Roman's Vmax

I mentioned the Yamaha had a bit of money spent on it so here is what was done/fitted to it.

Ohlins rear shocks.

Taylor made 17 “rear wheel/mag. (Taylor made is name of a company by the way)

Front forks and brake calipers off late model Vmax.

Progressive springs.

Taylor made billet triple clamps.

17” front mag off Yamaha Thundercat.

4 into one  exhaust (Hindle I think)

Lockhead rear brake caliper.

Hyperpro steering dampner.

Switchable Vboost controller.

Aluminium handle bars.

Holeshot case savers.

Braced swing arm.

Braided brake and clutch lines.

Fibreglass rear guard.

K&N air filter.

 

 All of this would have come to considerably more than I paid for the bike so I was happy with my purchase, until I started to ride it. The first thing I noticed was a shuddering from the front end under braking. I noticed one of the fork seals was leaking and I hoped it was a bit of oil on one of the disks and brake pads. I replaced the seals one both forks and popped in new brake pads and the problem appeared to be fixed until the pads bedded in and the shuddering was back. Strange because the disks did not look warped when the wheel was spun and if they were then shuddering should have been there as soon as I applied the front brakes. I took the disks off and slowly spun them in a lathe to see if they were indeed warped but they were true, but one disk was not centred around the disk carrier correctly. I have never heard this before, it seems that the disk buttons were not correctly crimped and so the disk was off centre by a few mm, this is why when the right pad bedded in it was trying to follow the groves on the disk like a record needle back and forward. A quick search on Ebay found a brand new set of OEM disks and I only paid $100 aus. for them, what a bargain !

 

Anyway front end and brakes now sorted bike rolled really nice, I have owned a standard Vmax many years ago and this one rides very differently and all for the better, the 17” wheels , Ohlins on the rear and progressive springs on the front really do transform the bike.

 As I said it was some time since I rode a Vmax and this one had power but something was not right.

I pulled the top of the air box off and fired her up only to find that bike was running on two cylinders at idle and three when opened up but the third carb was fluttering badly so never opened fully only about half way. Previous owner had tried to repair torn CV diaphragms with a rubber cement. This would have worked for a second until petrol hit it. Ladies and gentlemen this just proves you do not have to have a long neck to be a GOOSE !!  I purchased two new diaphragms and installed and the problem was fixed.

 

Then shortly afterwards petrol started to piss out of one of the rear carbs, all four needle and seats needed replacing, cost of parts and getting a local shop to tune/balance the carbs I said goodbye to $1000. Oh well it was a 21 year old bike after all.

 

 I decided to check the complete bike from front to end and was amazed to find every Phillips head bolt burred, some so bad they had to be taken out with vicegrips, some had to be drilled and removed with easy outs. Possibly Yamaha bolts were soft or the bike was worked on by an ape, I think the ape bit is more like it. I found the wiring for the rear lights and indicators to be non standard, who ever did this had no idea how to wire, don’t get me wrong the lights all worked just fine but I removed about 1.5 metres of extra wire from under the seat that did not need to be there. It looks like old wire with connectors were used from god knows what, most of the connectors when pulled had the wire fall out the crimping was so bad. The connectors were wrapped in huge amounts of tape under the seat and also under the rear tail piece. I have totally rewired the rear lights to the point now you can not even see any wiring when seat removed.

 

I found the CDI unit at front of the bike was not even bolted down, if I did not find this god knows how long it would have lasted before being smashed to bits.

The voltage regulator was dead, I found this out because the battery died on me once on the way home and had to get the bike picked up, easy enough to fix but a pain getting stranded. I have now fitted a led battery indicator on the bar mount telling how the charging is going.

The hyperpro dampner was leaking oils all over the place, the shaft was bent and needed new seals. It was fitted incorrectly and on full left lock was touching handle bar mount also dampner mount was stuffed , looked like some sort of glue/thread lock was used to try and hold in place, again refer to the long neck bit above.

 

Once all of the above was repaired the bike ran very strong, it was now time for the bike to look as good as it went.

 First thing I did was strip  clutch, alternator, water pump and shaft  covers, rocker covers , forks, fork brace , front wheel , dampner bracket , assorted frame mounts and braces and had them chromed or polished.

Sound easy when I write it but was a big expensive job. The oil filter cover was made of magnesium and when it went into the acid bath it desolved into nothing, nice one   NOT !   Gaskets and seals alone were over $800. So if anyone wants to work on old Yamaha’s be warned.

Front and rear gaurds, side covers along with tank cover off to the painter for a new look and some lovely clear coats.

 

 The muffler that the Vmax had was extremely short about 28cm and was way too loud. I have had it lengthened to a 48cm with a tapered perforated internal, now sound like a V8 on song …wonderfull !

The original muffler was also sitting parallel to ground which looked great when it was tiny but now with longer one fitted looked totally wrong. I had the exhaust plumbing kicked up at a nice angle as you can see in the pictures, this also helped with the ground clearance.

 I found that I was getting a bit of cramp in my thighs aqnd that the foot pegs were too high for me. They were just fine 15 years ago but I guess that’s what happens when you start getting old. I cut the foot peg brackets up and lowered the point where they attach about an inch, welded them back on and had brackets powder coated to original colour, now no pain at all ! Amazing what an inch can do.

 

 The speedo was still in MPH and I know it was way off once bike got to about 100 mph so I changed it for a digital speedo. The speedo looked out of place in the original position because it was smaller so I decided to put a Tacho in the original speedo spot and put the new speed to one side.

I purchased a car Tacho with a shift light which of course does not work on  a bike correctly so I made a little circuit up with diodes, resistors and a capacitor that fixed that little problem I then had a friend make an aluminium housing and I welded up a bracket mount out of some old mirror stems. You can see the end result in the pictures attached. Since I have done this I have now seen the same thing done on other Vmax’s with even bigger Tacho’s

 

 Next I ditched the original front light and mounted a twin headlight job, it is the same pair I used on a SV1000 I had a few years back, and wired in a light switch so I can turn them off when starting the bike.

Led brake lights have been installed at the rear  just behind the seat were there once was just a reflector. I also wired in a fan bypass switch so I can turn fan on whenever I like, it’s nice to have on when stopped at the lights on cold days !

 

 Apart from chroming bits on the motor I have also installed billet Vmax covers on the clutch and altenator housing and a billet Vmax carb covers as cheesy plastic Yamaha ones had the chrome peeling off. Found some Chrome Vmax clutch and brake reservoir covers and chrome levers on Ebay, also on Ebay a stainless steel radiator cover, these have been installed.

 

 So I think that’s about all there is to tell about this build, I have a few small thing that I will chrome  over the winter months but that’s pretty much it.

 

 Now for my next project I am installing a turbo to my MR2 Spyder and then maybe another bike.

Not sure yet but possibly will sell the Yamaha 600 Fazer with the Kawasaki front end and get a FZ1-n and start doing bits to that, saw an article in Rapid about a MV Brutale with a turbo maybe the FZ1 with the same would be a hoot, who knows !!

If anyone needs to ask me anything or make me an offer on my FZ6-n they can email me at romkat1@bigpond.com