What did you do with your XS today?

Rode up to the cottage on Friday for our holiday weekend, and back home this afternoon. ~300 km each way. Country roads for the most part, posted at 80 km/h (50 mph), and some city riding at 50 km/h (30 mph). Something like that anyways... Some traffic jams to contend with as well. The bike ran well on "pure gas "on the way up and delivered 4.31 l/100km (54.6 US mpg, 65.6 UK mpg). Had to fill up with E10 for the ride home and noticed the bike was running a bit lean (surging) at 1/4 throttle when cruising. Should be similar fuel mileage, based on the trip odometer and gas gauge. Going to raise the float levels 1mm and see how it does.

Still working through my wiring harness, getting endpoints wired up with Weatherpack connectors.

Question for those of you that use the Fram oil filters...

Which side goes against the engine? the side with slight indent or the side with a slight lip? Bought a 4 pack of Emgo filters a while ago and finally ran out and switched to the fram... It was a bit more obvious with the emgos as they had a deeper indent and the other side was totally flat.

Well after all kinds of things got in the way over a couple years finally made time to get this outfit out and on the road for real. Ran it over to my favorite independent motorcycle shop and got it's State inspection sticker, 100% legal finally! Worked out good as this month wife's VTG300 was also due for it's annual. The old kill two with one trick.

As this was the first real ride on this bike in a few years and with the addition of the sidecar to boot it did not do too bad. I do need to play with the idle speed adjustment as it was idling ok while taking short rides around the yard, but once good and warm from 10 miles down the road it would tend to stall if I didn't keep giving it a little gas. Also at times when running up in the higher rpm's it would start breaking up other times would run right up to red line strong. Cruising on level roads in 6th gear at 50-55 mph seemed good but as could be expected anything more than a slight grade would need a drop down to 5th.

I also need to play with some of the sidecar adjustments as it is pulling a bit to the right at steady speeds on level roads. That should be an easy one, lean it away from the sidecar a little at a time till it feels good. Might want to play with the idea of hooking up the brake on the sidecar as the rear brake on the XS400 is not very strong, front seems to be good though.

Over all I'm pleased with how it is working, plus it started first kick at the guys shop and again at the gas station where I treated it to a couple gallons of ethanol free 91 octane go juice.

Just passed another milestone yesterday. I fully expect to pass 100k km (60k mi) this year.

Decided to have a go at the wiring myself today. I'm not trying to wire the new speedo and warning lights just putting the spine of the harness from the battery up to the headlight.

16VGTIDave said:

Just passed another milestone yesterday. I fully expect to pass 100k km (60k mi) this year.

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Wish I had that much time to ride.

xschris said:

Wish I had that much time to ride.

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I use my bike for work, to travel to clients homes and offices. And trips to the cottage for weekends, when possible. In fact, other than taking my son driving so he can practice for his license, my car hasn't moved much since March. Rain or shine, hot or cold, pavement or gravel or dirt, I'd rather be riding!

That's the spirit.Rain or shine.

Well first off decided I should check the compression on this 1978 just for kicks, well took a bit of kicking as it is the non-electric start model! Got a touch over 160 psi on the left and a touch over 150 on the right. Not perfect but guess I can live with that.

Decided to run to store for groceries needed eggs, milk and some veggies, sidecar makes doing that a bit easier than doing it on two wheels!

Seems I might need to check out the clutch adjustment. when oil is cold it will start to slip a bit around 5,000 rpm on a up hill section of road. Once the bike is warmed up don't seem to notice it as much. Might also be the oil as I used a 15W-40 diesel oil not a motorcycle specific oil.

One other problem is engine is breaking up a bit in the higher rpms, like 6-7,000. It has new plugs and points and coils tested right in spec as did the condenser. Wondering if it is carb related? Bike has stock intake but some unknown after market exhaust with pretty much straight through mufflers and no cross over pipe. Not my choice that is what the PO put on many years ago, probably in the early 1980's!

