markmakeitso
XS400 Enthusiast
Hi all,
Been on the site for a couple years, but haven't posted a ton. A friend bought a $600 '79 to ease back into riding, and then upgraded to a newer cruiser. She sold the bike to a different friend of mine, who's brand new to motorcycles and skeptical about getting into an MSF course this summer. We'll see.
In the meantime I've been working on a few tasks to whip this thing into shape. We put a relay in it before, which uses the original coil power to trigger, and then passes battery positive directly to the ignition coils (and soon to the charging field coil also). New Emgo coils will maybe clear up a dying when hot problem she ran into last summer. New front tire, chain and sprockets, battery, and low rise handlebars and it's turning into a fun little town bomber. Snagged some cheap GM TTL coils to experiment with also (D514 and D585s I believe) after a friend had spectacular success using some 3.1L coils on his old Honda twin.
Exhaust is off for welding next week, so I took the pause to measure up the brake caliper mounting. Kind of thinking of doing the 320mm rotor and Yamaha blue dot caliper swap, but for giggles I mocked up a 6 pot Tokico caliper that was sitting around the garage. It's...tantalizingly close on the stock rotor actually. The inner caliper body hits a little bit on the cast spokes, but not before the caliper is slid on deep enough that the pads have full overlap on the rotor. A fairly thin spacer (1/8-3/16") laser or plasma cut to match the rotor mounting pattern would probably give enough room for the caliper while still allowing the rotor to center on the existing spindle diameter. Then an adapter bracket for 4 bolts would be pretty easy to draw up also.
Pics here if anyone wants to check it out:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/35465757@N05/albums/72157714124790748
Been on the site for a couple years, but haven't posted a ton. A friend bought a $600 '79 to ease back into riding, and then upgraded to a newer cruiser. She sold the bike to a different friend of mine, who's brand new to motorcycles and skeptical about getting into an MSF course this summer. We'll see.
In the meantime I've been working on a few tasks to whip this thing into shape. We put a relay in it before, which uses the original coil power to trigger, and then passes battery positive directly to the ignition coils (and soon to the charging field coil also). New Emgo coils will maybe clear up a dying when hot problem she ran into last summer. New front tire, chain and sprockets, battery, and low rise handlebars and it's turning into a fun little town bomber. Snagged some cheap GM TTL coils to experiment with also (D514 and D585s I believe) after a friend had spectacular success using some 3.1L coils on his old Honda twin.
Exhaust is off for welding next week, so I took the pause to measure up the brake caliper mounting. Kind of thinking of doing the 320mm rotor and Yamaha blue dot caliper swap, but for giggles I mocked up a 6 pot Tokico caliper that was sitting around the garage. It's...tantalizingly close on the stock rotor actually. The inner caliper body hits a little bit on the cast spokes, but not before the caliper is slid on deep enough that the pads have full overlap on the rotor. A fairly thin spacer (1/8-3/16") laser or plasma cut to match the rotor mounting pattern would probably give enough room for the caliper while still allowing the rotor to center on the existing spindle diameter. Then an adapter bracket for 4 bolts would be pretty easy to draw up also.
Pics here if anyone wants to check it out:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/35465757@N05/albums/72157714124790748