Srawl
XS650 Enthusiast
Well I finally pulled the trigger on a 1977 XS650. Just over 15k miles on the dial.
I paid $1,800 for it, please feel free to tell me how good or bad I did.
It doesn’t have any turning signals, front or back, tail light is a $5 eBay piece of junk that burnt out on my way home.
Electric start cranks good but won’t turn over unless it’s just been shut off (or died). Kick start works, not a one kick sort of thing but this is my first kick bike so that could be me... It idles ok, not 100%, died when not feathering the throttle.
Previous owner says he just ultrasonic cleaned the carbs, all new jets and gaskets and replaced both petcocks after it sat for a year, says carbs just need synchronized.
I rode it about 40 miles home, on the way it died twice at stop signs and would randomly sputter a little bit in the 25-40mph range before everything going back to normal. I got up to about 80-85, seemed to do ok until about the 35 mile mark it started slowly sputtering and loosing speed, at max throttle I was stuck at 3k rpm cruising at 50 then died on the highway. I was able to get it started, went a couple miles or so and the same thing happened except I was able to keep it going slow until I made it home. When I got home I noticed some smoke coming from the exhaust where the pipes meet the cylinder heads, I don’t know if that means anything.
Oh, and the brakes suck...
It has a title... in the previous-previous(two owners ago’s) name that guy I bought it from never signed so he just gave that to me... hope that doesn’t come back to bite me...
Feel free to tell me anything you think I should know, my plan is to slowly turn this into a scrambler. I’ve also included the previous owner’s pics from CL. Right now I just want it to be reliable...
I’m very new to working on bikes and am very open to any advice.
I paid $1,800 for it, please feel free to tell me how good or bad I did.
It doesn’t have any turning signals, front or back, tail light is a $5 eBay piece of junk that burnt out on my way home.
Electric start cranks good but won’t turn over unless it’s just been shut off (or died). Kick start works, not a one kick sort of thing but this is my first kick bike so that could be me... It idles ok, not 100%, died when not feathering the throttle.
Previous owner says he just ultrasonic cleaned the carbs, all new jets and gaskets and replaced both petcocks after it sat for a year, says carbs just need synchronized.
I rode it about 40 miles home, on the way it died twice at stop signs and would randomly sputter a little bit in the 25-40mph range before everything going back to normal. I got up to about 80-85, seemed to do ok until about the 35 mile mark it started slowly sputtering and loosing speed, at max throttle I was stuck at 3k rpm cruising at 50 then died on the highway. I was able to get it started, went a couple miles or so and the same thing happened except I was able to keep it going slow until I made it home. When I got home I noticed some smoke coming from the exhaust where the pipes meet the cylinder heads, I don’t know if that means anything.
Oh, and the brakes suck...
It has a title... in the previous-previous(two owners ago’s) name that guy I bought it from never signed so he just gave that to me... hope that doesn’t come back to bite me...
Feel free to tell me anything you think I should know, my plan is to slowly turn this into a scrambler. I’ve also included the previous owner’s pics from CL. Right now I just want it to be reliable...
I’m very new to working on bikes and am very open to any advice.
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