woot woot, another yamaha!

[HawaiianBassHed]

$400 and I'll let him ride it when it's done. backfires and sputters out. figuring clean the carb, he said something about the exhaust manifold havin holes but I didn't see any.. 83 virago 750. straight pipes gonna charge the batt, clean it up a little and see if I can get it fired. he said the plugs need to be cleaned like it's running super rich. shaft drive I don't know much else about it. figured at $400 might as well try my hand at it LOL

started it 4 months ago, and riding before that he would have to clean the carbs once a month. so I think maybe the tank needs to be cleaned out. and replace the fuel lines/filters whatever they are. just minor stuff probably.

gonna take a #000 then #0000 steel wool to everything aluminum to clean it up to a decent polish... may do some refinishing on things as I go. but if I'm not happy I may just get it running and sell it for like $900 if I can.

I started taking off some of the oxidation and corrosion but it's a work in progress. I actually started it with just using the choke, but if I turn the choke off it dies and it doesn't rev up very high without backfiring. gonna clean the jets, I don't recall if that means it's extremely rich or lean so I'll figure it out when I get there, I'm thinking its lean from lack of fuel flow. so I'm hoping it's an easy fix. gotta d/l a manual and see what I can get going LOL... wife said they have a crappy review tho so who knows... I didn't bother looking it up prior figuring it's a yamaha and $400 so I can't really go wrong LOL

the seat was recently covered and the battery is pretty new 2011. oil looks brown and clear thru the window by the shifter. plugs look new from the outside. gotta pull the tank and carbs and go from there

this was before I picked it up.

took off some of the crust...

gonna get more pix as I go, but I think I gotta work on cleaning the tank/carbs if the wife lets me LOL

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

hm, gotta find me a manual LOL, couldn't figure out how to get the tank of LOL.

I got it revving better, seemed like it wasn't holding an idle so I just adjusted it a couple clicks and holds idle fine. horn doesn't work. all else seems to be fine. headlight, turn signals tail light (didn't check brake light) still gotta check things and do a test ride but it's a start, it's drizzling so can't do much now. plus the wife isn't super happy lol

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

eh, took it for a test ride and when it DOES rev up man this thing is fun

so I just gotta find a manual so I can figure out how to pull the tank and carbs and see how to get it revving good all the time. has a clackity kinda valve noise so maybe the valves need to be adjusted...

 

[sicivicdude]

The only thing I can think of which might garnish a poor review of the virago's is the "starter noise" all virago's have. Yammy used a funky starter drive system and over time they get this funky kinda clack in them when they're turning over. It's normal and doesn't hurt anything and you can get rid of it by buying a new starter.... for about 6 months and then it'll start again. All of the virago's do it.

Good deal for $400 if it ran at all. Clean those carbs out making sure to pay special attention to the fuel needle (kinda like an pilot air needle on a 2 stroke carb). That's what causes them to not idle or rev up off the bottom clean.

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

cleaned the carbs but didn't help. it doesn't do it's thing under load mostly. it can rev in neutral but will pop/backfire at times. under load it's like a 50cc moped motor is driving it til it decides to kick onto both cylinders (thinking maybe the front one isn't running) I went up our hill a couple streets til it couldn't propel itself and would bog to a stop then came back down.

checked plugs, rear cylinder one was hot, front one seemed like it was wet and not hot at all, I coulda put it in my mouth. so I'm figuring maybe the front cyl isn't running all the time and pops in and out... dude said it was running and flooding the cyl til gas would come out the exhaust. the front cyl exhaust seemed like it didn't have much pressure so I gotta check into it further. my horns need to be looked at (gonna try the center screw trick tomorrow) and maybe look at the sidestand switch as a possible problem for the running issues. but I'm not too hopeful of it. gonna look into adjusting the valves (never did valves before tho) n maybe sync the carbs but they look to be opening the same amount and it idles fine. and kinda off and on with the revving while parked in neutral. gonna see what the wife will let me do with it tomorrow but I gotta run a hard propane line for our gas dryer tomorrow and put together a used storage shed I have no directions for LOL. plus she wants to goto the carnival so I got alot on my plate... oh, I also joined a virago forum to see if I can figure out more things to check there worst case scenario I can make a checklist of things and sell it for what I got into it and have them the list LOL

oh, also gonna check my pilot screw settings an clean them out (didn't clean them today totally spazzed it)

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

I'm gonna do a bobber style front with the straight bar, relocate or use a different horn, blinkers will be lower profile all around clear ones probably dual filament so I can have running lights tail light will be retro'd to something more fitting. I'm thinking shave the seat lower all around but keeping it a 2 seater and adding a real sissy bar...

not sure where to get my handle bars for decent price, didn't find a horn or tail light yet either. but I found my mirrors and blinkers so far LOL here's a sick before/after...

before...

after...

