Miss November XS2 tribute

Thinking of buying this:

FRONT BRAKE DISC ROTOR & PADS 298MM | eBay

In case the link don't work, it's an EBC front disc and pads. Guess that's a rotor in the US? Would give me a drilled disc, hopefully better braking, esp in the wet, and at 5 mm should be a lot lighter than the present manhole cover.

But it's a lot to spend so thought I would ask if anyone foresees problems?

Hi Raymond: the advert came up OK for me but it shows two different rotors (a solid steel one and a floating disk variant). Which one is on offer? I guess maybe one is a rear disc and the other a front.

Also, and I can do the math, I really question how noticeable the reduction in unsprung mass would be to most riders. If you are a very skilled and fast rider booting it on twisty roads, then I could see the lighter components having an effect worth paying for, but for most of us.....maybe not so much. Now, the drilling is likely worthwhile for your climate but you could just drill your existing discs and thus drop some mass while improving wet braking.

Anyhow, 175 quid would buy a coupla nice dinners....

Pete

I believe the floating one is for the XS. And presumably not the pads in the illustration. Agreed, could take my disc to a engineer and have it drilled. Don't know what that would cost and everywhere is shut at the mo. Thought about doing it meself and asked around/ researched here. Without a pillar drill, probably a hopeless task.

Take your point about the dinners . . .

Yup - drilling a disc w/o a pillar drill (aka drill press) would be a messy task.

Took the old girl to Kelso today - went to the fruit & veg shop, so this was a useful trip.

Wanted to see if the oil leaks at the side cover and the front oil union are cured. And if I've got the clutch adjustment near enough. Bike behaved perfectly, apart from some flatulence on closed throttle.

Went to Kelso along the main road but come home along some little single-track country lanes. Bike coped well enough with these wee roads. There's some jerkiness in the transmission, shown up by a lot of on and off throttle riding in that environment. But we coped helped no end by a very easy-going engine.

I might see if a bit of judicious chain adjustment helps. It will also help as I become more familiar with the bike - being relaxed on a bike smooths the handling no end.

And - no sign of any oil anywhere there shouldn't be.

Managed out again in the afternoon. This time to Hawick to buy more essential supplies. Bottles of beer - it's beautiful weather today, so . . .

I tinkered with the clutch and it felt better, disengaging more fully, easier changes, but still not easy to slip into neutral at a standstill though. Bike running very well and I really enjoyed the run. Again, mixture of main roads and single-track lanes.

Today, over the two outings, have done about 55 miles with the bike and I think that might be the most for one day.

It's almost a year since I bought the XS and in that time have had to replace the petrol tank, strip and clean the carbs, rebuild the 'old' engine and redo the whole electrics. Plus lots of tidying and paintwork (contracted out). Plus have swapped in a 'new' engine. As we come to the anniversary, we've covered just shy of 500 miles. And for many of those, the bike has been suffering from one or more problems. Chronic clutch slip - the clutch had been wrongly assembled. Dreadful misfire/bogging down - tear in carb diaphragm, and I was convinced it was the ignition system.

Usually, would expect to cover at least several thousand miles in a year, especially with a newly-purchased bike.

However, beginning to believe I've just about got Miss Marmalade to where she should be. Don't wish to tempt fate, but from here on it should be mostly routine maintenance, minor adjustments, tinkering, upgrades. All the fun things.

It has taken a lot of perseverance and a lot of help & encouragement.

Another way to check and set your mix screws is the "ride and adjust" method. Take a small screwdriver along with you and go for a ride. Once the bike is nice and warmed up, pull over and open each mix screw 1/4 turn. Ride some more and note the effects. Popping on decel going away? Pull over and give the screws another 1/4 turn out. Ride and test the new setting. Eventually you should reach the point that you can't open the screws anymore due to the idle speed falling off and the idle stumbling. That is telling you you've gone too far and are past the "sweet spot". If you can't get the popping on decel to go away by the time you've reached this point on your adjustments, that would indicate that you probably need to increase the pilot jets a size.

The mix screw has only a limited and small effect on the idle mixture strength. There are 4 small holes that let into the main bore of the carb from the pilot jet. Three flow directly from the jet. The 4th flows to and past the mix screw and then into the main bore. This means you get control over roughly 25% of the flow from the pilot jet. This makes the mix screw only good for fine tuning. If the small amount of adjustment it gives you isn't enough to cure the issue, a jet size change is required.

Raymondo said:

It has taken a lot of perseverance and a lot of help & encouragement.

Click to expand...

It’s been a lot of fun following your exploits Raymond. The tinkering gets addictive, but it looks like you’ve got yours pretty well sorted now! Well done, she’s a beauty!

