New member from Canada

nebojsa_o

XS400 New Member
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Saskatoon, SK, Ca
Hi everyone.
My girlfriend bought herself a '79 XS400 about a week ago, so I've been doing a lot of reading on here and tweaking in the garage. The poor old girl is in pretty bad shape thanks to the two previous owners. From small maintenance items to a awful matte black paint job, and sketchy wiring repairs.
It ran really rich and had fuel in the intakes, and would stall out after warming up a bit. I took the carbs apart, cleaned them up nice, readjusted the floats to 22mm after seeing some posts here about 32mm being wrong. I used a clear tube to confirm fuel level after, and it seems perfect. Didn't sync the carbs yet as I'm messing around with other things, but it runs well at idle in the garage. The idle air screws were 1 1/4 turns out from seated, but I put them to 2 1/2 turns and the bike seems to like it.
Clutch was the stiffest thing I've ever had to squeeze and my girlfriend couldn't even squeeze it. Lubing up the cable helped a bit, but not enough. I took apart the clutch worm, cleaned it up well, and greased it up. Feels almost as good as my 2007 GSX-R.
Honestly, she probably would have been better off buying something else, but so far it's been easy to work on, and it's nice bringing something back to life after it's been sitting and neglected for years. I'm sure I will have questions for you at some point. Most likely sooner than later, haha. Take care everyone
 
Thanks. For now I just want to get it running well, and safe for her to learn on. I fixed the headlight that didn't work, and front turn signals. I will try to adjust the chain this weekend, but I have a feeling it may need to be replaced, it's quite loose. It doesn't look bad, and the sprockets look good, but the adjustment left on the rear wheel seems to be almost maxed out. The oil smells a bit like fuel, so I am changing that this weekend, and hopefully taking it out for a test ride to see how it feels. She likes the cafe racer look, but also seems to like the look of the bike now. She does want matte black paint though, so this winter I plan on doing all the prep work and sanding, and spraying it in the spring.
 
Back
Top