Walrus1#

Having changed the generator rotor on my 535 I opted for an uprated after market third party replacement,and a slightly larger capacity heavy duty battery.I have also fitted L E D lights and indicators all round. These draw hardly any current when in use so allowing for the heated grips.I would not fit high power spots either side of the headlamp but would opt for again LED running lights.The winter will test your battery to its limits just with temperatures alone so anything you do to stress it further will shorten its life no end.with a 97 plate bike I would guess it is still running on original electrics.These will have degraded by now and will not be at 100%!!! I chose to completely upgrade my bike as it seemed every part I fitted stressed the old components even further until I said enough is enough and bit the bullet. If you shop around there are deals to be had on all the relevant electrical components.And first up would be to replace the rec/reg as a matter of course.These are cheap and can be had upgraded third party on the bay for a fraction of standard oem parts.I'm not suggesting for one minute that you should start throwing money at your new purchase,but I think a new reg/rec is almost mandatory with the Virago when you first own it second hand. It will save a lot of heart ache during the winter if the old one should slowly die and take out your battery and quite a few other things possibly also. LED lights are a stroke of genius in the bike world.suppose you only change the rear stop and tail light you will be saving a ton of battery charge every time you ride. As the other guys have said give the bike a good wash and treat with ac50 -wd40 or some other damp repelling spray.And get into the habit of a rinse down after a journey through previously gritted roads,the salt stays on the roads for a very long time and will be a constant presence during the winter months. Just hose all the road dirt off the bike while it is still wet if possible before putting it away for the night. And keep the spray treatment up throughout the winter months. You can get lazy with it once the spring comes and dry weather and wash once a week until the winter comes again. A few small precautions now will pay dividends later.

It's definitely ANTI Clockwise the engine runs forwards not backwards.if you turn it clockwise you risk buggering the chain tensioners on the cam chains.

Magic!!!! I had wondered about those things after seeing them advertised for sale in the led lighting section. It is entirely possible I shall get a lot more riding done this year if we don't have a sudden change in weather again.Been lucky not to have had any snow and ice to contend with,so far this year. I can manage rain no bother that don't put me off too much ,but the ice and snow riding, I left that behind years ago when I was a young stud and a hard as nails hairy arsed biker.But now I only ride for pleasure and have no need to face arctic conditions anymore (thank feck). By the way do I need one resistor per bulb ? I take it that I do

There are still places that will be able to supply you with parts for this machine . If it were me I would strip it down and get all the chrome redone , this is often just as economical as new parts. Tank and panels look ok to repaint and frame can be powder coated.Engine wise I would strip clean and repaint the cases,inspect the bore and piston/rings for wear.I would replace bearings and seals etc as a matter of course while it is in bits.if the bore is at all suspect I would re-bore and go up a size for peace of mind.Apart from elbow grease and re conditioning it looks to be almost all there.Nice project that will be very satisfying to do.I would try and go for as much re conditioning as poss rather than replacing with parts from another model.

Not updated this for a while . weather too cold and wet and windy to be outside holding spanners lol.So not done the carb conversion yet.Did manage to drop the needles back down and fit the original main jets back in.Now not running as rich as it was but still not got any better regards top speed.So conclusion is that it IS restricted from inlet side. Have since been informed that correct restriction was with washers in front of inlets.Some guys have even still got owners packs with washers in as they were taken out by dealers who did the conversions back again as the need arose. I have not been able to contact the Lady who owned the bike previous to me as they have moved house.But it looks as if the bike was her ride during her restricted period and then sold on with the washers still in place. I now have another query for you experts out there please. How do I go about fitting LED indicators as the relay on these has about 9 pins and is very much larger than any I have seen for sale on the Bay etc. ??? I intend to do the conversion while I have the carbs off and the tank out of the way and have all work completed before getting back on the road.I have got LED bulbs for everything but the indicators are the main problem now.Thanks in advance .

Already sent for the kit ,but was considering going single carb anyhow as the low and mid range torque improves vastly , making the ride a real pleasure. We have have some real nice minor roads up here and pootling around those makes life a joy to live. Plus of course the mpg figure also improves along with it. Thanks for the info though as it is good to know these things for future projects. Just to say that the only problem I now have is that the top end is still poor and it IS running rich but she responds well enough from standstill now that the silencers are a bit more free flowing, acceleration is good up to 70mph then she starts to struggle. So maybe yes drop back down the jets size and fiddle with needle position. Soon as I get the rotor done and all checked I'll give it a try before the kit comes. Cheers.

Cheers for that it really helps,

OK so it seems that when these things get older the Diaphragms get age/work hardened and no longer work as they should.And I must admit that mine are very hard to the touch and feel like a plastic rather than a rubber. They do seem to be harder to bend and therefor are probably not opening up to the top end of their stroke. So after searching for reasonable priced new ones and having no luck plus the gasket set for the carbs is not cheap either (surprise surprise) I decided on doing a single carb conversion.This was sent for yesterday and will come from the States I shall of course detail the experience of fitting and tuning this set up. BUT I have developed another problem in that the the battery is no longer getting charged from the motor.So I sent for a new rotor and started the strip down of the side cover.This was an easy task compared to some guys experiences,I must say. Using a selection of flat bladed drivers and help from a rubber mallet using the lugs molded into the cases the cover came away very cleanly I must say. So after time spent scraping away the old gasket and making sure the mating surfaces are flat I now am in a pickle again (yeah I know ) The three wires from the rotor are all the same colour (white) !!!! so my question is does it matter what position these wires end up in the block??? They all do the same job so I presume it does not matter BUT having been shot down and burned in the past by making up my own connections and getting the sequence wrong I just have to ask if anyone on here knows ?? Please say it matters not one jot and make my life a little easier. This little bike has now had everything on the ignition side of things renewed apart from the ignition pick up sensor which is still in spec and works well. I did the coils and the plugs and leads and then the CDI unit ( wallet is still crying over that one ) and everything was working great, after the initial rebuild, the charging circuit was fine. all during the search to find the fault in the ignition circuit it was doing the job but shortly afterwards I started having problems with that too so broke out the multi meter and did the checks and bugger me if the rotor was not reading at all. So now I have started the replacement of the rotor and find that the gaskets I have are for the wrong side case DOH!!So today I am at a halt

