jordan
1980 XS400H
Hello everyone and Merry Christmas
Christmas came a bit early for me this year in the form of a 1980 XS 400 special II. I picked it up two days ago off of craigslist for 400 and drove it home, about a 40 mile trip, in the rain. Everything seemed to work great, it started on the first kick (Found out the bat was dead later), no backfires or fouled plugs (it had been sitting in a backyard for 3 months), the carbs had pod filters on them. About half of the trip was on the interstate, where I noticed that the bike kind of surged a bit with the throttle all the way open, however it ran fine @ about 65-70mph. Fantastic little bike.
Now the bad news. Turn signals either wont work at all or work intermittently/ sometimes stay on (as in no blink, solid light) till turned off @ switch. Yesterday while the bike had been idling on the kickstand for a bit it shut off and started leaking a LARGE quantity of gasoline from both carbs (cant say where, this is my first non efi vehicle) may have been because i had the petcock in PRI
, thought it meant primary. I R smarter now that i have read some posts here. Also the headlight stopped working (at idle) and then started again later, Batt issue?
There is a small knob under the carburator, what does it do?
I will be posting pics later, and this is going to be my daily driver untill I get the parts to do a street tracker build and im freakin STOKED about that.
Christmas came a bit early for me this year in the form of a 1980 XS 400 special II. I picked it up two days ago off of craigslist for 400 and drove it home, about a 40 mile trip, in the rain. Everything seemed to work great, it started on the first kick (Found out the bat was dead later), no backfires or fouled plugs (it had been sitting in a backyard for 3 months), the carbs had pod filters on them. About half of the trip was on the interstate, where I noticed that the bike kind of surged a bit with the throttle all the way open, however it ran fine @ about 65-70mph. Fantastic little bike.
Now the bad news. Turn signals either wont work at all or work intermittently/ sometimes stay on (as in no blink, solid light) till turned off @ switch. Yesterday while the bike had been idling on the kickstand for a bit it shut off and started leaking a LARGE quantity of gasoline from both carbs (cant say where, this is my first non efi vehicle) may have been because i had the petcock in PRI
, thought it meant primary. I R smarter now that i have read some posts here. Also the headlight stopped working (at idle) and then started again later, Batt issue? There is a small knob under the carburator, what does it do?
I will be posting pics later, and this is going to be my daily driver untill I get the parts to do a street tracker build and im freakin STOKED about that.
My son's '81 is long gone to the Wash. DC area so I can't check his. Guess I have to eat crow on that one!! 