Thank you, Bob! I'm still a rider not a tinkerer but she's getting close.

5twins said:

Another way to check and set your mix screws is the "ride and adjust" method. Take a small screwdriver along with you and go for a ride. Once the bike is nice and warmed up, pull over and open each mix screw 1/4 turn. Ride some more and note the effects. Popping on decel going away? Pull over and give the screws another 1/4 turn out. Ride and test the new setting. Eventually you should reach the point that you can't open the screws anymore due to the idle speed falling off and the idle stumbling. That is telling you you've gone too far and are past the "sweet spot". If you can't get the popping on decel to go away by the time you've reached this point on your adjustments, that would indicate that you probably need to increase the pilot jets a size.

Click to expand...

5T, adopted your suggestion today. Went out with small screwdriver, stopped after a few miles, made a small adjustment both sides, rode on, repeated. The backfiring is definitely much reduced. Sometimes I can shut the throttle coming up to a bend and there's nothing, other times there's a muted pop or bang or 2.

Forgot to take me specs, so the mixture screws were just about a blur. Did small adjustments by 'feel'. When we were home, thought I'd better check what I'd done. Fortunately, both were set near as dammit the same, to about 2⅞. Feeling bullish, I've left them both at 3 turns out - see how that goes next time.

The bike is running real nice. Got the clutch so I'm happy with it. Getting used to the bike and didn't seem to suffer from jerkiness in the transmission.

Looking for other things to tinker with, decided it was time to have a look at the horn. Since I changed the horn for a supposedly louder one, it has stopped working altogether. Not exactly a priority, apart from the fact that it's a legal requirement. A vehicle will fail the annual MoT unless it has 'audible warning of approach.' Fortunately, Miss November's mature years mean she is exempt from the indignity of having her bits inspected every year but it is still the legal responsibility of the owner to ensure that she would pass an MoT.

Took the l/h switches apart and dismantled the horn button to investigate. Noting wrong there. Seems the problem was poor earthing between the switch block and the handlebar. With the switches reassembled and the area that clamps the bar cleaned with emery, horn function is restored. It isn't very loud, somewhere between a polite stage whisper and a sheep farting but at least it works. Legal requirement met.

No photos of any of the work so here's a couple more garage shots:

Today, managed to get out - buying essential supplies - once in the morning and again in the afternoon.

Thanks to 5T's suggestion of tinkering with the mixture screw, now set 3 turns out, the backfiring has gone. Starts first or second kick. But this morning, just didn't sound right at all, like it was reluctant to fire or only firing on one. Didn't want to settle to a nice tick-over. But set out anyway and it came right in about half a mile.

Don't know why but seems to have been a 'glitch'. In fact, the bike is now running very well.

A few random thoughts:

The XS pulls well through the gears. It feels a little 'busy' which is a gearing thing - the W800 I'm more familiar with turns 4,000 at about 72 mph. The Yamaha's engine is up to those revs by about 58 mph, so I'll have to get used to it thrashing around a bit faster.

I could raise the gearing, maybe fit a gearbox sprocket with an extra tooth. But in my experience, it's very easy to ruin a good bike by raising the gearing. Back in the '80s, I changed the sprocket on a mighty Z1 thinking higher gearing would give more relaxed cruising and improved fuel consumption. Well, it did, but the bike lost a lot of its mojo. Came to the conclusion that those chaps in Japan who built these bikes and no doubt spent thousands of miles track testing them probably knew a thing or two. So I'll leave the gearing as it is - 17 and 34 teeth.

After a few miles, the bike settles to a reliable tick-over. The clutch is set good enough that I can get to neutral at a standstill. Usually. Handling feels very stable but doesn't give enough confidence to really go-for-it in a sequence of bends. Yet. The front brake has a lot more feel than it did and can haul the speed down, which I tend to practice coming to 30 mph limit signs. Once I've checked the mirrors, of course.

The mirrors are dreadful. The field of view is ok, but at road speeds the view is just a blur. Due to vibration.

I don't mind the vibes too much. Yes, from about 3,000 on the bike vibrates but it doesn't feel like it's gonna explode. The amplitude of vibration is far less than some other bikes I've ridden. In fact, if the XS is quite happy to vibrate, why should I complain?

A gentleman's motorcycle? Yes, but with a bit of hooligan mixed in. The exhaust sounds good with those Triumph silencers (mufflers) and maybe at times a little too good.

It's taken a year but today I really felt the bike is getting to be all I hoped it would be.

