AB's 81 XJ 550 Maxim

Well, here goes nothin!
Im a long time rider, but this will be my first true build! I have been lurking around here for the last 6 months and receiving tons of inspiration!
I have a Ducati 250 at home in boxes, that I have had tucked away for years, but I figured for my first build, I would start with something a little easier.
This is what I found in a guys barn.
It got put there about 10 years ago, and it hasn't been looked at since. $100 dollars later, it was in the back of my truck and that brings me to this very moment.
I think the first thing I need to do is take a pressure washer to her, and see what is actually underneath all of the crap that has settled on top of it.
I am really looking forward to lots of advice from all of you experienced people out there. You guys all got me into this for goodness sake! ;D

Looks like it's all there, any history as to why the bike was put away? Good luck with this build, I'm curious to see how it turns out.

I bought this bike from an old man who rode it around town up until the time that the clutch started slipping. Instead of having someone, take a look at the clutch and fix it, he parked it in his barn. When the registration came due the following year, he went ahead and filed for a non-op. He was planning on having someone take a look at it at some point... That was in the mid 90's.
I am really anxious to start work on this baby and hopefully discover that the story was accurate, and with the exception of some clutch work, it will be mechanically sound.
It all looks really good underneath the many years of barn dust!

should be interesting to see how you turn this into a cafe bike bike looks good. I hope that all it needs is some new clutch plates too. that would be great. Good luck.

I had a few hours and was able to start pulling all of the pieces and parts off the bike.
First, I turned the engine over to verify that nothing was frozen. Preliminarily, it looks like all is sound mechanically. I removed the carbs, and they look surprisingly good, with only a minimal amount of gunk. After a thorough cleaning, they will go back in and I will attempt to start the bike, before I remove the engine.
This leads to a question......... I am planning on removing the airbox, and running individual pods, but I cant for the life of me figure out how to remove the box. Is there a way to remove it now, or do I have to pull the engine out first. Even at that, I am not sure that it will slide out without destroying it. Maybe it will. Can anybody help?

abnab said:

I had a few hours and was able to start pulling all of the pieces and parts off the bike.
First, I turned the engine over to verify that nothing was frozen. Preliminarily, it looks like all is sound mechanically. I removed the carbs, and they look surprisingly good, with only a minimal amount of gunk. After a thorough cleaning, they will go back in and I will attempt to start the bike, before I remove the engine.
This leads to a question......... I am planning on removing the airbox, and running individual pods, but I cant for the life of me figure out how to remove the box. Is there a way to remove it now, or do I have to pull the engine out first. Even at that, I am not sure that it will slide out without destroying it. Maybe it will. Can anybody help?

Click to expand...

Remove the rear wheel?

The airbox is widest towards the front where it attaches to the carbs. The box is actually wider than the frame rails preventing it from moving backwards at all. The more I think about it today, I think it might come forward pretty easily once the engine is removed. I am gonna take another look at it tonight when I get home. I was just wondering if there was a way to remove it now. Just for a better visual of what it is going to look like.
Sometimes I seem to miss the obvious things. ???

twist the airbox sideways and pull it back?

Rotate it forward at the top and twist it sideways and pull it forward and out the side. Or theres always a bfh

It looks like a bfh is the answer!
I have tried every angle i can think of with the engine still in place and no luck.
I am going to forget about it for now. My next plan is to put the freshly cleaned carbs back in and put a battery in it this weekend and see if I can get her to run.
If I am successful with that, then I will proceed to remove the engine, take out that darn air box, and then start with the actual build.
This is my first full scale dissasemble/reasemble and I am really excited about the many challenges (and frustrations) that lie ahead!

So I know a little about XJ's... I have 3 Seca XJ750's and the seca and the maxim are very similar. From what I know, there is no way to remove it without removing the engine... a lot of guys break them in an attempt to get them out... BFH is pretty much standard but be careful... I don't know if the 550 is anything like the 750 but runnin pods can be a bitch. At least on the 750 it is pretty hard to get it to run well with pods. The only way to get the carbs to play nice with the pod is to attach the pod to a measured intake runner that matches the stock airbox.

Again This is all with the 750 and I have never worked on a 550, but Check out www.xjbikes.com. While I am not a fan of the custom work over there (no offense to anyone on the site, but there is a lot of half assed shit on there) DTT is much better for inspiration and forcing you to up your game. But what XJ bikes does have is a wealth of knowledge. There are many guys on that board who can help you and are extremely knowledgeable when it come to getting an XJ motor to run...

Great info Surf. Thanks. I definately will drop the engine and take the airbox out without damaging it. I am always assuming I might have to use parts again that I take off. I will definately get help when I put the pods on if it doesn't want to run right. I recently signed up on xjbikes.com and am happy to hear your recomendation. I am gonna need all the help I can get!

Yeah not a problem... like I said the info over there is great, Lots of people on there who really know how to make the Yammy YICS motors tick. And they are pretty helpful too, I just wish I could say that there are lots of good custom work over there but most of the project treads are crap.

Anyway good luck with the build, I look forward to seeing what you do.

Cheers,
Micah

Ive been busy with work, but have stripped quite a bit of the crap off of the bike over the last few nights. I will take a few pics and post in tomorrow. I am getting ready to drop the engine, and strip the rest of the way down to the bare frame. I will take a few pics and post in tomorrow.
I just picked up a 650 Yamaha for next to nothing. There are no papers with it, and so I thought I might use it as a parts bike for this 550 project. I am not even sure what model it is yet, but I was looking it over and it looks very similar to the 550 that I am working on.
I will post up tomorrow with a little more info about the bike, and maybe somebody knows how interchangeable parts might be between the two bikes.

abnab said:

I just picked up a 650 Yamaha for next to nothing. There are no papers with it, and so I thought I might use it as a parts bike for this 550 project. I am not even sure what model it is yet, but I was looking it over and it looks very similar to the 550 that I am working on.

Click to expand...

Well I would say you got yourself a 198(?) Yamaha Maxim 650. Shaft drive cruiser... unfortunately totally different from your 550 maxim but some parts might be interchangeable. They were pretty indestructible once running right and i believe they made about 70hp, so they were pretty fast. The Maxim really was a cruiser and the Seca was the sport touring bike. The Maxims make pretty good bobber candidates because of the drop in the frame for the seat, and the secas are a bit better for cafe attempts as the frame does not have the drop for the seat. Should be a fun bike if you can get everything straight as far as paper work goes.

Check your rear brakes really close for delamination. I would suggest getting new shoes and pads anyway.
I have an XJ650 Maxim myself. I 've been working on the cafe look and it getting there pretty quickly.
I dont think youre going to get many parts from the Xj650 to fit your Xj550 since they're made differently.
Xjbikes.com rules Theyre bikes are as good as any simply because they put in the same hard work on them as people do here.
If youre into shinny cafe's that look like they just came out of an assembly line then this is the place to be. However we must rember that a cafe looks its best when it's got some wear and tear in it. Thats the way they were before! Thats the way I like them now!
No offense to all your shinny bikes...lol I like them too ;D.