What to do with our FJ1100?

[scarybandit]

Hello!

I have a very sad FJ story and I hope someone could give me some advice. My husband needed a new bike to commute to work a few years ago and this guy I knew was selling an FJ1100 for $1500. My husband doesn't have time to work on a bike, so normally I wouldn't have considered such a "fancy" bike, but this guy promised he'd do all the maintenance on it for free (we'd just pay for parts). It would have been a great deal if this guy didn't turn out to be an utter dirt bag...
Needless to say, despite his promises of this being a primo condition bike, it actually had very leaky carbs. My husband was finally banished from the Seattle ferry when it dumped half a tank of gas on the car deck. My husband hasn't used it for 2 years. It needs new carbs or at least a rebuild. Our friend got it running, but said the slave cylinder for the clutch leaks, too.

Any thoughts on what we should do with this bike? It's currently listed on Seattle/Kitsap craigslist for $800, but I'd love to see it ride again if we could get it in shape for less than $500.

Thank you!!

[Pat Conlon]

Hello, welcome, sorry to hear of your woes.

From what you described I think it is very doable to get the bike running for less than $500

I suggest that you have the carbs removed, boxed up and send them to Randy @ RPM for a clean and rebuild.
There is a inexpensive clutch slave rebuild kit also available from RPM.
From the description of emptying the fuel tank on the ferry (true, they don't like that) it sounds like you will need to replace the fuel tank petcock, also available from RPM
Randy is a trusted member of our FJ family. He will take care of you.
http://www.fjowners.com/index.php?topic=69.0

I hope you can keep the bike. I hope this helps you.

[mr blackstock]

Hello,

It might be worth keeping in mind that the bike may need more work in other areas later on, depending on the condition and mileage of the bike.  You stated your husband does not have time to work on the bike, fair enough, and the carbs leaking is a simple fix, for someone who has the time. 
The clutch slave needing work, easy and cheap. 
However, the FJ is getting on in years, and as it was the first of it's line, like all bike models, it will have "foibles" that require a mechanically minded person to attend to.  Later bikes in the range have had many of these "foibles" fixed.

Granted, if it has been well looked after, you may have a bike that will run great for years with just a little work on the carbs.  However, if the bike has had a rough life with little maintenance, you may be looking at the start of the issues, not the end of them.

If you have access to a mechanically minded person who can advise you if the bike will need more work or a little, their opinion could be the difference between lotsa money and lotsa joy, or little money and lotsa joy.

cheers, Gareth

[Bill_Rockoff]

 I think it's misplaced to call the seller of a $1,500 bike a "dirtbag" and blame him for the fact that its Reagan-era rubber parts no longer prevent leakage the way they did thirty(*) years ago.  That's just what old parts do, especially when soaked in gasoline or brake fluid.  This kind of thing is part of the reason why old bikes made up of old parts are $1,500 (still kind of a bargain for a running motorcycle that doesn't immediately need $500 spent on tires/brakes/chain/sprockets/battery) instead of $15,000.  

Fuel leakage is happening for one or two reasons:
1) definitely the fuel petcock (valve under the tank)
2) possibly the carb float needles.  

Somebody will at least need to take a careful look and see whether the fuel is leaking from the petcock (bottom of the tank) or from the carb overflow (rubber hose coming from the carburetors to the bottom of the motorcycle.)

1) The fuel petcock SHOULD keep fuel from flowing to the carbs unless the engine is running.  There's a hose connecting this thing to one of the carburetors, and a rubber diaphragm inside it.  The diaphragm keeps fuel from flowing through it.  If you turn the fuel to "OFF" that diaphragm is supposed to keep the fuel from flowing no matter what.   If you turn the fuel "ON," that diaphragm should still keep the fuel from flowing as long as the engine is off, but if the engine is spinning then the resulting vacuum in the carbs (and in that connecting hose) will pull the diaphragm out of the way, letting fuel flow.  

After 30 YEARS of sitting in gasoline, it's very possible that either this diaphragm is letting fuel leak through the petcock, or the little rubber gaskets are letting fuel leak around the petcock.  You can either order a new petcock assembly for $177 and replace the whole thing
 http://www.rpmracingca.com/proddetail.asp?prod=M%2FC%3A84%2D85Petcock
or you can order a petcock rebuild kit for about $35 (ebay) and replace the rubber parts.  

2) Even if the petcock does let fuel flow to the carbs, the carbs should each keep fuel from flowing once their bowls are full.  (There's a float in each carb bowl that pushes up on a valve and shuts off the fuel once that bowl gets full.)  Sometimes they get dirty or some debris gets caught in there, and then they don't seal, and a carb keeps letting fuel into itself and it will overfill itself until it leaks out the overflow tube.  If it's a piece of something, it can be dislodged by tapping the carbs with something hard enough (wooden) to jolt them but not too hard (steel) that it would shatter the cast aluminum carb part you're tapping.  Sometimes you can watch fuel drip onto the ground, tap the carb bodies with a wooden dowel, and then watch the fuel stop dripping.