Assembled the head (previously cleaned and painted and valves cleaned and lapped)
Removed the cylinders and cleaned them thoroughly.
Honed the cylinders.
Scrubbed them again.
Painted the cylinders.
Removed the pistons, cleaned them up.
Checked ring end gap and installed rings.
Cleaned the old base gasket off the case (the real job)
Reinstalled pistons.
Reinstalled the cylinders.

Wrapped header pipes with heat tape, rebuild front and rear calipers, made a seat pan and installed the seat

Installed the head, cam and cam chain tensioners.

kshansen said:

... Seems I might need to check out the clutch adjustment. when oil is cold it will start to slip a bit around 5,000 rpm on a up hill section of road. Once the bike is warmed up don't seem to notice it as much. Might also be the oil as I used a 15W-40 diesel oil not a motorcycle specific oil ...

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You might want to check the specs on the oil before spending time with adjustments - just in case. I use 15/40 diesel oil too - but only one of this manufacturer's brands is rated for motorcycle wet clutches. All the rest are not suitable and will allow slippage. I almost bought the wrong one once because the names were so similar.

Lou Ranger said:

You might want to check the specs on the oil before spending time with adjustments - just in case. I use 15/40 diesel oil too - but only one of this manufacturer's brands is rated for motorcycle wet clutches. All the rest are not suitable and will allow slippage. I almost bought the wrong one once because the names were so similar.

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Well I do know the oil is not specifically rated for motorcycle use but was what I had available. It is Mobil Delvac 1300 Super 15W-40. I just happen to have some laying around from my days as a heavy equipment mechanic and used it as I needed something to replace the oil that got extremely contaminated with gas due to a leaking float valve. It is however rated for use in large off-road equipment transmissions that have wet clutches, just much bigger ones than an XS400!

I couldn't find a photo of the Delvac 1300 label, but did find a spec sheet for it that did not have "JASO MA" included.

Here are some threads which address the designation for wet-clutch compatibility:

Lou Ranger said:

I couldn't find a photo of the Delvac 1300 label, but did find a spec sheet for it that did not have "JASO MA" included.

Here are some threads which address the designation for wet-clutch compatibility:

http://www.xs400.com/search/52446/?q=jaso+ma&o=relevance&c[node]=2​

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I was aware of it not specifically mentioning the JASO-MA. I'll probably get some Jaso rated oil and a new filter to put in there just for fun to see what happens.

Would also like to see if I could find something that would cure the high RPM breaking up. Just wondering if the after market exhaust might be causing a lean condition at WOT and high RPM.

Took her out made 140km/h in 4 th Gear at 9000RPM uphill ! I guess in fifth she'd made the ton...ya?
After that since she was so Nice I gave her a good bath...
Starting to think that it would almost be a shame to tear her apart for my build....

Sunday- installed the head cover.

Today-
finished installing the points plate and setting static timing.
Set valve clearances.
Figured I could just re-install the carbs and gos since I cleaned them right before it was pulled off the road 2 years ago.
Got it started- started very easily.
Back to the carbs, they sat for 2 years without being drained. Like I said, it started easily and it ran OK, but not great...but started hanging at hight RPM. The carbs are gummed up. At least the used head I installed with the lapped valves, cleaned everything, honed cylinders and new ringg work fine. Great, in fact.

The carbs just need a good, thorough cleaning. I've been down that road before...wrote the book, read the book, bought the t-shirt.

On Saturday, got the carbs back on after a good cleaning. The bike starts up immediately and runs great....better now that I have balanced the carbs. It runs abd rides and stops beautifully.

What it does not do is charge the battery...or light the headlight and turn signals.

You see, the odyssey that led me to replace the head and do a cylinder hone and ring and carb cleaning...all of which improved an already decent bike, was poor charging. Now, I'm back to the original problem that resulting in me dropping a battery terminal bolt into the intake tract, which led to a above.

I will address that in a different thread.