being a bit cheeky!  ;D Grabbing a humourous (I've heard lots of these sorry real-life stories) allows a writer to take a bit of liberty and just rework it.

Thanks for the info,

[QBS]

As the Brits might say, "Compleat rubbish". I loved the part where the front sprocket was changed so as to help the alleged vibration issue.  These people must have lived in the heart of the acid rain capitol of the planet.

[kiwibum]

This is good news to see. Of course the magazine will be keen to print a well documented story on a bike, they are always looking for stories. I feel a collaborated document would be very easily completed by May. I've had a quick look and it is possible to have a wiki like structure on this forum using editable messages. If the admin of the board would like to take a look at http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=219341.msg1401076#msg1401076 and consider whether it is possible to setup an area on this forum to collaborate on a document would be a good start. If this isn't a possibility then other options are setting up a wiki specially for this article at somewhere like http://www.wikidot.com/. There are plenty of free resources for collaborating on projects on the Internet.

In the name of continuity though I would suggest it is kept in the ridersofvision.net website if possible. Perhaps a new board should be created called "Articles" where documents are worked on for publishing in other bike magazines as well. Once an article goes to print/publish it is locked by admin so it is kept as a history of member based published articles. We have some members that are already privately trying to publish stories about their bikes. This would a good place for these things to be kept and used as a resource for magazine editors etc that want the real info on the XZ. Under the main http://ridersofvision.net/ home page we could have a media/press area with all the published articles publicly available, thus providing a good resource of information to help promote the bike. My 25cents worth :)

[jasonm.]

It appears that he wrote everything based on just a few stories by others from the UK.  I believe very few over the pond have the luxury of a garage to keep their bikes in. It appears the majority had to do with poor upkeep along the beginning life of their XZ550s.
I guess this might explain a bunch of issues they had.

[simcha]

No Jasonm we do have garages to keep them in! :D We are not that far backwards in time you know! The Xz does not have any more serious issues that most other bikes of its era. Certainly build quality and materials are on par with everything else built in the early 80s from Yamaha. Maybe just the wrong bike at the wrong time over here in the UK. And crap dealers who could not resolve the problems. But garages we have plenty! ;D ;D

[jasonm.]

Simcha, nice to know that.  I have learned that any bike or engine with a short production run ends up being poorly service by most dealers or shops. Just not much info around when problems happened way "back in the day".  Other than the '82 carb update here....there were no other major bulletins. ...I have them all.

[George R. Young]

The article is kind of inaccurate, but the flavour is close:

The Vision problems that bugged me the most:

1) The start oil seal with no spring to save $0.04, causing the starter to fill with oil and turn more slowly and devour the brushes.

2) The stator which fails every 25,000 km 'cause it runs full on all the time. Yamaha tried to solve this for the Venture, but did nothing for the Vision. The design was chosen to just last longer than the warranty - didn't leave a good taste.

Are you listening, Yamaha?

[jasonm.]

The article is kind of inaccurate, but the flavour is close:

The Vision problems that bugged me the most:

1) The start oil seal with no spring to save $0.04, causing the starter to fill with oil and turn more slowly and devour the brushes.

2) The stator which fails every 25,000 km 'cause it runs full on all the time. Yamaha tried to solve this for the Venture, but did nothing for the Vision. The design was chosen to just last longer than the warranty - didn't leave a good taste.

FYI ; all internal stator systems in presently made 'cycles run full out. The regulator's job is to solve the electrical issues. But this causes heat in 2 places..R/R and stator. The Ventures rarely had stator failures after the cooling kit was done. The majority of failures after the cooling kit was due to corrosion on the connectors, running w/bad battery or simply overloaded(too many lights) system. After mid-'84 all Ventures had this kit from the factory.  Visions are not the only bikes of this design to have stator failures. Do some searches. All brands have this issue.

Are you listening, Yamaha?

[BREWSKI]

LUCKY , DAVE TN . Hell of a pair of articles You guys are riding philosophers,great job  Brewski....

[Lucky]

??? am i missing something?  ???

[YellowJacket!]

Huh?

:o

YJ

[Rick G]

I hope you both figure it all out, I don't get it either.