[raptordude]

Greased all the zerk fittings after initial 30 hours on the machine. Surprisingly shabby factory grease job for such a high quality machine!!!!!

Left side lower control arms almost no grease at all. Both upper control arms took 30 strokes on grease gun before factory grease would expel....

Couldn't seem to get joint where lower shock pivot and swing arm attach to take any grease. Was like it was dead headed or something......

Those upper arms always take a ton. I don't know why, they always have on my 700 and my 250 raptor as well


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[raptordude]

The older raptors had 21" front tires from factory


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[raptordude]

My Lonestar a arms were getting scratched on rocks, I decided to make some custom skid plates. I bent them out of thin sheet aluminum to mock them up, then had a fab shop bend the real ones out of 1/8” aluminum. I used 3/4” EMT straps to secure them to the arms. I haven’t tried them out yet but they fit great


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[raptordude]

I have the week off between Christmas & New Years. I decided it’s the perfect time for a frame off restoration I’m going to have gussets welded in behind the upper front shock mounts and the cheesy bumper mounts beefed up. Then everything powder coated. Also have a new Sparks exhaust for it when it goes back together

Does Yamaha have a way of coating the inside of the frame tubes from the factory? I’m worried the welding will cause rust on the inside down the line. I’ve seen old dirt bikes where the frames rusted out from the inside, I want to avoid that

Any thoughts?


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[raptordude]

That’s kinda what I figured. I guess just don’t overthink it? I’m not sure how I would coat it inside anyway

I wonder if it’s worth spraying some sort of fluid film up inside the drain holes

I’m as far as I can get for the moment. I’m waiting for businesses to reopen near me to have it welded and powdered. I also have a bunch of new bearings and bushings coming from Partzilla. It should be like a brand new quad


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[raptordude]

The chain side bushing in my swingarm was so shot that it actually trashed the swingarm. The hole isn’t round anymore, it’s oblong. This is a pic of a good used one I picked up. I noticed that there is a needle bearing type bushing on the outer side on each side, and a plastic bushing on the inner side on each side. I would think it would be a lot more robust to replace the plastic bushings with the roller bearing type bushings. Has anyone done this?


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[raptordude]

Yeah it’s my fault for letting the bushings get so bad. I knew there was play there for a long time, but I put it off. I didn’t expect it to actually eat into the swingarm. But oh well, $100 for a nice used one is a small price to pay for a lesson learned

Spray bombing the frame is a good suggestion if I was on a strict budget, but powder is definitely worth the money in my opinion. I’m having the swingarm and a bunch of other small things done as well

I ride in the coal region which can actually be fairly corrosive, that’s why I was concerned about the inside. I like the idea of submerging it in paint, but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble, like you said. I looked inside it with a flashlight as much as possible, it looks fine. I’m just being weird I guess


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[raptordude]

Got the frame back from the fab shop all beefed up. Now it’s off to sand blast & powder

Is it a bad idea to separate the mid frame from the main frame? I don’t want to pull the aluminum threads out of the mid frame on the bottom bolts near the foot pegs


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[raptordude]

Sounds good, I’ll give it a go tonight. Surprisingly, Home Depot had the correct tamper proof t50


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[raptordude]

I heated up the ones near the foot pegs for extra insurance, and they came right out. It was so easy I didn’t bother heating the others, the impact zipped them right out. No damage to any of the threads. I’ll be dropping everything off for sandblasting and powder coating on Monday, then I can finally get this thing back together


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[raptordude]

Does anyone have torque specs on the tamper proof bolts? Also, is it ok to reuse them or are they torque to yield? For some reason Yamaha is very secretive about these 6 bolts


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[raptordude]

Got everything back from powder today. Overall I’m happy. They missed the outsides of the front hubs pretty bad, they’re re-doing them for me. The main frame has some very small light spots in little nooks and crannies. I didn’t want to nit-pick. The guy that did everything was Amish, and didn’t charge much. $180 for everything. I’m going to take the main frame to a high dollar powder coating place and see if they can touch it up or re-do it. I’m not after looks so much as I don’t want ANY rust anywhere after I ride and wash it repeatedly

You get what you pay for, this is exactly what I expected to happen. To have the high dollar place do everything would have been over $1,000. The Amish guy did a great job on the little stuff. For how cheap he was, I figured I’d give him a shot at the main frame too. I wasn’t risking too much money if it ended up needing touched up

The Amish guy jammed little rubber cone shaped plugs in all the threaded holes, so I won’t have to tap anything. So that will help things go smoothly


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[raptordude]

deleted, created my own thread

 

[raptordude]

Here’s where I’m at, I’m very pleased with the results so far. Everything turned out fine with the rust after sandblasting & powder.

View attachment 144408

 

[raptordude]

That’s a wrap. This thing is like a brand new quad, it feels super tight and smooth all the way around. The Sparks exhaust is a monster as well. Looking forward to taking it on a real ride this spring




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[raptordude]

The larger oil tank will reduce engine temps tremendously, can extend time between changes, and (supposedly) supplies enough oil to where the engine doesn’t starve when hill climbing or wheelying

An extra 1.25 quarts is a lot in a system that only holds 2 qts

Guys put deeper pans on auto transmissions all the time for temperature control

raptor700propg

Has anyone ever tested if this tank actually can provide enough oil to prevent starvation when hill climbing or wheelying?


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[raptordude]

What temperatures do you ride in? I ride a lot in chillier fall weather, 50-60 degrees F and sometimes in the snow down to like 20F. Does the oil struggle to get warm enough in those temps with that tank?

I would think you could go longer between changes simply because there’s more oil to get dirty. If the raptor pollutes the oil X amount, that amount will stay the same with the larger tank, but you’ll have more clean oil to offset it. Since it’s a quart over the stock 2 quarts, you could go 33% longer between changes and still be at the same level of oil pollution as before


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