On the road again at 40.............the bike that is

[robinc]

Ok guys, an update. I have a letter done up with some corroborative editorial assistance from our MaximumPeter (oh, maybe that's that 2M guy with his crane in another thread) ready to send to Yamaha Corporate Parts Departments. Digging for contacts on that currently. My parts guru is checking with his contacts at Yamaha Canada to find the right person high enough up in the food chain to send it to. Will keep you posted on developments.

As well, I have decided to approach XS650 Direct here in Canada and Jim will deal with Mike's in the U.S.
Here is what I have forwarded to XS650Direct.

Dear Katie,

I am writing on behalf of the Yamaha XS650 enthusiast community which forms one of the core customer groups for XS650 Direct. As restorers, builders and riders of these bikes one of the biggest challenges we face is finding suitable replacement parts.

The efforts of your company to assist with these activities is truly appreciated. I know you work hard to provide authentic high quality parts and for the most part - you succeed admirably.

However sometimes factors that are out of your control go awry in the manufacturing process and the community has noted that when a problem is brought to your attention, you have taken prompt action and the issues were rectified.

Case in point the starter gear clip, your part #24-6522 (OEM Ref. #90468-29062 for starter gear #4):

• Peter Frise from Windsor, ON raised the issue with this part, explained that the clip you were supplying was not formed to the correct dimensions and was made from wire that was too thin - and you folks had it corrected and a properly spec’d part is now being shipped.
• Thank you - VERY much - that type of responsiveness was noted and is very welcome indeed.

I am writing to raise a current concern regarding your part #05-0006 Front Guide Stopper (Front Cam Chain Guide Bar) OEM Ref.# 256-12231-01.

While there have been reports in the past of cases of the rubber face delaminating, it would appear that specific issue has been resolved.

However, we have now discovered another serious problem with this part: the mounting hole boss castings are not properly cast and they are threaded at the incorrect angle. As a result, the part you are supplying cannot be used in the XS650 engine.

You can see in the attached pictures how the angle of these boss castings does not match that of the original Yamaha part. The top picture is a comparison of a part shipped from XS650Direct to the original Yamaha part. And the bottom comparison is a part shipped from MikesXS to a Yamaha original. You can see how the mounting bosses are cast perpendicular to the guide on your part whereas they are cast perpendicular to the mounting face on the original part.

The differing angle can be seen in these comparisons as well.

Also of note the right side boss in the XS650Direct part in the rear of the above picture is not cleanly threaded deep above and thus would prevent a mounting bolt from fully seating.

In addition the angle of the mounting threads as shown in the pictures below is off a significant amount from those of the original. Once again, the top comparison is with a part shipped from XS650Direct and the bottom from MikesXS.

As you can appreciate this flaw affects the installation of this part and renders it unusable or at the very least extremely unsatisfactory.

The XS650.com community is keenly aware of this problem and there has been a considerable amount of discussion about this recently.

We realize that you need feedback from your customers about how the parts supplied by your companies are performing and so we hope that with this information, you can take the steps to correct this problem and reintroduce a quality part that is dimensionally correct and usable.

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.

Sincerely,

Robin C


Well, let's see what happens guys.

 

[Jim]

Nicely done Robin. I'll probably get mine sent back to Mikes by the end of the week.

 

[robinc]

Thanks Jim. Pete said that these matters are dealt with at the mother ship MikesXS so this may well just be forwarded to them.
But now they have been made aware of the issue and it sure can't hurt to send mutiple letters.

 

[Mailman]

Very well worded and put together! Thanks guys!

 

[robinc]

Thanks Bob and thank you again to Pete for his editorial assistance in the preparation of both of these letters.

 

[robinc]

Oh, and hope you don't mind me poaching your pics Jim.

 

[Jim]

No worries Robin.

 

[650Skull]

I have some queries about pic 3 and 4. Going to do some work on them and re-post back what i find. If i am right it might disprove a point your trying to prove.

 

[robinc]

Ok Skull. Let us know if Jim or I can provide any other pics to help. However perhaps those pics may better relate to the point I was raising with pics 5&6.

You're a much better photographer than me, with a much better camera than my phone. I realize that camera angle and lens distortion makes it difficult to accurately capture these things.

Whatever we discover from here on, I think we can agree that this part is unnaceptable. I took a shot, if someone else wants to do a better comparative study, good for all of us I'd say.

 

[650Skull]

Splitting hair's???
One pic shows a definite slope to the bolt but it may be just sitting in the hole cross-threaded.

The other shows out of parallel bolts to the guide. Not much, 3mm/27mm..............the measurements are from the pic downloaded and full sized through "Windows Photo Viewer" and measured by tape off the screen of my laptop........................ Ratio is relevant to measurement not to scale


In the other pics in Post # 761 it isn't the angle of the bolt hole mold. That isn't an engineering weakness so has no relevance to the wrong angle of the bolt hole itself.............The issue is the "bolt hole angle".

