So I just picked up a 1981 XS400S today. It was a gift from my father, a welcome home from Afghanistan present. Guess he figured I survived 3 times overseas, might as well give me something for it 
He traded three die-cast cars to a family friend for it, so I suppose this bike was pretty much free all around.
It has 3000 original miles. The family friend we got it from received it in 1990 as a gift as well, and put a whopping 500 miles on it since he got it. The last time he had it on the road was in the mid 90's, and he said the last time he had started it was 2 years ago. He says it started up but was sputtering, and suspected the carbs needed to be gone through and just never got around to it(Might have something to do with the cracks straight through the rubber carb mounts). It's not too bad condition wise, needs a little bit of the NE Ohio grit to be polished off. The gas tank also tried to catch a baseball and has a pretty dent on the right side. Kick start doesn't catch on anything so I'll have to look into that, and the push button for the electric start seems to have fallen off.
Don't know what I want to do with it yet. I'd hate to tear it up since it's pretty nice as is. Maybe I'll just do some slight mods to make it a bobber, nothing too drastic. I'm for sure going to take the whole shebang apart- clean up everything, give the motor and trans a good once over, new tires and shocks, etc. Can't wait to get into it!
He traded three die-cast cars to a family friend for it, so I suppose this bike was pretty much free all around.It has 3000 original miles. The family friend we got it from received it in 1990 as a gift as well, and put a whopping 500 miles on it since he got it. The last time he had it on the road was in the mid 90's, and he said the last time he had started it was 2 years ago. He says it started up but was sputtering, and suspected the carbs needed to be gone through and just never got around to it(Might have something to do with the cracks straight through the rubber carb mounts). It's not too bad condition wise, needs a little bit of the NE Ohio grit to be polished off. The gas tank also tried to catch a baseball and has a pretty dent on the right side. Kick start doesn't catch on anything so I'll have to look into that, and the push button for the electric start seems to have fallen off.
Don't know what I want to do with it yet. I'd hate to tear it up since it's pretty nice as is. Maybe I'll just do some slight mods to make it a bobber, nothing too drastic. I'm for sure going to take the whole shebang apart- clean up everything, give the motor and trans a good once over, new tires and shocks, etc. Can't wait to get into it!
