Feel free to ask me any questions. I have seen every nut, bolt and washer. I have restored, reconditioned polished and painted every part. The only thing I haven't taken apart (yet) is the engine. If you are interested, click here to open a document showing all the parts I have restored to date and what has been done to them. It might give you some ideas, even for non-Yamaha bikes.

My tips are based on personal experiences and with using my own skills and knowledge. I am not responsible for anything that happens to your bike when referencing or using my tips!

Vinyl, Black Plastic, Rubber

The only thing I recommend using to restore the color and lustre to all the black vinyl, and plastic parts is Forever Black, a vinyl dye. This is amazing stuff except for one thing, the applicator tip. You might as well try to put the die on with an Aero chocolate bar. The cell structure of the foam tip is too open and hard. I read a comment on another website where a guy had a lot of streak lines and this prompted me to try something else. I found a different synthetic kitchen foam pad that was soft and had a more dense cell structure (similar to bread - enriched white, not multigrain). It worked OK on small parts, but the best thing I found was to apply Forever Black with a soft cotton cloth. Apply in a circular motion. This really kept the streaking to a minimum. (Since I originally wrote this, Forever Black has re-designed the applicator tip to a more closed cell foam structure.)

For rubber, I cleaned with a rubber cleaner and used a good quality rubber restorer. If the rubber was really faded or browned, I used Forever Black first, waited 2 days and then applied a rubber restorer.

Too bad Forever Black is only available in the U.S. I bought two 8 oz. bottles and the shipping was as much as the product. Only in Canada, eh? NOT! Forever Black is now available through my business BDesigns.

Painting

If you are going to the bother of stripping and re-painting, don't go cheap. Beadblast and Powdercoat everything you can. What can't be Powdercoated (due to oven temperatures), use a polyurethane paint. CIL's Imron is excellent, but I went with PPG products, they are a lot less money and more than adequate for the job. Lambourghini apparantly uses PPG systems. I also used polyurethane for the fairing as well. Metallic silvers are very hard to get a consistent application, so I suggest using a base coat/clear coat. Thanks to Vince, another Turbo owner, I have a paint code. It is a PPG product - PPG #35913 Silver Blue Metallic. My supplier can't supply a colour chip, so I don't know how close the match is to original, and Vince hasn't parked beside another Seca to compare. Seeing that I couldn't get a chip, I spent hours going through hundreds of chips from different manufacturer's anyway. I came up with one that matched an old spare (but slightly faded) fairing component. I compensated for fading slightly and got a close match to the metallic flake. What I went with is a base coat/clear coat. It is also a PPG product. The base is a Hyundai - Smart Silver Metallic, 102a Gray, LS, DBC300042DB SC.

Wheel Rim Painting and Polishing

For the rims, I sandblasted and painted these as well (and sanded to remove oxidization and polished and, and, and...spent 35 hours on rims). The paint I used was a custom mix, but is a 99% match. The colour the rim paint was based on was again a PPG product. The base paint that was modified was a Toyota colour, product number DCC5234 Antique Sage Pearl. A flattening agent was added to get the sheen down to a dull eggshell gloss which is what the original painting appeared to be. For the sanding/polishing of the rims, I started with 120 grit to remove the heavy oxidization. Then followed by grits 150, 180, 240, 320 and 400. A friend at work jury rigged a motor, pully's and reducer motor to come up with a quasi "lathe". This made the sanding of the rims way easier (except for the "spokes/ribs). Here is a picture of the "machine". My friend made wooden spacers to fit from the different diameters inside the wheel hub to the centre spindle on the machine. I followed the sanding with 3 applications of Mother's aluminum polish and finally a coat of "Turtlewax".

Engine Painting

Obviously the best thing to do is tear the engine apart, paint the casings and rebuild. If doing this, I would go with either powder or ceramic coating with an appropriate sheen. But if the engine is in good shape, why bother? There is another way, but great care must be taken.

You can bead blast the engine while it is assembled so long as you properly cover all wiring, fully plug and tape over all exposed holes, etc. It is extremely important that everything is well plugged so you don't get abrasive from blasting, or water from pressure washing, in the engine. You have to mask over the aluminum oil pan to prevent marring of the aluminum.

I personally blasted my engine with a very fine walnut shell abrasive. I have heard of others having theirs done with "baking soda" blasting. Prior to this, you need to pressure clean all the grease off the engine. Once the blasting was done, I blew the engine off with an air nozzle. I then used a high power shop vac and mini ends to vacuum all abrasive out of any tight areas, especially near any areas that have been plugged. I then washed again with a pressure washer. Immediately, you need to use an air nozzle to blow all the water dry from the raw aluminum. Water will oxidize the aluminum and impede paint adhesion. All old tape from blasting was pulled off and new tape applied to mask areas that you don't want painted. Don't remove any plugs yet! Any shiny bolt heads can be covered with a liquid latex product that acts as a barrier and pulls off fairly easily after painting. I stole my liquid latex from my kids halloween makeup kit.