Unless the angle of bolt hole mold on the guide is a issue of importance i don't think it should be referenced to as a real world problem................... Adding things like this also gives a manufacture a chance to find flaws in your presentation.

 

[MaxPete]

The key thing is that these folks WANT to do a good job but they need to know specifically what the problem is and what a solution looks like.

My experience with XS650 Direct on the starter clip and JetMechMarty’s contacts with MikesXS and their generous support of the XS650 Rally have confirmed that they are good people who love those old bikes. The fact is that this is a complex business and so let’s work with them. I am a member of an active vintage bike group and I can tell you that I am the envy of the group for the ease with which I can source parts for my 40+ year old bikes.

For the most part, they are not technical folks - they’re marketing people - and so just telling them that the “part sux” is nearly worthless. They (MikesXS and XSDirect) don’t actually make anything - they have a whole raft of suppliers - mainly in Asia - and so communications are complex and it can take a while to get things right.

Robin and Jim’s letters contain enough detail that they should be able to go to their suppliers and say - fix THIS and change THAT and make it look like THAT - and hopefully, we’ll wind up with better parts.

Now, if I can only get my danged float bowls to stop leaking.....

Cheers,

Pete

 

[650Skull]

No issues on my part and the pics your using are fine. I just have the queries as i pointed out above. I wanted to post just in case you were ready to send and see if my points make sense before you do...............My point is....... if your going to use pics as an example don't use pics showing squewiff angled bolts in a pic of a guide your using as an example

Your doing well just my

 

[Jim]

If i am right it might disprove a point your trying to prove.

We're trying to make two points...
1. The casting angle of the bosses is wrong.
1. The bolt hole angle is wrong.
Both of these points of course, are referenced to the OEM part. Both points are valid, and I think the pics clearly show that. Not sure what else there is to show...

 

[MaxPete]

ZACKLEY!!!

 

[Jim]

Unless the angle of bolt hole mold on the guide is a issue of importance i don't think it should be referenced to as a real world problem................... Adding things like this also gives a manufacture a chance to find flaws in your presentation.

The boss is cast wrong. Could they just drill and tap using the correct angle and have a usable part? Sure.
Do I think it's a good idea to let them know that it's cast wrong? I do.
It's up to them to decide whether they just want to manufacture a part that's usable.... or a duplicate of the OEM part. Let's give them "all" the info and let them decide.

 

[MaxPete]

Bingo!!

 

[650Skull]

Ok Devils advocate.................I'm the manufacturer who Mikes XS gets the parts from and have just received the request and information containing the pics in post #761

To change the angle of the bolt mount..............$....... because i have to redo every mold.......Who pays for this??.. .....will Mikes and the customer... .....is it an engineering fault......

Bolt angles up the shit..............in the pics supplied i see all bolts in both old and new guides at odd angles..............Sure the newer an't good but the old ones look bad as well....................

Whatever......

 

[Jim]

The other shows out of parallel bolts to the guide.

in the pics supplied i see all bolts in both old and new guides at odd angles.

Camera perspective distortion. Think shooting down the side of a building. The bolt are parallel. They'll pull a part from stock and be able to see that... and they'll see that we never mentioned the bolts being out of parallel.... neither old or new is out of parallel.

 

[gggGary]

I thought also that the pics were not perfectly clear as to which part was which and exactly where the problem lies. I also agree wtih skull that the casting is "useable" as is, a better jig for bolt drilling, tapping would create working parts at a low cost of changes for the manufacturer.
When Mike LeGrande sold MikesXS he retained the wholesale part of the business sourcing manufacturers and selling to the various retailers. I am not sure if that is still his role.
Some pics from when I did a Mikes and original comparo in early 2013.
About that time the genuine Yamaha guides became "unavailable" but a few months later they were restocked. Perhaps that will/could happen again?

 

[robinc]

Man a guy takes a break to go fill his pie hole and look what happens.

Well Skull I guess I really don't know what to say. To my critical, albeit inexperienced eye this part looks flawed to me. Jim a career professional aircraft mechanic seems to agree, which gives me some comfort in that I'm not altogether out to lunch although I don't want to pull him into this.

No one else told me over that last few days that I was wrong in my assumptions. That was the reason I posted my observations as I wanted to test them against the experienced knowledge base here. Elsewhere I have experienced the phenomena of a fresh pair of eyes catching something that others haven't. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if a consensus says so. Surely by now if I was wrong other experienced members would have said so.

However in saying that, if a majority of you guys do in fact believe I am wrong then please let me know and I will send a retraction and apology to XS650Direct.com and they can continue to ship this part for all to enjoy.

Someone else can pick up this torch and run with it and I'll sit on the sidelines and watch.