Picking up bike today

nitrofish1

XS400 Addict
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I'm picking up my 1981 XS400 today, and the dealer said they drained the oil because it had gas in it. Am I going to need to rebuild/complete clean the carbs or just clean? And I have no choice but to ride it once to my shop where I can start working on it, will I need to change the oil again before riding on a regular basis?
 
Personaly I would get a gasket kit and rebuild the carbs. They are 30 years old now. While I am at it I would get a petcock rebuild kit. This could also be the reason there is gas in the oil.
 
Even with a bad petcock, the floats should keep the gas from free flowing unless there was just a really slow seep over time, so I would look to the floats too.

As for "rebuilding" the carbs. Some float bowl gaskets (or gasket paper and some scissors and a hole punch, like I did) should be all you need. These carbs need to be clean...cleaner than clean, to run correctly, but there should not be much of a need to go changing parts. Jets (and everything else) can be cleaned, so I would do that rather than replacing anything. Only replace parts that are broken or bent. I am running 100% original '79 carbs and they work flawlessly- jus needed a good cleaning. Save your money for other things.

If the oil has no gas and no more gets in it, you should be good to go for the next 1500-2000 miles, and keep that interval in mind- no 3000 to 5000 intervals like cars. Meshing gears and air cooling is harder on oil than what your car is.

Test the petcock. If it is original, it should let no gas through if the engine is off while turned "on"- but gas should flow freely on "Pri" (prime). If it does that, no problem. If the gas flows with the engine off anywhere but "Pri", a rebuild is in order, but I would cut out the hassle and just install a manual petcock, but that's me.
 
the guy selling it to me says he thinks its from leaving the gas on when it needs to be turned off after engine shutdown, which i used to do on the older bikes anyways. if more fuel gets into the oil ill be checking the carbs and the other parts of them for this. he just cleaned the carbs this morning.

i went to go get the bike but only one front turn signal was functioning, so i told him to fix it, and hopefully by the end of tomorrow when i go in to pick it up round two, he'll have all the lights functional.
 
Even with a bad petcock, the floats should keep the gas from free flowing unless there was just a really slow seep over time, so I would look to the floats too.

As for "rebuilding" the carbs. Some float bowl gaskets (or gasket paper and some scissors and a hole punch, like I did) should be all you need. These carbs need to be clean...cleaner than clean, to run correctly, but there should not be much of a need to go changing parts. Jets (and everything else) can be cleaned, so I would do that rather than replacing anything. Only replace parts that are broken or bent. I am running 100% original '79 carbs and they work flawlessly- jus needed a good cleaning. Save your money for other things.

If the oil has no gas and no more gets in it, you should be good to go for the next 1500-2000 miles, and keep that interval in mind- no 3000 to 5000 intervals like cars. Meshing gears and air cooling is harder on oil than what your car is.

Test the petcock. If it is original, it should let no gas through if the engine is off while turned "on"- but gas should flow freely on "Pri" (prime). If it does that, no problem. If the gas flows with the engine off anywhere but "Pri", a rebuild is in order, but I would cut out the hassle and just install a manual petcock, but that's me.

and when you say "Pri", your referring to the choke?
 
If your new bike has the factory petcock, there is no "Off" position - just "Run", "Prime" and "Reserve" so your Mech. doesn't know what he is talking about. If all things work correctly, the flow of gas to the carbs is shut off when the engine stops running because the petcock is vacuum operated. When started, engine vacuum pulls on the diaphragm inside the petcock opening the port to allow gas to flow to the carbs.
 
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