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“So… it was an offer I could not pass up, dear. I just couldn’t say no, honest…”
I picked up another project.
1983 Yamaha Midnight Virago 750.
It’s a basket case. The previous owner is the brother-in-law of one of the guys at work. He had complained about an engine noise, and it was diagnosed as piston slap by a “bike tech”. The guy I work with removed the engine, and tore it all down for his bro-in-law, and then the owner decided he didn’t want to put cash into fixing it. The guy I work with ended owning this “bike-in-a-box” moving it from place to place for 4 years.
Last week he asked if I was interested in an 83 Virago…freebie…come get it out of my garage. So before I knew it, my own voice said “How ’bout I pick it up tonight?” (Sneaky thing, ain’t it?
)Here’s a pic on arrival at my place…Really dirty, and in a hundred pieces…
A pic of the partial engine….with the front jug and slug removed.
Oh! Here’s the rest of the engine….oh no, what have I gotten myself into?????
Twin carbs that were gummed up with 4 year old gas. I tore them down, the needles were fine, so I simply cleaned out the debris and lubed everything up.
More to come in the next post….
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Without having a manual or any parts, I decided to take some time and see how it will look when it’s all clean and shiny sitting on my lawn with a For Sale sign on it….
First thing to go was that HIDEOUS fairing. No effort was spared smashing that right off the bike with a BIG hammer…
Once I went over the bodywork with a mild compound to remove the years of overspray and other crud, I went over again with a heavy paste wax pressing down hard to polish off the remaining layers of dirt.
Not bad for the original 23 year old paint. It still has the usual battle scars, but no major damage or deep scratches. One more time over with wax will finish the job…
Being a Midnight Virago, most (if not all) of the chrome and aluminum parts are black. Some of the trim that would be chrome on a standard Virago is anodized gold, which really stands out nice against the black paint. Grab handle, tank trim, and rims are gold in this pic…
Shot from the front (note the AWOL fairing…LOL)
If all goes to plan, this is what the finished bike should look like…. (this pic was shamelessly swiped from a Google search)
As I said earlier, this engine was torn down because of a piston slap noise. Now, being a GM tech, I have seen more than my share of piston slap cases, and let me tell you that there was ZERO evidence of any type of piston problems on this slug. No excessive carbon in the head, or on the top of the piston. Nothing loose, large and small end of the rod are tight, as well as the wrist pin in its’ bore.
Hmm….what to do….?
I decided to run into my local bike shop to order the jug base gasket, and to shoot the bull with the owner. I relayed the story of the noise to him, and he said in the 30 years he’s been working on bikes, he’s never seen these Yamaha’s get a noisy piston. I told him there was enough valve lash to park my truck in, and he said to get a slide hammer and yank the cam out of the head on the noisy jug. He says he has seen at least a dozen of these wipe lobes off the cam, making top end noises that may be similar to a cracked piston.
So, not being one to argue with experience, I went ahead and jerked that cam out. Sure enough, right on the money. The EX lobe on the front cam was wiped near .010″, which also took out the rocker. Hmm…need a cam and a rocker now.
So, being one WITH experience, I yanked out the cam for the OTHER quiet jug and found the same condition, just not as bad. Now I need 2 cams and 2 rockers….rofl.
Under spec cam lobe…
Concave rocker arm (that’s just not right…LOL)
More to follow in this saga, as the parts prices are yet to be determined…
I was in for a shock today…
I dropped into the bike shop to price out the stuff I need.
2 cams, and 4 rockers. No gaskets or anything else….
$700 + taxes ! icon_eek.gif icon_eek.gif
There is no way I’ll be dropping that cash in on a project bike that I’m just trying to flip for some coffee money!
The owner of the shop said he has an ’83 750 Virago in the warehouse that they have been robbing parts from for the last few years, and that he has to clean out the warehouse within a couple months. He said that it still has the low mileage engine in it, but the front end is gone. He told me that he will drop into the warehouse to make sure it’s there, and that I can have whatever is left of the bike for $250
Not too bad, much better than $700 in parts alone!
I have to drop back in there in a couple days to see where we stand, so stay tuned…
Nice looking bike. Best way to learn is to dive in and take it apart. Sounds like you can get the parts needed for $250, good deal. A project like that can be alot of fun, a good learning experience.
Yep, I hear you.
I’ve been fixing my bikes for nearly 20 years now….it’s second nature to me…
The price might be great, but the shipping would be killer….rofl
And now for the second part of this story…
I ended up with the parts bike for $200, he said there was not much left of the rest of the bike, so he took $50 off the price. Good guy!
I ripped the engine out of the donor bike, cleaned it up some, CHECKED THE CAMS and then adjusted the valve lash. Three coats of engine enamel were shot onto the natural aluminum engine to bring to the proper black color for this Midnight Virago.
After a few hours of sorting through boxes, finding the plates, re bars, bolts, and other goodies, the engine was finally in its’ new home. The chrome front signals were robbed from the parts bike, cleaned, and repainted in satin black to replace the missing originals. With all the wiring hooked up, and a fresh half gallon of fuel, I was ready to fire the beast up. Hit the choke, crank…crank…crank, BANG!
Cripes! A backfire echoed through the garage not unlike the report from a .30-06. Now, we have to remember that I am flying blind here, no manual, or wiring diagram to go by. It seems that the two ignition coils have the same color wires, but the harness that leads to them has 2 possible ways to hook up. A quick connector reversal ended up fixing it. The backfire was loud enough to make my ears ring, my wife came out of the house to see who got shot, and my neighbors all around my house had come out to see what the commotion was….ROFL.
So, by the time I got the coils re-wired, I was just in time to see a 2′ round puddle under the bike. FUEL.
There was fuel running out of the exhaust pipe. Looks like the carbs are coming off AGAIN. 😡
One float was hanging on the hinge, kept the float down and FILLED the muffler with fuel. Lucky there are drain plugs in the exhaust system, and I was able to get the gas out of the pipe to prevent scorching the front end of the wife’s car with my next starting attempt….LOL
I figured there was enough fuel in the jugs, so I hit the starter and the 750 roared to life, and idled down to a smooth lump that any V-Twin has.
I warmed it up for a couple minutes, grabbed my helmet and took her out for a cruise. No problems, ran great. I was able to ride it to work and back for a reliability test the next day, also without issue.
One last step…. park it on the lawn with a FOR SALE sign….
OK, so I’ve talked enough, here are the pics….
Parts Bike is Home
2 stripped bikes…
Another shot. You can see the differences in the Virago, and the Midnight Virago in this shot…
Painted new engine. Bike has 48000kms on it, this engine only has 20000kms on it.
Parts bike almost ready for the scrapyard. Just going to pull a few more parts off to throw into a box for the future owner…
Just finished…
Sharing the garage. (For now…..
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Ahh, nice emblem…
A few “just washed, in the sun” pics for better lighting. Pretty close to the original pic I posted of another bike I found on the ‘net…
:drool: :drool: :drool:
Thank you Don for this amazing thread!!! :salut: :salut: :salut: thumbsup.gif w00t.gif This is great how you documented your project with pics and text, thanks a lot for sharing, every car buff loves a good challenge, and it sounds like it paid off for you! jumpy.gif
Nice job!! icon_cool.gif icon_cool.gif
Thanks people, it was an easy job, I’d do it again in a second.
I need to get a bike lift first though. Some of the profits from the sale of this one will buy the lift, and the next project…(which is yet to be determined icon_wink.gif )
Sounds great Don! Keep us up-to-date when you start your next project (and get the lift)! icon_cheesygrin.gif
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