The paint that matches the sheen closest to the original paint, is VHT's Barrel Spray paint #SP-906 Satin Black. 3 cans is sufficient to cover the engine. I let it dry for a week and then carefully sanded all the fin edges and "YICS"/bosses from the cam covers that were bare from the original paint job. I went to 150 grit on all these edges. After that, I carefully, with a minimal amount of Mothers Aluminum Polish on the tip of a tight cloth, polished all the bare aluminum edges/surfaces. Take care not to get the Mothers on the paint because you won't get it entirely off, it will leave a haze. Top it off with a good hot water and detergent wash, rinse and blow dry. Voila!!

Fairing Repair

If you have any cracks, don't just sand the back of the fairing, slap on fibreglass, and slap putty on the outside (like the person who did my bike before I bought it). Make sure you grind a taper from the centre of the fairing thickness out to zero and about 2" back from the crack. Do this to the inside and outside of the fairing. When you fibreglass from both sides, this will sandwhich and lock the fairing material between the fibreglass layers. Use fibreglass mat, not cloth. The mat is easier to work with and forms better. Remember to wear the appropriate personal protective equipment.

Re-Applying Emblems

If you have ever removed any of the emblems (YAMAHA, SECA turbo, or YICS) and had trouble finding something to put them back on properly with because the old backing deteriorated, I have found an automotive product from 3M that is an excellent replacement. It is an Acrylic Foam Tape #4646, 25mm (1") wide by .9m (1 yd.) roll, part number 06384. You should be able to order it through any 3M distributor in your area.

Brake Lines

I spent many hours trying to find a reasonable price set of front brake lines. I tried Russell and Goodridge, but the cost was high. I found a company in the United Kingdom which has really good prices on braided stainless steel lines, excellent warranty, available in different colours. The banjos are attached, which some people say it better than the disconnects, but that may just be an opinion. All I know is that the price is better. They have the specs, all you have to do is order, and give the correct make and model, etc. If you are from anywhere in North America, you need to specify to make them DOT3 compliant.

The company is HEL Performance Products. Oh, they also sell replacement braided stainless steel oil cooler lines too!

Steering Head Bearings

After reading fellow Seca owner Vince's mechanical modifications, I decided it would be a good idea to replace the original ball bearing set with an aftermarket tapered bearing set. If you have your bike this far apart, it makes sense to do it. The price is around $42.00 US. The company is All Balls Racing. The part number for the set is 22-1015.

Electrical

Don't make the same mistake I did on this one. Although my bike was stored for 15 years, it is still 25 years old. When I removed the wiring harness from the bike, I did take a look at the connecters and superficially cleaned the relays, etc. I also put a new battery in the bike as well.

Given the above, I thought that was enough. OK, so fast forward to just last month (July, 2007). I was out riding about town and had some really weird stuff happen. I went to press the horn and the bike cut-out. Let go of the horn and it came back. Strange. Kept driving for about another 5 minutes. Stopped at a light and it was idling fine. As soon as I went to accelerate, it just started to fire like it was missing - no matter how much or little throttle I gave it. I let off the throttle and it idled OK. Went to accelerate and the same thing happened. I had to push the bike through the intersection and tried to let the clutch out at an idle but there wasn't enough momentum. I don't know why I thought of this, I guess I was thinking electrical at this point. I knew the starter wouldn't engage when the engine was running, so I pushed the starter button while accelerating, thinking that with the lights off from engaging the starter, I might get more juice to the firing system. It took off like there was no problem.

I finally had to stop the bike and couldn't get it going again. After it had cooled down for a while, I managed to start it up again and limp home. Not fun. I was a little unsure as to where to start looking for the electrical problem, but I found a motorcycle electrical system trouble shooting guide here which was really helpful. I took the seat and side fairing off to check the charging voltage at the battery. It was not charging. I took the air box and filter out to get at the wiring a little better. Checked the charging at the battery again and it showed it was charging, although it was fluctuating. This indicated a bad connection somewhere. I rooted around the wiring harness and found that two mating connecters and some wires were starting to melt. I started the bike up and felt the wires. As the rpm increased, so did the heat in the wires - substantially - too hot to touch. These were the wires and connecters that ran between the regulator/rectifier and the stator.

I did some research on the Internet as to what could have caused these problems. Here are some of the reasons. If you have a weak battery that won't properly hold a charge, the constant charging can load the system and start to overheat the wires and connecters. Bike charging systems are only meant to top up - not keep charging - batteries. Since my battery was new and took charges from my trickle charger, I knew this was not it. What I found was that the number one cause of electrical system problems and failure of components is poor connections. Poor connections anywhere in the system could cause a loading and tax the electrical system to the point of melting. This could be due to age/corrosion of connecters and also frayed wires and wiring pulling out of connecters. The recommendation was to go through every connecter in the harness and clean the contacts and solder any suspicious crimping on connecters. This is where I regretted not paying more attention to the harness while it was off the bike. It would have been so much easier and faster.

