24th Jan 2014, 06:32

To find the central idle knob, just reach well in from the right hand side of the bike, that's under and behind the carby rack (so below and behind the line of the carby floats). You will find the knob behind and under the carbs about the middle of the bike. Turn clockwise to speed up the idle, counter clockwise to slow it down. Easy.

28th Apr 2014, 11:56

Hey guys, just got an XJ650 Maxim. Wanted to change out the final drive and secondary drive fluid, but I don't know how to get to the secondary drive. Do I take off the whole plate behind the shifter? Any help is appreciated.

23rd May 2014, 12:43

That should go to the fuel petcock next to the fuel line; the XJ's use a vacuum operated fuel "pump" located inside of the petcock. When synchronizing the carbs, you use these same ports to tap into the individual carbs to set them all the same with a manometer (you can make one, YouTube has dozens of lessons on those).

14th Jun 2014, 18:13

I'm thinking you should have started with flushing out the tank and cleaning the petcock.

24th Sep 2014, 00:04

It may be a really old post, and I'm the really old original reviewer - I still own my Yamaha and still think it's a wonderful bike. Too bad they don't make them like these any more.

4th Jun 2015, 18:52

Hi all, got an 82 Maxim 750, pushes hard in reverse, OK forward. Any help please?

30th Aug 2015, 20:20

Notice your red line on the tach is at 9. I've had mine at 80 mph going down the interstate, it runs right around 6-6200 RPM. Totally normal.

31st Aug 2015, 20:05

Yamaha dealers can get the emblems, 20 bucks a pop each.

23rd Oct 2015, 00:59

There's a sight glass on the right side of the bike, right by the brake. The oil should be half way up the glass.

20th Jun 2016, 17:55

These will do that. I have had 2 and they both had a slight vibration at about 4900 to 5000 RPM. You can try repositioning the exhaust system. That did fix it on one of mine and moved the vibration RPM up to 5900 on the other one. Good luck.

29th Aug 2017, 05:12

My 1982 XJ650 is jetted out, stage 3, open filters, 4 to 1 pipes, and I did what dynojet said and drilled the emulsion tubes out to #44. It runs a bit rich, but I can't complain about the performance; I can bury the needle in 3rd gear; not bad for a little lawnmower.

4th Oct 2017, 09:14

If it happened that fast and it is indeed flooded, I'd look for a leaking float.

22nd May 2018, 22:15

Just re-found this site... Thread used to be more current... Too bad...

Anyway, I owned 2 650s and a 1100 Maxim for well over 100,000 miles of fun and worry free driving all over America... I'd own another if they still made em... Much better ride than V-twins on long haul... I'd like to see a new 1000 Maxim from Yamaha. :) ... I see Honda brought back a retro.

5th Sep 2019, 17:54

You rode cross country on an XJ650? God bless you; I never did it on a bike smaller than a Shadow 1100 or a Voyager 1200, but I am digging my 650 Maxim.

5th Sep 2019, 17:59

There are a few parts shops that sell oil filters with o-rings on Amazon; usually 2 of them for a few dollars. Another shop sells packs of 3 on eBay for about 15 bucks.