happy61
XS400 Addict
It's been some time since I posted on here, I had some pics of my project before and after. Just need to share my horror story and vent a bit. Main problem is probably the fact that I'm not a bike mechanic so I have to pay labor. I do normal maintenance on the bike and on my vehicles but that's it. I had a guy try to get the bike (a 1978) running and go a bit bobber style with it. He took the engine to a shop and pretty much did the top end. By the time I went with new Bridgestones, 2 into 1 exhaust, seat work and various other lights etc I was in about $2300 bucks. First thing I had issues with was the charging system as every time I rode it the battery went dead. Took it to a local guy with a really good reputation for good work and honest. He ended up having to buy a donor bike to get the necessary parts. He informed me that he got that fixed but couldn't do anything about the smoking. I had been concerned that although I broke the bike in carefully the thing was burning oil like crazy. I don't know if the original shop tried to just hone the cylinders and use standard rings or what but this guy tells me he has to find oversize pistons for it. Apparently these are like hens teeth. He measured and got pistons for some other engine but they wouldn't fit. He seems to feel that something will turn up but I don't have any confidence that it will. We have a large vintage bike show at Mid-Ohio and he thinks he might find something there. Anyway you slice it if I had checked and found out the unavailability of parts for this bike I would never have started out with the project. I'm stuck with a bike that doesn't run, has been in this guys garage forever (thank God he's not charging me storage) and may never run again. So I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place, buy a new Bolt and have what I was shooting for in looks and have reliability. If I end up having to part this thing out to salvage something I'll post it on here. Thanks for listening.
