VVLynden
XS650 Enthusiast
Hey folks, first time posting and have recently been lurking. I owned a 1979 xs650 Special a long time ago and recently came into posession of a 1976 xs650. The PO said it 'ran before being put into storage' so I will take for what it's worth, which at this point isn't a whole lot. It does appear it was in covered storage though. Let me also state that I am not a COMPLETE novice at mechanical things, but I am also very new to working on things my own.
So on to the questions and comments. I took the gas tank off and there was a light dusting of rust inside, no big chunks or anything too scary. After scouring the threads here on rust removal I went for CLR initially and mixed it with water, poured it in the tank and let it sit for a couple days. It seemed to clean it out pretty well but not perfectly so I opted for another route which was Apple Cider Vinegar. This seemed to take care of any remaining rust. I read that to stop the chemical reactions to use baking soda with water, so I did and sloshed it around the tank then blasted everything out with a pressure washer, dried it with a hairdrier and called it good. I put a bit of gasoline in their and sloshed that around as well.
My question about this whole process is: Do I absolutely need to use a tank sealer. I have a can of redkote but frankly, due to my lack of knowledge about this stuff, it scares me. I have no respirator and really my only option would be to do it outside my garage. Am I asking for more rust if I leave the tank as is?
I took the carbs apart and cleaned them, which I felt was a great learning experience and kind of took the edge off of the uknown. The carbs were surprisingly clean compared to other photos folks have shared on the forum so I felt lucky. As far as I know they are mikuni bs38's and in pretty good condition. I reassembled them and put them back on the bike.
This leads to my second question: Is there anything I need to do to the carbs after cleaning and reattaching to the gas tank BEFORE starting the bike up? Will the gas automatically feed to the carbs as soon as I hook them up? Do I need to rig up some crazy device to make sure they don't just explode from being 'empty'?
These are the two big things I wanted to get working before attempting a start up. I put some oil in through the spark plug holes to let it soak in, just a little bit, drained what was left of the remaining oil, which was not chunky and no flakes, then added the shell rotella 15w/40 I believe it was. Not 100% on that, but I had it written down from the oil thread so I'm fairly certain I got the right stuff. Got new NGK plugs, I have two uni filters and a new battery on the way as well. It IS missing some parts, specifically the clutch and throttle cables as well as (from what I can tell) the master cylinder. Now this confused me because there is this bizarre short lever for the brake and I have two cables hanging around near it that aren't connected to anything. I *think* they are the brake cables but not sure which one does what, or what they were supposed to connect to.
There's also what looks like a lever for a cable of some kind on the front of the engine, i'm not certain what it's for but how many cables could there be on this thing..?
All in all, the bike looks to be in decent shape, it's just dirty from sitting and these weird parts that are missing, maybe it was cannibalized for another bike or something. Many thanks in advance, this is a big project for a noob like myself, I'm used to working on my VW Scirocco or Nissan Maxima, so this is definitely a step in a different direction. I've been taking a lot of pictures and just going through it as methodically as I can, but I'd like to do it right before trying it's first start up and blowing the engine or something.
So on to the questions and comments. I took the gas tank off and there was a light dusting of rust inside, no big chunks or anything too scary. After scouring the threads here on rust removal I went for CLR initially and mixed it with water, poured it in the tank and let it sit for a couple days. It seemed to clean it out pretty well but not perfectly so I opted for another route which was Apple Cider Vinegar. This seemed to take care of any remaining rust. I read that to stop the chemical reactions to use baking soda with water, so I did and sloshed it around the tank then blasted everything out with a pressure washer, dried it with a hairdrier and called it good. I put a bit of gasoline in their and sloshed that around as well.
My question about this whole process is: Do I absolutely need to use a tank sealer. I have a can of redkote but frankly, due to my lack of knowledge about this stuff, it scares me. I have no respirator and really my only option would be to do it outside my garage. Am I asking for more rust if I leave the tank as is?
I took the carbs apart and cleaned them, which I felt was a great learning experience and kind of took the edge off of the uknown. The carbs were surprisingly clean compared to other photos folks have shared on the forum so I felt lucky. As far as I know they are mikuni bs38's and in pretty good condition. I reassembled them and put them back on the bike.
This leads to my second question: Is there anything I need to do to the carbs after cleaning and reattaching to the gas tank BEFORE starting the bike up? Will the gas automatically feed to the carbs as soon as I hook them up? Do I need to rig up some crazy device to make sure they don't just explode from being 'empty'?
These are the two big things I wanted to get working before attempting a start up. I put some oil in through the spark plug holes to let it soak in, just a little bit, drained what was left of the remaining oil, which was not chunky and no flakes, then added the shell rotella 15w/40 I believe it was. Not 100% on that, but I had it written down from the oil thread so I'm fairly certain I got the right stuff. Got new NGK plugs, I have two uni filters and a new battery on the way as well. It IS missing some parts, specifically the clutch and throttle cables as well as (from what I can tell) the master cylinder. Now this confused me because there is this bizarre short lever for the brake and I have two cables hanging around near it that aren't connected to anything. I *think* they are the brake cables but not sure which one does what, or what they were supposed to connect to.
There's also what looks like a lever for a cable of some kind on the front of the engine, i'm not certain what it's for but how many cables could there be on this thing..?
All in all, the bike looks to be in decent shape, it's just dirty from sitting and these weird parts that are missing, maybe it was cannibalized for another bike or something. Many thanks in advance, this is a big project for a noob like myself, I'm used to working on my VW Scirocco or Nissan Maxima, so this is definitely a step in a different direction. I've been taking a lot of pictures and just going through it as methodically as I can, but I'd like to do it right before trying it's first start up and blowing the engine or something.
