danisawesome
XS400 Addict
Hello everyone and welcome to my build thread! My name is Dan and this is my first motorcycle and project I have ever gotten to do, so I'm really excited to get this thing going and on the road in time for our amazing upcoming PNW summer.
The History
I began looking for a bike about 2 or so months ago after talking to a good friend of mine, who rides a cafe'd CB350, about my new found interest in motorcycles. He gave me a lot of really good info and I ran with it. I had a pretty limited budget, but was determined to find something to at least start working on, and, after having many Craigslist finds sold from under me or have no contact info, my father-in-law informed me that he had an old Yamaha that is just taking up room in his shop. I was trying to look at a CL350 up in Washington when I called him, but, after seeing a few pictures and deciding on a price, I was the proud new owner of what turned out to be an '82 XS400 Heritage Special. Oh, you are wondering how much I got it for? $150 and a bottle of scotch.
And here is the first picture I saw:
It was a little scary at first since it looked a little junky and I had never ridden or worked on a motorcycle before, but I somehow saw past that to the potential that it contained.
The Beginning
I started amassing parts for my new project and I made my first trip up to see it (it is 2 hours away in Washington while I'm stuck here in Oregon). The carbs and petcock came home with me to be rebuilt while I planned my next weekend off to officially start working on the bike.
I bought a small ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight, a bucket of carb dip, rebuild kits for both, and got to work.
Petcock before:
And After:
I was pretty impressed with that ultrasonic cleaner and began tearing down my carbs to strip them of the nasty black caked on paint/grime and get them ready to rebuild.
A before/after dip and ultrasonic comparison:
And completely assembled:
I also ended up putting a couple of cone pod filters on them and throwing in larger main jets (140, two sizes up) to compensate for the new pods.
Along with these rebuilds, I ordered a new chain, sprockets, headlight brackets, clipons (clip-ons?), turn signals, mirrors, carb holders, and a few misc. small things that are escaping me at the moment.
The Present
So, now that you are all up to speed, we are finally at this past weekend, where I finally got a chance to get some actual work done.
First thing I did was throw those beautiful new carbs on the bike and chuck that old battery and it's rusty tray. I replaced the battery and tray with a smaller 5Ah battery from BatteriesPlus (WKA12-5F).
After installation and removal:
After that, we got a temporary fuel tank solution together and she fired up and sounded great! Before the carb rebuild, the left cylinder was hardly firing at all, but after the rebuild both cylinders were firing normally and temperatures at the headers were the same. My first victory and also my first time hearing my new motorcycle run! Still need to buy/make a syncing tool, but it actually didn't sound too bad with my eyeballing it. Also, no pops or backfires and the idle was nice and flat, so I'm thinking those jets were a great choice!
At the end of that day, this is what I was left with (ignore the seat foam and cell phone quality picture, it is just there to cover up all of the to-be-hidden electronics and I forgot my nice camera):
The next day we changed the sprockets and chain and I cleaned up misc pieces of the bike. Didn't take any pictures as it was a pretty lazy day and not much had changed.
On my last day in town, I got about an hour to work on it and convinced my father-in-law to come out and hack off the rear fender mount brackets in preparation for a loop to be welded in. As an added bonus, he also cut off the mounts for the battery box.
As of now, this is the state that she rests in:
I couldn't be happier with the progress that was made this past weekend and couldn't of done it without the help I received out in the shop as well as everything I have picked up so far from this forum. I'm really stoked to contribute to this community as you have all been welcoming and friendly (especially compared to some other motorcycle forums...). I have a lot of learning to do, but I'm hoping to really dig into it here once school is done and get this thing on the road.
The History
I began looking for a bike about 2 or so months ago after talking to a good friend of mine, who rides a cafe'd CB350, about my new found interest in motorcycles. He gave me a lot of really good info and I ran with it. I had a pretty limited budget, but was determined to find something to at least start working on, and, after having many Craigslist finds sold from under me or have no contact info, my father-in-law informed me that he had an old Yamaha that is just taking up room in his shop. I was trying to look at a CL350 up in Washington when I called him, but, after seeing a few pictures and deciding on a price, I was the proud new owner of what turned out to be an '82 XS400 Heritage Special. Oh, you are wondering how much I got it for? $150 and a bottle of scotch.
And here is the first picture I saw:
It was a little scary at first since it looked a little junky and I had never ridden or worked on a motorcycle before, but I somehow saw past that to the potential that it contained.
The Beginning
I started amassing parts for my new project and I made my first trip up to see it (it is 2 hours away in Washington while I'm stuck here in Oregon). The carbs and petcock came home with me to be rebuilt while I planned my next weekend off to officially start working on the bike.
I bought a small ultrasonic cleaner from Harbor Freight, a bucket of carb dip, rebuild kits for both, and got to work.
Petcock before:
And After:
I was pretty impressed with that ultrasonic cleaner and began tearing down my carbs to strip them of the nasty black caked on paint/grime and get them ready to rebuild.
A before/after dip and ultrasonic comparison:
And completely assembled:
I also ended up putting a couple of cone pod filters on them and throwing in larger main jets (140, two sizes up) to compensate for the new pods.
Along with these rebuilds, I ordered a new chain, sprockets, headlight brackets, clipons (clip-ons?), turn signals, mirrors, carb holders, and a few misc. small things that are escaping me at the moment.
The Present
So, now that you are all up to speed, we are finally at this past weekend, where I finally got a chance to get some actual work done.
First thing I did was throw those beautiful new carbs on the bike and chuck that old battery and it's rusty tray. I replaced the battery and tray with a smaller 5Ah battery from BatteriesPlus (WKA12-5F).
After installation and removal:
After that, we got a temporary fuel tank solution together and she fired up and sounded great! Before the carb rebuild, the left cylinder was hardly firing at all, but after the rebuild both cylinders were firing normally and temperatures at the headers were the same. My first victory and also my first time hearing my new motorcycle run! Still need to buy/make a syncing tool, but it actually didn't sound too bad with my eyeballing it. Also, no pops or backfires and the idle was nice and flat, so I'm thinking those jets were a great choice!
At the end of that day, this is what I was left with (ignore the seat foam and cell phone quality picture, it is just there to cover up all of the to-be-hidden electronics and I forgot my nice camera):
The next day we changed the sprockets and chain and I cleaned up misc pieces of the bike. Didn't take any pictures as it was a pretty lazy day and not much had changed.
On my last day in town, I got about an hour to work on it and convinced my father-in-law to come out and hack off the rear fender mount brackets in preparation for a loop to be welded in. As an added bonus, he also cut off the mounts for the battery box.
As of now, this is the state that she rests in:
I couldn't be happier with the progress that was made this past weekend and couldn't of done it without the help I received out in the shop as well as everything I have picked up so far from this forum. I'm really stoked to contribute to this community as you have all been welcoming and friendly (especially compared to some other motorcycle forums...). I have a lot of learning to do, but I'm hoping to really dig into it here once school is done and get this thing on the road.
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