Maybe not a Doujin project per say, but this is something I'm working on.
My motorcycle was stolen last year. It was a beat up old Katana I had gotten from my friend for cheap. Despite the way it looked and how inexpensive it was, it ran like a dream and was ridiculously fast. Losing it was hard, and it instilled in me the desire to get another motorcycle and reclaim that awesome feeling of riding.
Around September of last year, I enough money saved up that I could start to look around for some fixer-uppers. On Craig's List I found a 78 Yamaha XS750 Special. These bikes, known as 'Triples' due to their three cylinder design, were unique at the time and have a strong cult following online. The kid selling it needed money fast, so I picked it up for $400.
Riding season was winding down around that time as the temperature was steadily dropping and the bike needed some work. It was slowly leaking gas from somewhere and there was somehow gas in the oil as well. We don't have a garage here, so I had to pull it onto our walkway and cover it up for the winter.
Fast forward to now. The temperature's being more cooperative and there's been some really nice days. A friend of mine came over and we've started to work on the bike to get 'er going.
Fuel tank and Carburetors were taken off first. Generally, no matter what the carbs always have to be checked on an old bike like this. If they're clogged or there's any residue built up in them, they can really hurt the performance of the engine.
Here's the carbs with the intakes taken off. Amazingly enough when we opened them up, they were clean as a whistle. Shooting carb cleaner through the jets revealed they didn't have a bit of buildup in them and worked remarkably well. That's a stroke of luck as it's a lot of work to tear them down and rebuild them.
A bit of a closeup of the engine showing where the carbs attach. It's difficult to see in the picture, but almost all the tubing and wiring seems pretty new. It definitely looks like someone was working on this before we got to it.
With the carbs in near perfect condition, we ruled them out to be the cause of the fuel leak. The next suspect was where we found it, in one of the petcocks.
This has us a bit stuck, and we'll have to do more research on it. Taking it apart, it looked completely fine. However, it both leaks from the screw hole where it connects to the tank and also allows gas down the vacuum nozzle on every setting when it is only supposed to do this on PRI(me).
That, however, solves the mystery of why there was gas in the oil/crankcase. With it constantly allowing fuel down that vacuum tube, it would overflow and leak down into the crankcase, getting to the oil.
Anyway, that's where we are now. All in all, a lot of great discoveries. The engine itself turns over without any problems, so getting this leak fixed will have the only major problem taken care of. It shouldn't be too long, now. I'll keep the thread updated when we work on 'er again~
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Originally Posted by RoadBuster