So I bought some contact cleaner and started to go through every connection. I first used the contact cleaner. If the pins in the connecter weren’t shiny or they showed corrosion, I pushed out the pins to access it better and sanded the corrosion off with 600 grit sandpaper. If the connecters were the circular female type, I would gently squeeze it tighter to make sure it contacts the male part firmly. If it was a spade connecter and it felt like it wasn't snug enough, I would push out the female pin and squeeze the sides down slightly to get more pressure. Don't squeeze them too much or they won't slide over the male pin. To remove pins from the connecter, you have to push down a tiny tab on the body of the pin with a very miniature flat head screwdriver. All of the wires that went into the connecters from the regulator/rectifier to the stator and battery were pushed out of the connecter and soldered. There was one wire in particular on the connecter on the wiring harness side of the connecter that leads to the stator which was pulling out of the metal pin and it had some fraying. I suspected this was the original problem, but still did every connecter. Since this was one of the three white wires from the stator that had started to melt, I was replacing the wires anyway. The gauge of those white wires is 14 gauge. I had to salvage some of the plastic connecters from one of my spare wiring harnesses to replace the melted ones. Funny, but I found the same white stator wire pulling out of the connecter on that one too. After about 8 hours, the bike was back together and running. The wiring was no longer getting hot and charging voltage was stable and with the specs. Hopefully this did the trick.

Exhaust System

This was difficult to find out what the pipes were originally coated with. It took some investigative skills and deduction, curiosity and 4 calls over a number of months to Yamaha and plead with someone to help me figure out (hopefully) what the original black coating was. Keep in mind the pipes were a jet black and gloss finish. I was told by a few platers that the black was not black chrome. Black chrome has an almost smokey very dark grey (almost black). I was told it was not black nickel or black zinc. Ceramic coaters couldn't tell, but they thought it wasn't ceramic coating because gloss black wouldn't take the heat. Hmmppfff!

I had to sand and repair the pipes anyway, so I just went ahead and would try to figure out what to do when I hit that obstacle. When I was sandblasting the pipes, the sand hitting the original finish created a blueish hue, almost like a flame. That told me the material was hard and perhaps had heat dispersant properties. I figured I would have the pipes ceramic coated for cost reasons and the fact that nobody said gloss black would work anyway, so I accepted that I may have satin black pipes (yuck!). I welded any small dings in the header pipes with brass rod. The wastegate muffler had a dent in it and I used JB Weld to fill it. This material is a metal epoxy and can be painted overtop. You have to apply and sand this like doing bodywork. Hopefully you are good at it. This material is good to 500 degrees continuous, and since the dent was in the wastegate side, I figured no problem (a problem maybe - see below). There is a material call Lab-Metal that is good to 1000 degrees, but requires pre-curing at about 550 degrees before final sanding and finishing. This material would probably be better for the hot side muffler, but I don't know. I sanded everything up to 400 grit, making sure to remove all the previous grits' scratches.

I still didn't know what the finish was and my pipes were all sanded. I had found an article on the net about dual tube construction for headers keeping the heat down to prevent blueing, etc. The turbo has a dual tube construction. The inner pipe is stainless steel, which can take the heat as well. There is a 3mm airspace all the way around the inner and outer pipes. I also found articles that say if you ceramic coat the inside of header pipes, the heat transferred to the outside is greatly reduced. So the blueish hue, the dual tube construction and ceramic coating the inside was telling me that it might be OK to go with a gloss ceramic black. I finally got a hold of someone at Yamaha that was willing to help me find out what the coating might be. The answer I got back was not overly detailed, but with what I was finding out, and their answer, I figured the original coating must have been ceramic. Here is an answer from the Yamaha archives.

"Good morning! I am afraid information remaining in the archives is not very helpful. The information alludes to the painting as "heat-resistant black" and this suggests a painting, rather than a plating, process. I am sorry we do not have more information in the archives."

So, this was all good enough for me. Despite my ceramic coaters minor objections, I told him to go ahead with the black and clear gloss overcoat as well as coating the inside of the headers. He said he would. He also told me he would have to turn the oven down for the pipe with the JB Weld, since it will not quite take the full heat of the oven temperature of about 600 degrees for an hour. Well, it is December. My pipes are still not done. I have had numerous issues and delays with my supplier. My header pipes were done by early summer, they turned out OK. but nothing to write home about. I don't think my supplier did a great job - a bit of overspray which cuts down on the shine. Oh well.

