Well, I ordered new Fork Seals, New Grips and Exhaust Gaskets from Dennis Kirk. Unfortunately, the Fork Seals have been back ordered and the Grips are the cheapest you can buy. My current fork seals don't leak, but I wanted to replace the seals on my spare set of forks. The grips split down the seam when I installed them. Two strikes, lets try the exhaust gaskets.

All the bolts on the exhaust system came off easily enough and I immediately thought, this is going too easy, something is going to go wrong. Well, after all the bolts were removed, I could not get the system off the bike. I double and triple checked that all the sections had their respective bolts removed. It seems that the copper couplings holding the sections together do their job very very well. I wound up taking a dead blow hammer and beating the snot out of the different sections of the exhaust. Finally, after injuring my hand, and having lots of blood around, the mufflers (or Silencers as Yamaha calls them) dropped off. Replacing the seals was quite easy compared to putting the system back on the bike.

The rear cylinder exhaust flanges were the worst. This section of the exhaust system is in three separate sections held together with 3 types of connectors, all contained in an area too small to get any type of tool in to tighten things. After fighting and trying to thread tools in from any opening, no matter how small, I got everything as tight as I could and had the "Y" Pipe, Flanges and Copper "O" Rings installed. Next came trying to fit the rest of the system back into their respective copper collars. I had to use some emory cloth and sand the inside of each ring to a pretty shiny finish. Then I had to do the same to the outside end of each exhaust pipe. With some time and persistence, I got it all back together with everything tightened up.

After wiping all the blood off the chrome and cleaning out my wound, I brought the bike outside and started it up. Immediately, I heard that the bike is slightly quieter. The bike still has a quiet growl to it, but seems smoother. While redoing the exhaust system, I looked at the spare parts I had lying around and used the better of the parts when I had two of any item. I wound up using the spare down pipes from the front cylinder, the spare "Y" Pipe for the rear cylinder and 2 steel collars for the top of the "Y" Pipe. Looking at the "Y" Pipe that came off the bike, I can see where there was a small exhaust leak. That fixed, back on the road again...