83 XV920 - yeah it's a virago, but not for long

[DuckHunterJon]

I did an intro in the new member section, but figured it was time to get off my butt and get working on this project. A little background (from the intro):

I've been thinking about doing a cafe bike for a while. I've been searching for an RD for about a year, everyone that comes up is more than I can scrape together. So a couple months ago, I am surfing C-List and come across an ad that says "Old yamaha motorcycle, moving and need gone". I emailed and said I'd be interested, asked all kinds of questions. The reply was almost instant, "come look and take it away for free". I'll be right there! The whole way over I'm hoping it's an RD or DT or XT or... So I show up and find it's an 83 Virago :'( Crap. Well, I figure I'm there, it's free, at least I can get some scrap value out of it. So I load it in the truck and the seller says here - hands me a signed title. ;D


Here it is when I got it home:

So I drag it in the shop and start looking it over - it's a 920 and actually pretty complete - only missing one turn signal and the side covers. Last time it was on the road was 1994 - yup, been sitting for 17 years. On a lark, I pulled the carbs (solid gunk) and the tank (not really that bad some how), and emptied about a gallon of cherry pits out of the air box. I cleaned up the carbs, dumped in some fresh gas, connected up my 4 wheeler battery. The thing cranks over about 10 times and fires up. 5 minutes later, I was running up and down the road. Still spits and sputters above 4K, but runs.

So, the fun begins. I'm not 100% sure of the direction this is going to take, but I'm leaning towards a slimmed down (no easy feat with this pig) cafe. I've looked at tons of other builds, taking cues from all of them and putting together my own. Suggestions welcomed.

 

[DuckHunterJon]

OK, so the thing runs, but it starts like crap. What did we do before google. I researched it a bit, and found all kinds of info on the starter sytem on these things. Pulled the left side cover off expecting to find weak springs and ground teeth on the #2 starter gear.

What I found was one spring clip missing completely (no doubt someone tried to replace the starter with out popping the side cover off). Next up was a pretty mangled throw out spring. Lastly the #2 gear was badly ground and missing a rubber shim on one side of it. The flywheel doesn't look too bad, so that will be staying. A quick trip to a small dealer right around the corner (Stone's Snow Sleds) prooved fruitful - they had all three springs, and the #2 gear in stock. They strongly encouraged me not to take off the flywheel unless absolutely nessecary, as the motor has to be completely re timed.

Next the starter came off for inspection. Surprisingly, everything was in pretty good shape, so it got a good cleaning, and put back in.

So now it has the new starter parts, waiting on a good battery to test it out. No pictures of the parts, I'll upload some later.

 

[johngofast]

Interested to see what you do with the Virago, but gotta tell you I love that Interceptor behind it.

 

[johngofast]

Oh and this is my favorite Virago

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VDCGGBYmNCk/TROzLLHnaGI/AAAAAAAARmU/f24Hs3gANFg/s1600/1292501881_147_FT4313_reciprocity_virago-xv750_fighter.jpg

 

[Bozz]

Cool project.
There have been some really nice XV's around of late.


I understand that the Seca Turbo wheels are bolt on to loose the swirly mags.


Best of luck!

 

[DuckHunterJon]

So with the motor work done for now, time to tear it down. Again, I'm bad with pictures, but picture a virago stripped to bare frame inserted here -->

Once stripped, I said crap, now I gotta start deciding what I want to do with it. First thing to fix IMO is the mismatched wheel sizes (19 front, 16 rear). I get the feeling that the majority of builds swap a rear tire into the front end and run 16's at both ends. I have to say, some of these look damn nice, but as always, I want something different. Started looking at my options. First option was to go with spoked rims, find hubs, wheels, and lace them up. While I like the look, this isn't in the current budget (figure it's a relatively easy swap later on).

A bit more research, I find the Seca and Vision wheels use the same hub, but came in a 18" rear. Again, what did we do before internet. I bought a Vision rim from eBay for $10.20 plus $20 for shipping. Now to find something to match in the front. Once again, eBay comes through with a complete front end (brakes, forks, rim, tire, tripples, MC, lines...everything) off a 650 Seca Turbo shipped to my door for $150.

The Seca forks are about 1 3/4" shorter, and the same diameter as the Virago - easy peasy swap. The rim's match - almost. The Vision is a grey where the Seca is black - no problem, they will both be changed anyway. Put the front end on the frame and the rear rim just to see what it looks like. By the way, I'll appologize for the cell phone pic quality - the last time I took the wife's SLR out to the shop, it came back in covered in sawdust and SWMBO was not pleased. As we all know, happy wife, happy life. Anyway:

Hmmm, I like the wheels/stance, but I'm not feeling the tank. How about this:

Yeah, picture sucks, but I raised the ass end of the tank 3" and it really changes the look. As much as I'd like to stick a Benelli or RD tank on there - right now I have this free one and it's an easy mounting option. Will just have to weld on a riser under the rear end of the tank and use the existing mounts.