Well just checked in My manual and also on line again and have come up with three different supposed bhp values.Manual states as Jimmy says 45.5 bhp @7.500rpm MCN review says 39bhp and Carole Nash site recons 44bhp is the max. Yet everyone sites MCN as the source of the information.Now I'm totally puzzled.How can we have three separate figures supposedly all from the same source???? Me ? I'm going with Jimmy as the only verified Dyno measurement. So I shall have to pull off the carbs again just to have a look behind the rubber inlet manifolds,but if no washer there I'll be just as stumped for an explanation.But It does seem likely that some form of restriction is in place as there is no other reason for the low top end and lack of revs.The over rich mixture can be put down to being set for a non restricted and free flowed system.Done with the ignorance of not knowing about the restriction. Which I would never have dreamed of after being told they only put out 39bhp and were restricted license friendly to begin with DOH!!!

Ah could be Jimmy I was going by what I was told off a mechanic,and read it online too in the MCN road test review. They could be upped in power with free flowing and tuning to get over that though. But as you say the dyno does not lie. Just out of curiosity where are the washers placed to restrict it?? are they on the carb side or the exhaust side?? because I never checked for restrictor kit when I replaced standard exhaust nor when I fitted the carbs.This as you may have guessed could be part of the problem with this bike Cheers Dood !!!! On second thoughts the exhaust side was clear of restriction as I dug out the old seals and replaced with new ones.But I failed to check on the carb side as I simply removed the faulty ones and replaced them with the rebuilt items. Leaving the manifold rubbers in place. You know the more I think about It the more it could be that THAT! is the solution. I'll keep you posted many thanks Jimmy bud.

Hi Jimmy they only put out 38BHP when built my friend,so it is not restricted!! I have cleaned and serviced the carbs as they were second hand jobs off E Bay . The exhaust was a problem at first but made some more holes to let it breathe and that was better,maybe needs the holes to be a bit bigger and have the needles dropped by a notch. If you rev it and hold your hand behind the exhaust it gets black .Mind you that is just after start up and running on choke for a few minutes but the rear of the silencers is now black and sooty where they were clean in the picture.It runs great and behaves well around town but try and get it above 70 and it just don't want to know. Thanks for the suggestions boys I'll just have to keep ferreting away at it until I discover the trouble, or not !!! as the case may be. I'd be happy just to get it running a bit leaner as the consumption is poor at present. It is my second Bike as I also have a Honda VFR750 ,but love the relaxed riding position of the Yamaha around town and on short trips with guys who own smaller Bikes and cruisers themselves. I take the VFR out when I feel the need to scare myself a little.

OK lads,having rebuilt the bike and fitted all new ignition from CDI,coils,leads, plugs and caps.I bought a set of used carbs as the originals were butchered (at least the mixture screws were stripped by someone using a far too small driver i suspect)and one of the slides had a hairline crack in it.I also bought a used stainless high flow exhaust and fitted that,along with high flow air filter.So after some advice from the internet I fitted an upgrade kit of stage one tuning jets.larger main and larger pilot and raised the needle a notch.Now the bike runs very rich and was very hesitant from standstill until I drilled some holes in the rear plate of the silencers.She now has improved response and is much nicer to ride, but still far too rich. I shall drop the needles back down a notch and see if that makes any real improvement should I need to. But my real gripe is that she struggles to pull over 70 in top gear. I am not a lightweight but even so she should pull more than that I'm sure.I have read that the 535 does not easily pull to its supposed top speed of 100mph but I would think that 90 would be achievable.Anyone any ideas as to what I should try next to get her running better on the top end.All input is appreciated

Air filter seated ok the back fire happens when trying to accelerate quickly I have done all the jetting and needle setting over and checked air filter so only down to electric probs now.I'll have to borrow multi meter and check coils and pick ups CDI unit Probably not cdi though as runs great at tick over and low revs only bother is when trying to accelerate. This is why think it could be bad coils/coil.Thanks for answer it is appreciated.

Hi guys. Having got the old girl rebuilt with new paintwork She is running terrible there is massive hesitation aon accelerator and a shitload of backfiring at certain revs. The exhaust is aftermarket so I re jetted and lifted the needles but that made her run very rich so I went back to standard jets and settings but the back firing persists. Could this possibly be a faulty coil ??? there is a new battery fitted and also new rectifier as well.The petrol pump is fine and the plugs are new. even though I have reverted back to standard jets and dropped the needle setting back to second groove down from top, it still seems as though the mixture is rich?? the setting for the mixture screw I was told is "three turns out from seated" could this be too much ?? She is unable to be revved and accelerated quickly without bogging down and then massive amounts of misfire and backfire. Is Anyone who is XV guru can help me please ignition coils are only thing I can think of but if that is wrong I don't want to keep on buying new parts just to see if it is them,if you get my drift. Thanks in advance.

Your thinking too hard therelol.smaller model tank has more capacity so will give more range on the 535 is what I said not that the smaller bike gave more range!!!That is obvious!!!!.what I am afetr is a top tank with more fuel capacity than this tiny little thing fitted as standard.So instead of 3 litres or whatever, I get 11 litres. Do you grasp the concept now???