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Foamy's New Toy, XJ650 Turbo :)


wild foamy
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cor'blimey, that's a lovely 'Turbo you got there, hopefully mine will look similar when it's finally done, i just keep procrastinating about this engine head, really dont want to strip it down as its a lot of work but im very doubtefull as to wether i can repair it in place, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

i've learnt most of this bikes' tricks and pitfalls when i was battling to take it apart, i assume that putting it back together will be the same kind of process in reverse, will give you a shout if anything unexpected crops up, everything is off the bike now, only really a case of cleaning/spraying everything up and fitting it back on now, that's going to be interesting... :)

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carbs and plenum are a fuker to get in, i found it easier to fit the 2 outer inlet manifold rubbers to the carbs and the inner ones to the head then slide em in place , be carefull with these they can easily break and are hard to find.

if u need any parts iv still the number of the bloke who bought all my spares , he only wanted the turbo and has a spare head

mines goin up for sale soon im thinking about £3k .you just dont see any for sale !

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the only spares im really after is the exhaust, i ended up cutting off the manifolds and most of the RH silencer was rotted away to nothing anyway, was planning to go to predator exhausts and get them to fit one up (was about £500 if i remember rightly)

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that's £500 for a full system, and it just wouldn't look right if i went to all the effort of powdercoating the frame e.t.c but only had the one silencer on it

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  • 1 month later...

Slow and steady progress on the turbo, been concentrating on the the minis recently before the cold weather rolls in, was supposed to be moving to wolverhampton back in August but due to the fact G4S couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery, the military being just so f*ckin good at everything we do and the government constantly f*ckin us up the arse without the common courtesy to give us a reach-around my promotion course has now been postponed until March next year... But who says I'm bitter...

Anyhoo, went across to swindon today to collect the newly overhauled fork legs and drop off the cars to be sorted out, decided to try and find a place that would be willing to fill the exhaust stud cavities with aluminium tig weld so I can redrill the holes and helicoil them,

Also started work on clearing 29 years worth of shit off the turbo, scrubbing up the rear mudguard and removing the remnants of the number plate holder, stripped the brake master cylinder ready for shotblasting and new seals, gonna have a sandblasting session tomorrow so hopefully should have some more progress to report later

Pics to come

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Mine's a 1983, looks like newkbusas is probably an '82

The engine is now at Headley bodyshop to have some TIG welding done on it, Also got some pics of what Glenn found when he opened up the carbs, this is what happens if you leave your bike full of petrol for several years:

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Likewise, when i opened up the master cylinder to strip it down i found it was filled with a jelly-like substance which at some point in time was probably brake fluid

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Didnt get round to shotblasting anything yesterday as there was a surprise leaving-do for one of my friends, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed, woke up this morning after a visit from the beer badger wearing next to fuck all and laying next to said friends fishpond, its fair to say i probably shouldnt be operating power tools when i am feeling this delicate...

UPDATE: Finally dragged my sorry ass out of bed and did some shotblasting, resprayed the fork legs, number plate holder, bottom yoke e.t.c, but then it started raining, i ran out of blasting media and i got hungry so came inside

IMAG0334_zpsdc32a5aa.jpg

IMAG0333_zps93918078.jpg

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  • 5 weeks later...

looks like a monstrously large undertaking you've got yourself into. i might do a job like this myself one day, hopefully with less alien eggs, ancient brake fluid/petrol and swearing

can't wait to see the old thing get put back together with a new lease of life!

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Ah, but a good long-term project has all three of those ;)

you mean its all part of the fun? i 'spose... as long as i dont get any aliens gestating in my stomach. and it must be amazing to look at a clean, working bike after a year or two's work, and to know that you've turned a pile of scrap into a work of art

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yeah, even looking at the newly painted parts gives me a good feeling, yet two years later i have pretty much got the parts ready to reassemble and most of them have been sandblasted and painted

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not keen on the look of these bikes but i do find them interesting being turbo versions...

honestly didnt know they used to strap turbos to bike, why did they stop??

good luck on the project bud ill be watching this

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Ah Ken, the look of the bike is what drew me to it, they are futuristic, full of angles and sharp lines, not like these curvy bubbley bikes that are being spewed out nowadays, same with cars tbh.

Basically, the turbos were added to smaller capacity bikes in an attempt to rival the performance of 1000cc-ish bikes, but they were overengineered, expensive to buy, heavy and never did perform aswell as the larger bikes, people just didnt want to buy them and in the XJs' case production lasted from 1982-1985

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not keen on the look of these bikes but i do find them interesting being turbo versions...

honestly didnt know they used to strap turbos to bike, why did they stop??

good luck on the project bud ill be watching this

It wasn't fun hitting the boost on a corner either. From 60 to 80 bhp in an instant not fun

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i know what you are on about with the lines and angles, im a lover of the older classic cars but i am not a person to say its ugly by far would like to call myself open minded... but i do find turbo bikes very interesting!!

also i think when you are standing next to a bike you can appreciate its beauty rather than a pic.

would like to see one its its glory...

good going so far ;)

ken

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oh trust me seeing it in its post-restoration glory is something i cant wait for, i suppose part of the reason i took this project on is because if i bought a new bike i cant really see myself getting attached to it, i did get very attached to my DT and XJ600 because i took them to pieces many many times (there's only one way you can fit a DT50 into a nissan micra...) so the logic being if i buy a crap bike, break it down, restore it and turn it into a nice "new" bike i will enjoy it a lot more and it would mean a lot more to me

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makes it more personal yeh i can dig that - unfortuantly i dont have the privilage of time these days so i have to sell my old nsr jc20 1992 i was restoring!

good luck pal

cheers

ken

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