This is a picture of the sled in Feb. 1992. I bought the sled in Nov. 1989. As you can see the sled has a 83 Vmax seat, suspension and a widening kit. The sled is still all orginal with skis, decals, body panels, and tunnel. What is under the hood and seat will surprise you. The transformation will start soon. Stay tuned.
This is what I found when I lifted the seat. A nice piece of black tin covering the center heat exchanger hole and a rear heat exchanger nicely installed. The black tin was a piece cut out of a '83 Vmax tunnel as a plug (810-77716-00-00) is in it. Notice the coolant hose how they were routed. Also notice the quality of rivets in the rear exchanger. This is factory parts and quality. Who would cut a 83 Vmax tunnel up in 1983? Who else, but Yamaha. I know what you want to see next. That will have to wait until another day.
I have now completed the tear down. The motor, fuel pumps, air box, exhaust, and fuel tank and wiring harness are now removed. Also the throttle, throttle cables , choke cable and grips also have to be changed. Basically I will have changed everything but the frame, track, handle bars, and front suspension. What we had was an 83 VMax with 82 clothes on. Here is a picture of the engine compartment. Notice the 3 front mounts for the engine. The 81 SRX only has 2. This is the only difference from an 81 frame to an 82 frame.
I will now take out the Pro Action Link suspension and rebuild an 81 SRX suspension from a parts sled. Everything was sanded and painted. New parts where install if they were available. A NOS rear shock was installed. Suspension was then installed.
The rear heat exchanger was removed and the tunnel heat exchanger was put inplace. All NOS snowflap and rear spoiler parts were install with correct hardware from Yamaha.
The following are pictures of this process.
Now we will prepare the engine compartment, striping out the wiring harness,sanding and painting the engine compartment and then install the '81 SRX wiring harness that was updated in 1982.
As you can see an 8R9 CDI was also installed.
I will now show you the difference between 83 Vmax throttle assembly vs 81 SRX
83 Vmax handgrip vs 81 SRX
83 Vmax VM 38mm carb (round slide) vs 82 8R9 44mm (butterfly) Both Mikuni
83 Vmax CDI vs 82 SRX CDI
83 Vmax dual fuel pump vs 82 SRX single fuel pump
83 Vmax 8U9 exhaust pipe vs 82 8R9 exhaust pipe
83 Vmax cylinder vs 82 SRX cylinder
83 Vmax fuel pickup vs 82 SRX pickup
83 Vmax airbox(notice how the coil mounts) coil mounted straight towards motor vs 82 SRX airbox coil mounted at an angle
83 Vmax 535 motor (8U9) vs 82 SRX 500 motor (8R9)
Notice the water outlet on the Vmax vs the SRX ( 535 is straight- 500 is angled)
I will now start installing the motor, carbs, fuel pump, airbox, fuel tank, and exhaust pipes.
As you can see the SRX 500 carb flanges are marked 8R9. Everything we have is correct SRX 500 parts. Let's assemble!
Just alittle trivia, I weighed the two motors as you see them. 83 Vmax 74.0 lbs. vs 82 SRX 500 71.5 lbs.
Here are some pictures of the completed project. I will review everything that I have done and found out as a result of this transformation. But here is the 1982 SRX 500 complete with every nut, bolt, clamp,correct part coded, cleaned, buffed and polished for all of you to see what the engine compartment and outside body looked like in 1982. The brochures of 1982 all showed a redecaled 1981 SRX so that is why the 81 seat is on it. This sled is how the brochured showed it.
This is the engine compartment with the 500 motor as you can see the correct butterfly carbs and exhaust pipes. Now below is is a picture of the 535 engine with the round slide carbs. This is a picture before we took the engine out.