More often, the long-term solution is cleaning the needle valve and seat, or replacing the needle valves.  If times are really tight, taking them apart and cleaning them yourself (or replacing the dirty parts yourself) is the answer, no matter how good a job Randy at RPM can do for you.  The hard part of this job is putting the carbs back on when you're finished, so sending them out is maybe not going to be the best bang for your buck in this circumstance.  Cleaning them is nearly free, float needles are $8 each, and rebuild kits are $40 each.  If times are really really tight you could figure out which carb is leaking after cleaning / testing and only replace that float needle
http://www.rpmracingca.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Carb%3AFloatNeedle&cat=24
or rebuild only that carb.
http://www.rpmracingca.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Carb%3Arebuildkit1&cat=24

Similarly, the clutch slave seal is a known point of failure on these bikes. (The engine gets hot since it's air-cooled, and that makes the seal get brittle and quit sealing faster than it would on a liquid-cooled bike.)  If you ride an FJ in stop and go traffic, replacing this part every year or two is just a fact of life, like prostate exams or cleaning gutters.  Randy has them for $30.
http://www.rpmracingca.com/proddetail.asp?prod=S%2FKYamaha

If the previous owner is willing to do all this stuff for you, it should be pretty easy for him and pretty cheap for you guys, especially with the help available on this forum.  Try not to view him as a "dirtbag" though, especially if that conclusion is based mostly on the fact that you expected his 30 year old motorcycle to provide trouble-free transportation for you, which is kind of an unrealistic expectation for a 30 year old motorcycle.  (If it were a child, it would be old enough that you could expect grandchildren by now.  If it were a car, it would be the same age as a Renault Le Car, and when is the last time you saw one of those being used for daily transportation?)   Instead, try to view him as being willing to help you guys until you're able to get your heads around this neat old motorcycle and start fixing it on your own, because honestly there is really no other way to make a 30 year old motorcycle serve as real transportation.  

Good luck.

[moparman70]

 don't know if its been mentioned but also check out the gas line hoses---they  can have cracks in them as well --
I had it happen to me twice in one trip way back when -- they curve around and you don't see the cracks when removed because now the hose is straight-- but when reinstalled and curved the crack appears and you leak.  replace all the gas lines as if they are old they need it anyways.

sc2

[fj1289]

For the available budget of time and $$ -- sending the carbs to Randy for a full refurb sounds like a very good option.  How many of us the carbs properly cleaned on our first try ?!   

Guys - don't forget about the o-rings that go around the needle seats -- I'd think at least as likely a source of leaking as a dirty needle seat.   

A $500 budget and precious little time -- this is doable.  I'd also go with the new clutch slave vice a rebuild - I'm 50/50 on rebuilds due to corrosion in the bores. 



On second thought, I do have some relatives fairly close by...

Good luck on finding your kookaloo again!

[scarybandit]

Thanks for all the great info! It sounds like it will be better to sell the bike to someone who knows how to fix it. The guy who originally sold it to us reneged on the offer to fix it, so I don't want to end up with a landslide of repairs. Thanks again and I'll be sure to tell the new owner about this forum!

[Bill_Rockoff]

The nice thing about not having time to do minor fixing on a $1,500 motorcycle is that it usually means you are working hard enough that you will soon be able to afford a $2,500 motorcycle.  If you shop well, a $2,500 motorcycle probably won't need even minor fixing for a while at least.  The extra $1,000 entitles you to expectations that you simply can't really have for a $1,500 motorcycle.

As much as we all love the FJ1100/FJ1200 around here, I think we will all agree that a $1,500 one is too old and worn out to be "a bike that doesn't even need minor fixing, suitable for people who don't fix things themselves."   An FJ in that kind of condition is really a $2,500 bike these days, and it sounds like you guys don't have the time or money right now to turn your FJ1100 back into such a bike, even if it only lacks some basic long-term maintenance parts.  

(This goes for cars, too.  A $1,500 car needs something right away; a $3,000 one will maybe not need anything for a while.  If you can do maintenance yourself, a $1,500 one can be cheaper.  If you have to pay to have everything done, you will spend more driving a $1,500 car than a $3,000 one, because the cheaper car will need a lot more stuff done to it.)

A good motorcycle alternative, unless your husband is so large that you are posting here instead of him because his hands are too big to type on a standard computer keyboard, is a Kawasaki EX500 (also known as Ninja 500.)  They started making that bike in the mid 1980's, but they made some minor upgrades in 1994 and kept on building it just like that until just a couple of years ago.  Consequently, there are lots of them around, and they are all newer than your FJ1100, and most will be "MUCH newer."  This means they will be less prone to needing extensive maintenance for a while, especially at the $2,500 end of the spectrum.  ($2,500 to $3,000 on Craigslist will buy you the nicest one on the planet, and $2,000 will get one that is still very nice and fairly trouble-free.)  They use less expensive tires and chains than an FJ, they get better fuel economy (50-55 mpg) and they are recent enough that a motorcycle shop will have seen them before.  Also, they make good beginner bikes, so either you can learn to ride it and then get a bike of your own (recommended!) or you guys can buy a nice $2,500 one and wear it out because you don't have time to maintain it, and then sell it for $1,500 to someone who is going to crash it anyway learning to ride.  

If money is really that tight, though, the best answer might be "a $2,500 economy car."  It costs less to drive a Corolla or Maxima from the 1990's than it does to ride a motorcycle; the tires last longer, there's no chain and sprockets to wear out, and they never need a fuel petcock rebuild or carburetors cleaned because those parts don't exist on those cars.  You just turn the key and drive them, and have the oil changed twice a year.