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1995 Yamaha XT350 Nightmare
- Thread starter prkrman
- Start date
prkrman
Veteran Member
Ordered Loctite 620, looks like it should do nicely. McMaster-Carr is wonderful, I'll even get it by tomorrow.
next.henkel-adhesives.com
LOCTITE® 620
High-strength, high-temperature resistant bonding of cylindrical parts
prkrman
Veteran Member
Oh god I haven't touched this thread since December??
Guess that warrants a lot of updates here. First and foremost: I recently purchased a house and am finally pretty well settled in. Shop is mostly set up to my liking and have worked on a couple dozen other projects in the meantime.
In the last few weeks, I finished my engine rebuild of this bike. New conn rod, crank bearings, re-manufactured crankshaft, all new engine bearings and seals, new Wiseco piston and rebored cylinder, new valve seals (if I need to do valves / seats I will, but I want to try it first), and fresh coat of paint. Took a bit of doing to reorganize everything from moving an in-progress engine, but I don't currently have any missing parts (that I know of...).
I've also gone through and cleaned most of the components and marked which need replacement. I need to order locking tabs for the rear sprocket, eventually a new spoke kit (I don't plan to frequent the bike as-is with a broken spoke, but I'm desperate for a test-run on the engine before I consider trying to relace a wheel), tested both tach and speedo, and looked into headlight mounts. I have a rough idea of how this nightmare dual-throat carb works and it's nice and clean, but should definitely receive some better vacuum lines before the bike hits the road.
Since the engine got done, I've worked on mounting it back into the frame. Most of this went cleanly, but after several hours, many many curse words, and a broken mallet, I've gotten dead stuck on installing the rear suspension. The Clymer manual is worthless in this regard, "reinstallation is the opposite of these steps" is incredibly not helpful. I've scoured through plenty of old forums and apparently I'm the only one with this issue, so clearly I'm doing something wrong. I feel like I've tried every route of installation here, so I came up with an idea.
We have access to the fancy (read: expensive) enterprise version of ChatGPT at work, and management's been pushing us to use it for documentation and high-level views for customers and what not. So I figure, maybe it can glean through the parts fisches and any manuals it can find to try and clarify this process further. I asked it to use both CMSNL and Partzilla as sources for parts diagrams, and to use whatever manuals it could find and create a document that explains the correct step-by-step to install the rear suspension, along with diagrams and everything. My prompts were as follows and the final document is (hopefully) at this link.
Me: "I have a 1995 Yamaha XT350 that uses a single mono-shock rear suspension. Please detail the exact order that all the different connection points should be added in order to reinstall this suspension component alongside the engine. Utilize the detailed parts fisches available from Partzilla or CMSNL as reference"
*it spit out a raw text version, which was awful to read and not great, so I asked a follow up*
"Please create a word document that uses this information that you have gathered and includes pictures (highlighted with the parts mentioned) in a more readable format."
*It then gave a word doc with only diagrams that it created, no fische pictures, so I followed up again*
"In addition to the figures that you created, please include simple mapping figures correlating the drawings to the parts fisches. Include photos of the larger components from said fisches."
That leaves us at the version that I linked earlier. Overall, I think that it did a pretty good job. I was surprised at how well it's diagrams turned out. There's some formatting errors and overlapping text in them, but nothing that couldn't be post-processed. I don't believe it managed to find a proper manual, (I couldnt either, I had to buy a paper copy), but it seems pretty feasible with what it laid out. Pages 6 and 7 are exactly what I was hoping for from my last prompt, and it simplifies looking at the fisches substantially.
I'm going to try this way later tonight and see if the procedure is any good or if I'm going to end up with another broken mallet. Will keep you posted.
Guess that warrants a lot of updates here. First and foremost: I recently purchased a house and am finally pretty well settled in. Shop is mostly set up to my liking and have worked on a couple dozen other projects in the meantime.
In the last few weeks, I finished my engine rebuild of this bike. New conn rod, crank bearings, re-manufactured crankshaft, all new engine bearings and seals, new Wiseco piston and rebored cylinder, new valve seals (if I need to do valves / seats I will, but I want to try it first), and fresh coat of paint. Took a bit of doing to reorganize everything from moving an in-progress engine, but I don't currently have any missing parts (that I know of...).