Oh, and the muffler with JB Weld? Well it is being coated for the 3rd time now. The reason for the second time was because my supplier decided to resandblast the mufflers (with 120 grit) before they ceramic coated them the first time. So why did they tell me to sand them up to 400 grit?? When they said they had to etch them, I was thinking chemical - not sandblasting! So, seeing that JB Weld is softer than metal, they made a mess of them, and then decided to ceramic coat them anyway. At least there was no off gassing from the JB Weld to wreck the finish (other than their sandblasting). So I fixed them again. This time they didn't blast them, but the JB Weld off-gassed this time and wrecked the finish. So now they suggest that it would be better and safer to go with a powder coat gloss black for the pipe. Since the powdercoat sheen is different than the ceramic, the other good side muffler would look different, so they said they would have to refinish that one too. They refinished them and although there were no "problems" this time, I was not at all happy with the sheen and the surface texture. Very disappointed. I would never go back there again.

I did a lot of research on heat resistant paints and found something that worked really well, but it was a lot of work. Since the last refinishing of the mufflers was not good, I sanded them all down again, up to 600 grit. The paint I used was VHT High Temperature glass black caliper paint (good to 900 degrees). I painted many coats on these for good coverage, being careful not to apply too thick. I let them cure for a week and then wet sanded them starting at 1000 grit, then went up to 2000 grit, then used very fine polishing compound to bring up the gloss and get rid of any imperfections in the paint. When done, they looked like the original pipes. What a learning experience.

Remember, if you follow what I did and it doesn't work out, I take no responsibility - use my ideas at your own risk. At the very worst I may have to re-coat only the header pipes every few years - big deal. I want the original look.

Fuel Tank

I decided that since I have been restoring everything else, why not the gas tank. I heard about a product called Kreem fuel tank liner through my dealer and decided to try it. Although it worked out, I wouldn't use this product again. This stuff is really, really toxic. I was very upset that there was a significant lack of details about the product, how to handle and especially dispose of it. I had to do a lot of searching on the net. Kreem doesn't even have a site to contact them. I wonder why? The etch solution is phosphoric acid that reacts with steel and gives off a gas that can be explosive. You also can't dump this down the drain unless you want it to leech into your water system. It must be nuetralized with lime or other materials before you properly dispose of it as hazardous waste. Nasty, nasty stuff. You have to pick decent warm weather and do this outside also. Although the amount of time spent doing this is small, the timing also has to be right. There are a number of steps that must be taken at different intervals of time. You also need all sorts of personal protective equipment. Respirator, chemical spill faceshield, rubber gloves, coveralls, etc. Since I had not great weather, insufficient timing, and young kids around the house, I took it to my dealer and paid a small fee for labour and an evironmental disposal fee. It was worth my piece of mind.

After I had done this, I heard of another product from Caswell Plating that is epoxy based and you don't need to etch the tank. There are no toxic materials to dump. It sounds like much safer material to work with. If I had to do it again, I would use this product. It is a little less expensive as well. Check it out here .

Windshield

I was never really happy with the sanding and polishing job on my windshield. And due to the problems with suppliers forming new windshields, I always kept my eye out for anything that would better what I had. I would have rated the first resto job on the windshield at about 90%. Over the winter I stumbled on an abrasive product that was superb for sanding this type of plastic. It is actually used for restoration on aircraft windshields. I also found an equally impressive polish meant for these types of plastics that is bar none - the best I have ever used. I was so impressed with the quality of these products that I bought the company (sorry, wrong commerical). Actually I was so impressed that I am now distributing these products through my business website BDesigns. So I re-restored the windshield this past winter also, and I would rate it now at 100% - very happy with it now.

Parts Availability

After reading all the doom and gloom on the internet about parts availability I resigned myself to the fact I would have to find a way of reconditioning many parts, try to get plastic re-chromed ($), etc. And while this is somewhat true, I thought I would ask my dealer anyway. Some unique parts can be machined on a custom basis if you have the money.

Virtually every type of consumable part is available from Yamaha (Canada), or aftermarket companies. This includes brake parts, bearings, seals, dust caps, etc. For real unique bearing and seal situations, check with your local bearing distributer.

Some of the items that I recently purchased through my dealer that came directly from Yamaha were; the steering cap with the chromed "650" on it, driver footpeg rubber replacements, cable boots and shifter rubbers. They are also inexpensive. I even was able to get a battery sensor and mirror assemblies (the mirror assemblies are now out of stock). It was backordered for a bit, but it arrived. Check with your dealer. If you are in the US and your dealer only goes to Yamaha US, check into Canadian dealers. My dealer has been very helpful, the guys there really want to see my bike on the road!

Decals, reproducton rubber components, carb kits, carb parts and cosmetic restoration services/materials are available through my business at BDesigns .