Breath life back into a 97 VMAX

[joetheguru]

My father and I have acquired a 1997 VMAX that we were told had an issue with the oil pump or oil pressure.

We have begun to dive into inspecting the bike and seeing what is going on with it to determine the best course of action to get it back on the road.

According to the seller, the bike has a lot of miles on it and had an issue with the oil pressure and thats all be really knew. We bought it with an 85 VMAX that has been downed which we will begin working on next.

I found this post: Three years in storage - resurrection procedure? and we started down the checklist.

We have now learned that there is a drain plug where you would install and oil pressure gauge that is missing and would like to see if any of you have recommendations on how to proceed. We were thinking of installing an oil pressure gauge and moving forward with checklist, fresh fluids / flush systems etc.

Any thoughts or recomendations?

 

[adambweird]

Id pull the plugs and put a teaspoon of oil in each cylinder and pull the stator cover and turn it over by hand (wrench) to see if it spun smoothly.

 

[wayne z]

You can also use the centerstand then rock the back wheel and shift into 5th, then you can bump the engine around by hand with the back tire. If you feel any sudden resistance, stop! This is what a stuck valve feels like when the piston hits it.
if after it is found to spin freely by hand and you decide to spin it over with the starter and plugs out, be sure to either ground the plugs or wires or disconnect power to the coils to avoid damage to the ignition system.

 

[Fire-medic]

Both posts are good advice. The rear wheel manipulation is easier and quicker. Harbor Freight sells a cheap spark plug inline tester. If you have spark to the plugs, and the engine is free in its movement, make sure it has oil, and try to turn it over on the starter. If you have it spinning freely, you could try hooking a small gas container to it and seeing if it would run. Check the air filter box first, removing the element to insure critters haven't used it for habitation. It's not uncommon for the same thing to occur w/the exhausts. You might get lucky and find it runs, though the more-likely instance requires a carb rack removal and disassembly for cleaning. Members on here sell cd's you can use to do an an engine disassembly. (Damon) He sells them on ebay.

Other members can rebuild your carbs or you can follow directions in stickies to troubleshoot and repair what you find.

 

[joetheguru]

Another piece of information that I have received about the bikes history from the previous owner..

Before the bike was parked there was an issue with the oil pressure. They "replaced a gear on the oil pump" which fixed the problem for a while. The bike apparently had the oil pressure issue again after about 5k miles.

Any thoughts on what they are referring to and some steps we should take before doing too much.

I have read about some kind of o ring popping out and some aftermarket kits that are available but I am am unsure as to what I should do. Are there any tell tale signs I should look for?

Any recommendations would be great.

 

[davesax36]

Search for o-ring on here. There is a thread with lots of pics if I remember correctly. Basically the pipe that the oil gets pumped through directly after the pump is only really held in by the pressure of the o-ring seal. If you rev the motor before it's warm, you can blow it out. Then it won't matter what gear is in place because it'll just shoot half (or however much) of the oil back into the pan and not up into the motor.

 

[sdt354]

Search for o-ring on here. There is a thread with lots of pics if I remember correctly. Basically the pipe that the oil gets pumped through directly after the pump is only really held in by the pressure of the o-ring seal. If you rev the motor before it's warm, you can blow it out. Then it won't matter what gear is in place because it'll just shoot half (or however much) of the oil back into the pan and not up into the motor.

+1 to all. A Vmax doesn't register much idle oil pressure when hot, even off the show room floor. That's why Yamaha didn't put a gauge on them. It would have been a customer service nightmare. With oi pump upgrades, and no o-ring, issue like Dave mentioned, there is maybe 4-6 PSI at idle, hot. It is enough, as sufficient volume is present. The oil light just tells you that you are either about out of oil, or you're accelerating nicely and pushing the oil to the back of the pan. A cheap E-Bay bore scope can view the O-ring through the oil sender hole. They are worth having. Under $20 last time I looked. They are endoscopes and have a light on them. There is a quick check procedure somewhere that lets you judge o-ring/pump condition from the sight window after start up. Someone else may chime in with the link. If you googled it, it would pop up for sure.
Steve-o

 

[sdt354]

You can also use the centerstand then rock the back wheel and shift into 5th, then you can bump the engine around by hand with the back tire. If you feel any sudden resistance, stop! This is what a stuck valve feels like when the piston hits it.
if after it is found to spin freely by hand and you decide to spin it over with the starter and plugs out, be sure to either ground the plugs or wires or disconnect power to the coils to avoid damage to the ignition system.

Good advice. Also, you can spin an engine over at the solenoid with the key off to avoid the sparks. Off the solenoid there is a 14 ga wire, blue and white on early Gen 1's. Unplug the bullet connector and ground the end going to the solenoid. Make sure you're in neutral first, because you will by pass all safety switches.
Steve-o

 

[one2dmax]

If you're going through it anyway might as well just pull the exhaust and then pull the oil pan. You can check the rod bearings and other misc while you're in there. You can even put in one of our heavy duty oiling kits provided the bearings all look good.

Sean