I actually found mirrors that are similar if not those same ones. I'm not going that extreme from pos to cherry bike. but I'm hoping to make it come out nicer lol. maybe not a sick paint job like that but the idea is similar to that

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

short vid, I got the front cylinder to fire up but something still seems wrong, it backfires so I need to check and make sure the proper needles are in each carb

oh and the pilot screw for the front cyl does nothing. no matter how I mess with it. gonna do the clear tube method to set the floats. I got alot to do, just set the valve lash and tho it was outta spec it didn't do anything lol

viragorevs9-15-11.mp4 video by hawaiianbasshead - Photobucket

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

have been having a biotch of a time setting my float heights (seemed like it would stick open when I go to set it to stay open longer and would end up flowing like crazy til gas came out the top vacuum on the carb) and then had issues trying to sync the carbs and ordered a vacuum gauge today... anyway, blacked out some stuff and got brand new tires put on it. ordered a few parts and will have pix soon as I put the stuff on too

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

sooo... my bars look alot worse on my cluster fukked bike than they did on the clean bike I got my idea from lol, lookd ok before all my stock controls went on it. I need to declutter it big time...

and my seat came out like crap too that I tried to use for my seat base covered in neoprene then vinyl came out kinda crappy too... back to the drawing board...

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

better look at the bars with the clutter on it.

I just need to find better angled bends on the throttle, choke and the brake line. once I do that it will look better I'm reasonably sure.

I think for the brake line, I may just try to spin the top around as it has an angle at the banjo bolt connection that will swing it out of the way to work with the bend of the bars. the rest I gotta just play with. maybe eliminate my clutch sensor cable and get an aftermarket horn, light control setup. relocate my key switch to somewhere else. just declutter the bar area as much as I can.

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

stuffed it all back together and flipped my brake line around. it's still crappy but looks a little better with it the other way. I have to twist the bottom of the line to get the twist out so it bends with the bars more but it's 9:30pm and the wifey needs help with food for tomorrows trail ride. will try to get some pix of the 450 out there. wish I wasn't putting off the 250 then I'd have pix/vids of it running up there instead

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

did the red and it was a little much for me so I re-covered in with black lol. I MAY do it again but not the spokes, I just kept thinking it looked like a kids toy or something...

lookin a little better than it was but still not what I was imagining so I'm thinking lower profile brake leaver, switching, maybe relocate the key switch and some lower profile blinkers front and back soon. I'm thinking I may get different bars as well. I liked these at 1st but now I'm thinking regular ape bars may look better than these closing at the top...

 

[04YamahaRider]

Looking good! I:I Its starting to get somewhere now!
On that rim I would have just done the spokes, would look cool with red accents in there.

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

Looking good! I:I Its starting to get somewhere now!
On that rim I would have just done the spokes, would look cool with red accents in there.

thanks! I'm getting stoked now that it's starting to look better lol. I need to declutter the bars so I can show them off! that's one of my main concerns is how to get lower profile controls for everything. the universal china crap on ebay is only 1/8" slimmer as the stock left controls are 1 1/4" the ebay one is 1 1/8" lol so I won't shave much there so I'm still looking for slimmer. I'd like 1/2" narrower. the right controls I'm looking at going slimmer as well. I think the brake/master and throttle need to go same time. so I'll probably do it in stages, left side complete and right side complete or both same time, we'll see. when I removed the key switch to disassemble and clean the internal contacts, I considered relocating it at the same time but didn't. that should help a little as well. but mainly the controls need to get smaller lol. or I could extend the bars wider the length of the grips... that was my initial thought but I don't weld and to get it done clean would probably be easier to get different bars. I like this set, 1/2" higher rise and a 5" more pullback (which would suit the controls perfectly as the stock bars have a heavy pullback)

wider by 5"ish inches as well so the controls will be further down the sides and more leverage on the bars, its a heavy bike for me and tall so it would be nice to add more width like the stock bars again.. those bars are 3x what I paid for my current set tho

as for the spokes only, I never thought of that. It's a pita to tape it off to be honest lol but I may try it! thanks for the idea!

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

test fit my yfz front master cyl on there to decide if I liked it better than the stocker...

looks better imo because I can angle the brake line to follow the bar bend and I can see more of the spike where the bars come together... so I polished the lever and gloss black engine painted the reservoir, the paint is drying so tomorrow I'll put it on and take new pix.

oh here's current pix of the bike. I had previously painted the battery and air cleaner covers with spray on truck bedliner and never took pix.

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

kinda blurry pix but here it is, hard to see the line so came out how I thought it would brake line bend wise.

 

[yzrider]

lookin good man

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

I gave my neighbors dogs some bones (we feed our dogs raw meats only, search BARF diet, beef, chicken whatevers with bones and all) so I got to talk story with him a little and he goes, hey I got these mini turn signals you can have, I was like cool! his buddy gave them to him. they're LED tho so I'll need the resistors or relays to have them work on my bike but still, I'm thinkin fronts then the rear I'll do bullets and bullets for the fronts later as well...

feebs is always nice... just gotta get it to actually RUN right... other than that it's getting there. in a week or two I'll have it lookin quite a bit better I'll be workin on the license plate relocator/tail light and maybe stuff the rear fender in a little towards the front of the bike. I'd really like to put a bobber style rear fender on it but I can't get one cheap here

 

[HawaiianBassHed]

got my LED bullet blinkers on, as well as my plate relocator/star light. still have a long way to go but it's definitely gettin closer to what I envisioned. I need to figure out how to drop it asap and redo the seat so it's one piece and a little better.

I added the rear pad section just to cover the holes and gaps that are there for now. I'm hoping to finalize the seat as well as drop it 2" front and back maybe a few other little things that will make a nice difference. not sure what all yet but it's definitely getting there... I still may change the bars to this. but it's $175 and this one was $75...

it's about 5-6" wider which is what I want/need and has a 6" pullback so I'll sit more straight up. and it will just FIT better, looks wise it MAY or may not compliment the bike better I'm not sure...