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Sorry for the rapid fire updates, but this one gets me caught up to last night's work. So I bought some steel for the tank mounts and subframe, but me being me, I can't ever work on one thing at a time.

The engine has been sitting over on the bench looking like an ugly redheaded stepchild (no offense to any URS's on here). It needs some lovin. Apparently when it was put away, it was done so with a full gas tank. That tank then proceded to leak onto the motor and dry into an aweful brown varnish. Anything not covered in this was badly corroded.

First step was powerwashing - didn't touch it. Next thought was to soda blasting. I have a blasting cabinet, but can't use it for soda. Started looking around and came across a cheap home brew blaster. Can't remember if I saw it on here, but if so - THANKS to the inventor. Here's the setup:

I hooked it up, looked at the the media and thought there's no way this is going to work. 30 seconds later, I was impressed. Here's the first section I worked on, 30 seconds of blasting got to nice clean aluminum.

45 minutes later, the motor lookes pretty decent. Still have some clean up to do and will be stripping clear off all the covers. More on that later.

So as of this morning, the motor is degreased, devarnished, ready for a wash down, some prep, and some paint. Crap, that means I gotta start deciding on paint colors. Right now, I'm off to find some advil - DAMN that motor's heavy!

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Interested to see what you do with the Virago, but gotta tell you I love that Interceptor behind it.

Thanks. The Interceptor has a story behind it. My best friend growing up died of Leukemia when I was 12. His father, Rey, kinda became a second dad to me, taught me everything I know about motors as he was an auto mechinics instructor. He bought the Interceptor brand new in 82. When I turned 16, he gave me his old 73 CL450 and helped me get it back on the road. I loved my CL, but I worshiped that Interceptor. I always told him when he was ready to part with it, I didn't care what he wanted for it, I'd buy it.

4 years ago, he calls me up and explains that he's getting to old for the Interceptor, and is buying a Goldwing. Tells me to come get my motorcycle. I showed up with a blank check and say name your price. He said "yeah right - it's yours". He wouldn't take a dime for it.

It has about 13 K on it, 100% original, and gets ridden a few times each summer when I want to reminisce or go to a car show. It's my baby and gets treated as such (maintenance wise, I'll still flog it pretty good in the twisties). I'll upload a couple more shots when I find them.

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Joe Minton knew his stuff when it came to the Virago.Just something to read about the bike before playing with the thing.The starter motor mod is a standard XV fix.


http://viragotech.com/vitalizingthevirago.html

Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that one yet, will definitely take a look!

 

[Red Devil]

cool! I am interested to see what you do with this!

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Small update, spend a bit of time trying my hand at polishing. Started with the Stator cover. Here's a before shot:

My first attempt at clean up was to put it in the sandblast cabinet. On first look, it doesn't look too bad:

Next, I went to sanding it. Started with 320, then 400, then 600. I would have gone to 1000, but found out I'm out of 800 and 1000 paper. Figured I'd try the wheel and see what happens. PROBLEM - as soon as I started polishing, I figured out that the sandblasting didn't take all of the chrome off. 99% of it was flaking off to begin with, but that 1% wasn't coming off. Out came the die grinder with a coarse scotchbrite wheel. Here it is de chromed:

Starting back in on sanding, 220 this time, then 320, 400, 600. Then onto the wheel. I've done a fair amount of polishing of steel on firearms, but never tried aluminum. Took me a bit to figure out the best wheel and compound combo. Here it was after about 10 minutes of polishing:

Not perfect, but pretty good for now. I'll likely hit it with some hand buffing and see how it looks. If the fine scratches still show, I may go back over it with 800 and 1000, followed by another round of buffing. Still, I'm happy for my first attempt with aluminum.

One more piece - clutch cover. This one was more dificult as it doesn't come out (easily) of the side cover and also because the chrome was in much better shape (maybe 50% had to be ground off). Came out about the same. I'm thinking I'm going to continue polishing the cam covers and the valve inspection covers.

Then it's time for paint. Currently thinking polished bits listed above, side covers either painted aluminum, or just cleared over blasted alu. Cases, jugs, and heads satin black with polished fins. Not finalized so if anyone has other ideas for it, I'm all ears.

 

[Cafe-XV750]

Subscribed ... cool build!

