New Member 81' XS400s

[Tyler]

Hey everyone.
Here is my new bike,
It's almost compleately stock.
Has 21K miles on it and seems to have been taken care of pretty well.
New tires, feul lines, vacuum lines, Carb butes and has had Carb rebuilt and cleaned.
Also front master cylinder rebuilt.
Everything works.
I'm not much of a mechanic, but that is why I'm here.
I figure I will have to fix a few things down the road and was elated to find a forum dedicated to just XS's.
I will say thanks ahead of time for all the members that give a lot of there time to help others with problems.

 

[XS-Time]

Wow that bike is in good shape. You lucked out on that one.
Welcome. You'll have fun working on it and will get lot's of help here.

What size tires do you have on the front? It looks larger than what I have.

 

[xschris]

Nice clean bike, and welcome!

 

[OliverB]

Welcome to the forum. Looks like you have aVERY nice bike there. Like my '80 but in black. My temptation would be to leave that one original but we are all different.

 

[1greghouse]

WELCOME!! I'm just down the road from you a bit. My bike actually came from GR and it was clean enough to ride it to Lansing... Not nearly as clean as yours, but I'm working on it. ENJOY

 

[Tyler]

@xs time
tire is 100/90 - 18

Thank you all for the welcome

 

[Tyler]

@Oliver

I want to keep it original. The handlebars were changed to euro style, but I still have the others. The only thing I want to change is to upgrade the headlight. I read that a few people here have done this. The stock one is a little dim for my liking.

 

[JARichmond]

Hey Tyler, that bike looks beautiful. Mine is pretty much identical to yours but with pullbacks. Also agree about the dim stock light. Are you looking to go HID with it?

 

[Pork Chop]

G'day Tyler. Nice looking bike. I would keep it as stock as possible too.

 

[Flexeril]

Very nice Tyler. I just picked up a 1980 model today with 21.6k miles on her. Just found this forum and it is a gold mine of info.

 

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

That bike is in BEAUTIFUL condition! I feel like I should buy the PO a brew just for seeing it. If you are looking into a headlight conversion, I grabbed a pair of 5.75" off of ebay for under $50. The PO had glued in a halogen into a cut out hole of the sealed beam (facepalm) so it was impossible to focus properly. Of course, they were too small for the bike, so I had to make a "fancy" mounting system for it. I think something like this would be a cinch though.

 

[Tyler]

That bike is in BEAUTIFUL condition! I feel like I should buy the PO a brew just for seeing it. If you are looking into a headlight conversion, I grabbed a pair of 5.75" off of ebay for under $50. The PO had glued in a halogen into a cut out hole of the sealed beam (facepalm) so it was impossible to focus properly. Of course, they were too small for the bike, so I had to make a "fancy" mounting system for it. I think something like this would be a cinch though.

So did you replace the single with a pair?
I would like it to look pretty much the same. Is this possible with the H.I.Ds. Can the stock electrical handle it? I recall that you can replace all the blinkers and tail light with LED's to be able to handle a more powerful bulb.

 

[JARichmond]

You can have a look around for a 7" motorcycle head light that has all the modern electrics and then pick up a kit specifically for motorcycle HID conversions. An HID will use less power than our standard bulb so overloading the system will be the least of your worries. I think the biggest problem will be splicing the right wires if the kit doesn't match up with what we have on our bikes. That, and hiding the ballast inconspicuously.
I haven't purchased a kit yet as my bikes in storage far away at the moment. If someone has done the conversion does a compatible kit exist?

 

[OleDoc]

Welcome aboard.buetiful bike man

 

[drewpy]

You can have a look around for a 7" motorcycle head light that has all the modern electrics and then pick up a kit specifically for motorcycle HID conversions. An HID will use less power than our standard bulb so overloading the system will be the least of your worries. I think the biggest problem will be splicing the right wires if the kit doesn't match up with what we have on our bikes. That, and hiding the ballast inconspicuously.
I haven't purchased a kit yet as my bikes in storage far away at the moment. If someone has done the conversion does a compatible kit exist?

I think the HID has a big initial power drain as the gas is heated and becomes active. then its 35watts after that!

 

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

So did you replace the single with a pair?
I would like it to look pretty much the same. Is this possible with the H.I.Ds. Can the stock electrical handle it? I recall that you can replace all the blinkers and tail light with LED's to be able to handle a more powerful bulb.

Nah, don't be silly! I got a set since it was the same price as a single at the time, and I thought a backup might be good. The wiring on my handles my 55/100W bulb, so I think it should be fine.

 

[Tyler]

So the 7" light you suggested would work in my case, or is there some tinkering you have to do to get it to fit?

 

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

I can't say for sure, but I think it'll be a drop-in replacement. I needed to make three round brackets of sheet metal and automotive foam in order to match up mine to the stock mounts, and even that was easy.