I've also gone through and cleaned most of the components and marked which need replacement. I need to order locking tabs for the rear sprocket, eventually a new spoke kit (I don't plan to frequent the bike as-is with a broken spoke, but I'm desperate for a test-run on the engine before I consider trying to relace a wheel), tested both tach and speedo, and looked into headlight mounts. I have a rough idea of how this nightmare dual-throat carb works and it's nice and clean, but should definitely receive some better vacuum lines before the bike hits the road.
Since the engine got done, I've worked on mounting it back into the frame. Most of this went cleanly, but after several hours, many many curse words, and a broken mallet, I've gotten dead stuck on installing the rear suspension. The Clymer manual is worthless in this regard, "reinstallation is the opposite of these steps" is incredibly not helpful. I've scoured through plenty of old forums and apparently I'm the only one with this issue, so clearly I'm doing something wrong. I feel like I've tried every route of installation here, so I came up with an idea.
We have access to the fancy (read: expensive) enterprise version of ChatGPT at work, and management's been pushing us to use it for documentation and high-level views for customers and what not. So I figure, maybe it can glean through the parts fisches and any manuals it can find to try and clarify this process further. I asked it to use both CMSNL and Partzilla as sources for parts diagrams, and to use whatever manuals it could find and create a document that explains the correct step-by-step to install the rear suspension, along with diagrams and everything. My prompts were as follows and the final document is (hopefully) at this link.
Me: "I have a 1995 Yamaha XT350 that uses a single mono-shock rear suspension. Please detail the exact order that all the different connection points should be added in order to reinstall this suspension component alongside the engine. Utilize the detailed parts fisches available from Partzilla or CMSNL as reference"
*it spit out a raw text version, which was awful to read and not great, so I asked a follow up*
"Please create a word document that uses this information that you have gathered and includes pictures (highlighted with the parts mentioned) in a more readable format."
*It then gave a word doc with only diagrams that it created, no fische pictures, so I followed up again*
"In addition to the figures that you created, please include simple mapping figures correlating the drawings to the parts fisches. Include photos of the larger components from said fisches."
That leaves us at the version that I linked earlier. Overall, I think that it did a pretty good job. I was surprised at how well it's diagrams turned out. There's some formatting errors and overlapping text in them, but nothing that couldn't be post-processed. I don't believe it managed to find a proper manual, (I couldnt either, I had to buy a paper copy), but it seems pretty feasible with what it laid out. Pages 6 and 7 are exactly what I was hoping for from my last prompt, and it simplifies looking at the fisches substantially.
I'm going to try this way later tonight and see if the procedure is any good or if I'm going to end up with another broken mallet. Will keep you posted.
Broken mallet?? Are you over persuading the parts?
prkrman
Veteran Member
I think I might have used CIA methods of "persuasion"...
Also ChatGPT was totally wrong, no big surprises there. There's a little connecting rod between the main relay arm and the frame, and all it's drawings have it going to the rear of the swingarm, not the frame. On the brighter side, I have a better idea of how to do this right.
Somehow, both the lower connecting rod and relay arm must be mounted to both the frame and swingarm respectively. During this though, the lower end of the shock must be *close* to where it's supposed to connect to the relay arm, just enough so that if the swingarm moves up, it will compress the spring. From there, one needs to force the swingarm up (with a jack or ratchet straps, I'm using the latter) so that eventually the shock's lower eyelet will line up. When that happens is beyond me, but it's gotta be possible.
Also ChatGPT was totally wrong, no big surprises there. There's a little connecting rod between the main relay arm and the frame, and all it's drawings have it going to the rear of the swingarm, not the frame. On the brighter side, I have a better idea of how to do this right.
Somehow, both the lower connecting rod and relay arm must be mounted to both the frame and swingarm respectively. During this though, the lower end of the shock must be *close* to where it's supposed to connect to the relay arm, just enough so that if the swingarm moves up, it will compress the spring. From there, one needs to force the swingarm up (with a jack or ratchet straps, I'm using the latter) so that eventually the shock's lower eyelet will line up. When that happens is beyond me, but it's gotta be possible.
prkrman
Veteran Member
Nope that wasn't it either. As always, I love to overcomplicate things. The lower linkage must be going straight up and the shock fully removed, which gives enough wiggle room to move the relay arm in such a position so that the swingarm is at it's lowest point. From here, slap the shock in and bolt it in, no compression needed. Now for the torque specs...
