Dave notasfastasiusedtobe
XS400 Member
all you experienced xs owners probably know all this but both nearly caught me out and would have caused a whole world of pain - in fact if it wasn't for the rich calming tones of David Coverdale (Whitesnake) playing in the background calming the garage environment i may have taken a large hammer to the reluctant xs.
1. when you remove the starter motor from the back of the engine you cant simply put it back - oh no. Yamaha in their infinite wisdom put the starter chain gear on the motor splines and when you take the motor out this gear along with the chain simply falls into the alternator housing.you have to take the alternator cover off to re-instate which i might add is a real pain in the ar@e to get back onto the splines as there isn't enough free play on the starter chain to line up squarely on the splines.got it back on eventually - only took about an hour.
2. when you bolt the clutch casing back on - put a litre of oil back,stop and check the kick start and then find the kick start is now solid- guess what you cant put the bike on its side stand - let the oil flow to the other side of the engine and remove the clutch casing.well you can but you will dump nice fresh oil all over the floor.not happy - but my fault really.
3. trying to sort out why the kick starter is now solid i removed the kick start mechanism.done lots of two stoke yams in the past so wasn't to worried but on the 2 strokes the crankcase is sealed from the external clutch,kick start mechanism.not so on the xs - behind the kick start shaft is a big void which goes straight into the gearbox.not really a problem except that when removing the kick start shaft there is a shim on the back of the shaft which you cannot see. if you remove the shaft it can easily fall straight into the crankcase/gearbox which if you cant get to it would mean a complete strip. you might not even know it has fallen in. luckily on mine the oil had stuck the shim to the crankcase but it was slowly sliding down when i noticed it.got it in time
just thought i would share these observations with everyone in case anyone else falls for these Yamaha design quirks
1. when you remove the starter motor from the back of the engine you cant simply put it back - oh no. Yamaha in their infinite wisdom put the starter chain gear on the motor splines and when you take the motor out this gear along with the chain simply falls into the alternator housing.you have to take the alternator cover off to re-instate which i might add is a real pain in the ar@e to get back onto the splines as there isn't enough free play on the starter chain to line up squarely on the splines.got it back on eventually - only took about an hour.
2. when you bolt the clutch casing back on - put a litre of oil back,stop and check the kick start and then find the kick start is now solid- guess what you cant put the bike on its side stand - let the oil flow to the other side of the engine and remove the clutch casing.well you can but you will dump nice fresh oil all over the floor.not happy - but my fault really.
3. trying to sort out why the kick starter is now solid i removed the kick start mechanism.done lots of two stoke yams in the past so wasn't to worried but on the 2 strokes the crankcase is sealed from the external clutch,kick start mechanism.not so on the xs - behind the kick start shaft is a big void which goes straight into the gearbox.not really a problem except that when removing the kick start shaft there is a shim on the back of the shaft which you cannot see. if you remove the shaft it can easily fall straight into the crankcase/gearbox which if you cant get to it would mean a complete strip. you might not even know it has fallen in. luckily on mine the oil had stuck the shim to the crankcase but it was slowly sliding down when i noticed it.got it in time
just thought i would share these observations with everyone in case anyone else falls for these Yamaha design quirks