 

[wgrucela]

Hey DuckHunterJon i am currently working on my virago to. Is this the most recent info on your bike or are u posting on a different thread? Thanks

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Yeah, it's pretty current (with a 9 month old at home learning to crawl, I'm slow as shit on my projects). I actually started painting the motor last night. Got the base coat done (semi gloss black). Will be doing some more polishing, and painting of various covers and then will post some pics of the masking and painting progress.

 

[wgrucela]

ok nice....i am about ready to do some welding on the rear subframe and then blasting and painting...

 

[DuckHunterJon]

Got a few more things accomplished last week. First was some more polishing. I went to pull the oil filter cover off, and this is what I found:

Crap. Repeat after me - THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE BIKE! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE BIKE!


Ebay to the rescue - $16 (and another $12 in shipping ) later and I have a decent shape cover. Onto the polishing wheel, and bob's yer uncle:

 

[DuckHunterJon]

While waiting on paint to dry on the motor, I figured I'd switch gears and work on the frame a bit. First thing is to come up with a gas tank riser that would level out the tank a bit. I mocked it up in wood to get the right height, then looked around in my scrap bin for a chunk of metal. I was going to cut three pieces, and weld them together, but decided to bend it out of a single piece to start.

If the shape looks funky, well, that's because it is. I tried to mimic the shape of the frame so I could re-use the rubber piece between the frame and the tank. after a bunch of heating, bending, heating, hammering, and grinding, it actually fits the tank snubber like a glove. Total rise is right at 3 inches. At full lock, the tripples just kiss the front of the tank, I may have to dent the tank in a bit for clearance, we'll see. I grabbed a couple of pics of the bracket, will snap some more with the tank snubber and tank mounted. Pay no attention to my welding, I used to weld pretty well (spent 5 years building precast concrete molds). After 15 years off, now I just stick metal to metal. As they say, paint covers all sins.

Next up (besides a bunch more paint on the motor) is working on the subframe. I am going to create two mount points on this new bracket, and re-use the original subframe mounting points for the gusset frames. We'll see how all that goes.

 

[DuckHunterJon]

A few more progress pictures, and a couple questions. I started working on a subframe seat support. Not too much to tell, I used some fairly thick walled 0.875" pipe as I had it laying around. I bent the main hoop entirely by hand with a vice and copious amounts of heat. I fully expected the tubing to kink or collapse while bending it, but it didn't. The bend turned out really well.

This was also my first ever attempt at fishmouth welding. Not perfect, but I'm happy with it.

The bottom mounts I wanted to keep lower profile, so I heated, flattened, and shaped the tubing.

Here it is after sandblasting and mounting on the bike. The tank is just sitting on top of the pucks here, I need to do some reshaping due to an interference with the frame tubes before it will sit all the way down on the pucks.

So I think I will put some gussets in between the lower support tubes and the main hoop. I'll also be adding a pan and brackets to tie down the battery. I haven't figured out what I'm doing for brake light/turn signals, but there will be some tabs/brackets added for those as well. What else does it need? Comments, suggestions, critique of my welding welcome.

 

[pacomotorstuff]

Good build so far! Like you said when it comes to wheel swapping, getting parts and stuff, what did we do before the web?
I like your subframe, but what does it bolt to up front? I put a couple of nutserts into the frame on either side of my frame, then used flat brackets on my subframe so I could bolt the subframe to the main frame . Didn't like attempt #1, so I'm working on another subframe.
As far as your welding, if you have good penetration and stuff, clean it up, sand it down, prime and paint. Maybe even use the magic of the body filler if you're so inclined...
Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Pat Cowan,
Vintage Motorcycle Fiberglass

 

[marla_do]

cool guy and good story. nice build

Thanks. The Interceptor has a story behind it. My best friend growing up died of Leukemia when I was 12. His father, Rey, kinda became a second dad to me, taught me everything I know about motors as he was an auto mechinics instructor. He bought the Interceptor brand new in 82. When I turned 16, he gave me his old 73 CL450 and helped me get it back on the road. I loved my CL, but I worshiped that Interceptor. I always told him when he was ready to part with it, I didn't care what he wanted for it, I'd buy it.

4 years ago, he calls me up and explains that he's getting to old for the Interceptor, and is buying a Goldwing. Tells me to come get my motorcycle. I showed up with a blank check and say name your price. He said "yeah right - it's yours". He wouldn't take a dime for it.

It has about 13 K on it, 100% original, and gets ridden a few times each summer when I want to reminisce or go to a car show. It's my baby and gets treated as such (maintenance wise, I'll still flog it pretty good in the twisties). I'll upload a couple more shots when I find them.