barelycompetent
81 XS650 Special
A little late to this thread cause I just "found" what the previous owner had done, and I dont have any pics of it yet. I bought a mostly original, pretty clean 81 special with only 16k miles on it. It came set up and running pod filters and its running well, with the exception of a popping through the right pipe, more on that later. Brought it home, had it running in my garage and noticed the right side wasnt heating up. Pulled the plugs and the right was fouled out, no big deal till I noticed that it was a completely different plug then the left one. New set of plugs and bang she runs like a scalded dog! After two rides my headlight would no longer turn on, turns out it was a bad rotor, replaced it and she is back running good again. So I noticed my carb boots were a bit cracked, I thought that might have something to do with the popping in the right pipe so I replaced them. While I had the carbs off I decided to see what jetting I had in them so I drained the float bowls, and removed all the screws and for the life of me could not remove the bowls. Then I noticed that the PO had used some type of sealant in place of the gaskets, could see it in one of the bowl screw holes. So I have no idea what kind of sealant had been used, and I have no way to get the bowls off. Any tips or suggestions on that end would be much appreciated. So anyways, Im cafe'ing this bike over the winter and I ordered a new exhaust from Gordonscott, and in preparation for the new exhaust I removed the old stock exhaust. The right side was completely missing a crush washer. So I have a new set of crush gaskets, new plugs, and Im just waiting on my exhaust, hopefully this will eliminate the small yet annoying popping from the right pipe. I still however have sealed float bowls lol, havent worked out yet how to get into them without damaging the carbs! Ahhh PO's, I used to be one, now I cant stand them lol.