bikerbass15
XS650 Member
Long time reader, first time poster, with, yes, yet another top end rebuild thread! All kidding aside, I've been reading quite a bit here in the past few weeks since my engine decided to suddenly be less than cooperative during my last shakedown run of my newly finished build. It's great to see how willing everyone is to offer tons of helpful advice and information. I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring and document my rebuild. I've tried to gather some data beforehand in the form of pics, video and measurements of the "before" - might be helpful for some folks, and I'd like to keep it organized for myself as well.
The backstory: I've owned my 1983 Heritage Special for 22 years. Bought it with about 4,700 miles in 1998 and rode it for about 15,000 miles until the end of the 2002 riding season, after which I bought a new Harley, which I still own and love. I then stored the bike for 11 years, knowing it would make a great project build one day. Got married and bought a house with a garage and started chopping the bike in 2014. I started it before the teardown to make sure it still ran and it did - though not well, as I believe the intake boots were cracked and sucking air. Spent 2 years building (with long slow spots when life got in the way), and stalled for about 3 years when my wife and I had our son in 2016. Got off my ass and got the bike running last year and started test riding it in raw form to suss out the bugs.
It had always been a strong running, reliable bike - almost completely stock (originally), it should have been. During the build, I built a new exhaust system, using a Lowbrow Customs exhaust builder kit and a set of Emgo (!) mufflers. Swap meet velocity stacks with drain screens and filter media on the stock BS34s, which I rejetted using a kit from Mike's. I replaced the intake boots with Tourmax repops of the stock ones. Stock CDI ignition. Started in June 2019 for the first time since 2014 and it lit up on the second kick and ran really well. Plugs were a nice light chocolate brown. Finished putting the rest of the running gear together, and I was able to ride it in November around my neighborhood before the snow came.
I'm still learning some of the in and outs of posting, so I added a couple short vids of the first ride last November in the Choppers section. I'll try to figure out how to connect it to this thread...
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