What have you done to your XS today?

Spark found, it's going back home tomorrow. Very high quality workmanship.
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Randy had a really bad day, it tipped over on the trailer ride here..... Not terrible but it's a good thing he's a bodyman.
Lost spark was a "new coil" that wouldn't do the bright blue thing even though it ohmed out fine.
 
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It runs!!

First kick and no choke neither, not sure if the revs are lazy to fall still?


I re-read my post, and noticed I'd only turned the mix screws 1.5 turns out.. a bit lean.
Did a bench sync, as bro in law has not capitulated and given me his sync gauge.
Also, one of my float heights had bizarrely gone 2mm out whilst sat in the garage :rolleyes:
I made sure the plastic legs on the needle holder where not covering the slide hole while I had the carbs apart again.

One thing I noticed, I have tourmax float bowl gaskets on there, and they had gone baggy just sat for a few days on the bike with fuel in the bowls, is there a manufacturer who's o rings do not deteriorate instantly when fuel gets near them?
It took ages to persuade them back into the bowls with red grease.
 
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Thanks, I guess OEM is the way. With the amount of jet swapping and stuff I can't have them going out of shape. I had a similar problem with Tourmax petcock seals.
 
Went 1 up on my main jet and installed a motion pro clutch cable...wow:thumbsup: does the xs 650 direct clutch cable ever suck!! Such easy pulls now and was properly lubed same as the old one. Added rubber isolators to my seat now my eyeballs dont shake as much. Now will get my stand added a piece to it so I can raise my forks to stock positioning.
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Took off the front engine mount and cut off the welded shroud and had my Unkle Renny weld on two bars that I then tapped holes to screw in some 40mm fans to cool the oil cooler when idling.
 

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Ethanol gas - same old story:
Three weeks ago, on my stock '76, I threw caution to the winds and got a tankful of Petro-Can hi-test gas, shown as up to 5% ethanol. Over the next week, I did about a hundred miles on it and then filled up with my favorite, Shell V-Power, no ethanol, did 30 miles and then parked it till this morning.
Hardly out of the drive, it gets an intermittent miss, which comes and goes for 10 miles or so till I get to my destination. Sits an hour, starts fine but the hesitation is bad enough and erratic enough that I start to fear for my appearance at the Vintage Yamaha Rally! Get back home to look it over and it stalls in the drive. Look it over nothing seems amiss, so down the road again.
I took the only curvy road in Kent county through Jeannettes Creek to Lighthouse Cove and came back the long way. This time, it ran perfect the whole 60 miles. I am guessing the the two week lay off allowed the gas to phase separate and to attract lots of moisture from the humid air and it took 20 miles to burn out or properly emulsify it again.
Moral of the story: Ride 'em, don't hide 'em.
Don't buy ethanol flavoured gas.
 
Changed the oil again at 950 miles. God, at an oil change every Thou I’ve spent more on MC maintenance in the last 6 months than I have on my car in a year! Oil looked good; no metallicness to it. I took off the RH cover because I thought I was going to change the clutch springs. That is, until I tried the impact on one of the clutch screws and totally eff’ed it. Looks like I am definitely going to need to buy those special allen clutch screws from LBC Fab or whatever their name is. Anyone have any advice for getting a totally fucked clutch spring screw out? Unless told otherwise,
I’m probably going to reach for some vice grips. This is looking like it might be a winter project, or maybe even next spring. One good thing came of it all; the kicker had been installed one tooth too far to the left, so it had scratched some dents in the paint on the RH derby cover. When I reinstalled it, I did so correctly, and now it's properly vertical and totally clears the cover. But now she leaks wherever she parks. And that damn “new” RH cam seal is still leaking. Now I truly understand all this talk about “Chasing dragons” on these bikes. The more I replace/ fix, the longer the list of to do’s seems to get. :rolleyes:
 
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Lake Erie looked cold and angry, like an X's hug at a great aunt's funeral. It was the first weather change of the impending fall season, and the old rider had spent an hour or so that morning, checking over the '76 to chase an illusive harsher than usual tapping. Three of the four valve adjustments were a bit tight and that was eased off, cam chain checked fine, no need to look at the Pamco, so south to Erie Beach he went. North Buxton, South Buxton, Pardoville, Erie Beach, Erieau, Blenheim, all the little remnants of a different economy whizzed by in smooth succession. Now it was all massive cash crop farms with the equally huge machines tracking mud on the roads. Then a migrant worker came by on a tractor towing two trailers of tobacco leaf hung on sticks on the way to the kiln, proving an exception to the rule.
The old guy figured that the valve adjustment was more of a placebo to his tuning urge and the fact that ambient temperature was 10 C lower than the last day he rode was the reason the bike felt so much better.
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A big load of interesting scrap seen on the way.
 
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