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I ended up using this tutorial to make my own seat hoop. After some failed attempts of using a propane grill and torch though, I heated up some charcoal. I let the pipe sit in the hot coals for about 15-20 mins until the bar got red hot and it bent like butter. To make the second bends...

Chris, I was thinking (more like desperately hoping) that was the case. It seems to be just on the edges of the counterweights (like the casting was a bit off), but I wasn't sure if there was something in there that could cause wear like that. I didn't have any problems with vibrations or...

Hey Guys, So before I could do a writeup on blackening the bolts I wanted to take my engine apart to free up some more bolts. After taking the head off and pistons out, I looked down into the crankcase and saw wear on the inside edges of the crankshaft counterweights. I couldn't find...

Haha, thanks XS. Yea, I figured brown is already a tricky enough color to pull off properly, so I want to limit the amount of other colors and keep it as simple as possible. Brown, black, and a few bits of chrome. As for the blackening with lye... Yea, the blackening is a chemical reaction that...

You got it Drewpy! Just happy to be giving back to you and the rest of the forum for all the knowledge I've found on here.

I'm also going to be painting the engine black. I wanted the bolts to match, but I didn't want to paint them because that would just mean chipping and ugliness. So my dad (who is a big gun nut) told me about using drain cleaner to chemically blacken steel. He's done it before to blue parts...

Here's what the Marrakesh Brown Metallic looks like: And here's what I'm going to be humming once she's all back together:

Haha, damnit! Your response came too late XS-Time! I literally just repainted the rims black. I switched up what I want to do for a color scheme. I was originally going to do the gold rims with a white tank/seat with red racing stripe and red fenders. Now I'm going to go with a...

P.S. I have the original square-style 77 XS400D style tank that I'm not going to use anymore. It has one tiny circular dent (the size of a pea) on the left hand side from my clip ons bumping into it, but it is clean as hell on the inside. PM me if you'd be interested in buying it. I'll get...

I actually wanted to put together a mini-write up, but Skillzman's How-to was so good I decided that I wouldn't really need to do my own. The only thing that I did different from his write-up was hammering out the underside of the tank to get it to fit onto my frame. The tank came from a 76...

SteveK's Cafe Build: "The Marrakesh Express" Hey everyone, So trying to build a cafe while attending law school is pretty tricky... who knew? I haven't had much time to post on here, but I wanted to start a (belated) build thread to keep everyone up on my progress and ask everyone for...

Don't know if you found a seat or not, but I have one from my 77 that's in excellent condition. PM me if you're still interested.

Just bouncing around topics and came across this... I just took out my starter motor and did a similar thing as dO-bOy, but instead of using spray can lids, I used 1/2" I.D. aluminum tubing as spacers on the two cap bolts. I screwed those two bolts together, which of course lets the two...

I'll definitely do a little write up. I didn't take any before pics of the tank, but I can use the ebay pics. I'll make sure to take pics as I move ahead.

Thanks Drewpy! So far I've mounted clip-ons, a new headlight bucket, a new headlight, and cut the front fender, but this was the biggest project so far so I'm really glad it's working out.

Well I wanted the RD tank because of the stock dents in it (plus the extra fuel compared to the xs tank), but the tank was banged up when I got it, so I figured I'd go all in and knock the dents in a little deeper. I'm going for a clean cafe look so I'm gonna bondo, smooth out, and paint them...

Thanks Lee, I'll be sure to take some more pictures of the underside and how it mounts up... I'll keep everyone updated as I work towards the painted tank. Also, I'll be posting for sale my original square 77 tank, so if anyone is interested let me know. I'll post pics of it in the actual for...

Hey Everyone, I had asked about this a few weeks back and scoured the boards to find a few unfinished threads about the topic of mounting other tanks to the xs, especially the RD400. Well, I bit the bullet last week and ordered an eBay special... a 76 RD400 tank (with a few dings in it and...

Hey Eric, That's a great way to describe it, bc mine is the same way. It doesn't work with a "kick," is more of a pushing the kickstart through with my foot. I'm glad to hear yours is the same way, bc of the ease at which I could kick it I was worried that I wasn't getting enough compression.

Hey guys, So I'm new to the carb/kickstart bike and I'm having a hard time getting the 400 started with the kickstart. The electric start works fine, but I am a bit uneasy about relying on that, plus in the future I would like to phase it out and get a smaller battery. Here's what's going on...