I feel these bikes do benefit from a sprocket size change, but only a very small one. The factory did just that to the European models, selling them with a 33T rear sprocket installed. I've tried both a 32 and 33T on my 18" rear wheel and much prefer the 33. You wouldn't think just one tooth would make much difference but it really does. At highway cruising speeds, the RPMs will be a few hundred lower, but it doesn't kill the low gear "lunge" off the line. The 16" and 18" wheel diameters differ slightly so you can actually get away with a 32T on the 16" wheel. Here's a gearing comparison chart and as you can see, a 16" with a 32 is very close to an 18" with a 33. But, I've heard a 33 works well on a 16" too .....

Raymondo said:

. . . this morning, just didn't sound right at all, like it was reluctant to fire or only firing on one. Didn't want to settle to a nice tick-over. But set out anyway and it came right in about half a mile. Don't know why but seems to have been a 'glitch'.

Click to expand...

The mind is like an iceberg, there's the conscious part we are aware of and then there's the vast hidden bulk of the unconscious. This morning, awoke from a dream at 4 am. As the dream fled and my conscious mind struggled to take over, I knew with instant clarity why the bike was reluctant to start and run properly yesterday.

'Glitch' is just a word we use when we don't know what happened. Now, I could see that the problem was a coming together of three factors - inattentive owner, lock-down and modern fuel.

Modern fuels go 'gummy' if left, so some people like to drain the float bowls after a run - turn the taps OFF and let the bike run till it dies. I've done that a couple of times lately. On Thursday, got back from a run, turned off the fuel, let the engine chunder on. Then somebody came and engaged me in conversation. Politely switched the bike off.

Old girl gets pushed back in the garage. Not used again till Monday - that's the lock-down part.

I know some of you are ahead of me here.

I had created perfect conditions in the float bowls, maybe ¼ fuel and ¾ air and three days for evaporation.

There must be a moral - you can make up your own. But while the bike is in fairly regular use, think I'll just forget about draining the float bowls.

I've never done that and never had issues. If the bike sits for a long period, I do switch to "Prime" for 30 seconds or so to replenish the fuel in the bowls.

Raymondo said:

....somewhere between a polite stage whisper and a sheep farting...

Click to expand...

Now YOU may me snort Raymond - that's a good one.

The wimpy little meep-meeper on these Japanese bikes simply does not cut the mustard against a cell-phone-yacking-twit in an Escalade or a self-absorbed snotty little prick in a black BMW 3-series with fringe dangling around the windshield and a religious symbol of some type hanging from the mirror. I want to sound like an out of control cement mixer coming at them.

DAMHIK.

Just a little note on your horn button ground. It doesn't get it from the handlebar, there is a black ground wire run from the switch housing into the headlight bucket. But, you do need to insure it is making good contact with and transferring it's ground through the handlebars because that's how the starter button in the right switch pod gets it's ground.

Thanks 5T, I'll take a look tomorrow.

Have taken on board another suggestion and ordered a 33T rear sprocket from Yambits. It's a small % change but we'll see if it makes a difference - might just reduce that 'busy' feeling a little bit.

Another nice thing about such a small sprocket size change as this is you don't need to shorten your chain, in fact, you can't. Taking 2 links out (one inner, one outer) would make it too short. That means if you ever did want to change back to the stock 34T sprocket, the same chain could still be used.

Orange Blossom * back from our latest expedition to buy essential supplies:




You can't see the squashed flies and other insects in the photo.

Bike running really well but there are always minor issues to fix. This one certainly classed as minor.

When I go in the garage in the morning there is a distinct smell of petrol. And there's always a few faint streaks down the l/h engine cover. Bit of poking around and it seems to be a slight weep from both float bowl drain plugs. Checked with 10 mm ring spanner and they are both tight enough - ain't gonna force something made of brass. Not too sure but I think they both have fibre washers.

What is recommended for these plugs? Is it OK to use copper washers or does that set up a reaction with the alloy carb and brass plug?

* for some reason Mrs takes immense pleasure from the fact the hue of paint is a very close match with the Californian poppies in the front garden.

Raymondo said:

What is recommended for these plugs? Is it OK to use copper washers or does that set up a reaction with the alloy carb and brass plug?

Click to expand...

Copper
Original washers were copper. I've used the originals many times over.. found other used ones and used them too lol. But I think you could find new ones at the hardware store on your next necessary supply ride

Raymondo said:

... there's always a few faint streaks down the l/h engine cover. Bit of poking around and it seems to be a slight weep from both float bowl drain plugs...

Click to expand...

I had the same problem, but from the bowl overflow vents. Check one of my carb albums for info on fixing the leaky brass overflow towers.

Here it is. This, plus go backwards a few...

http://www.xs650.com/media/71xs1b-carbs-overflow01-attach-a-hose-to-the-bowls-overflow-barb.23289/