New from Omaha, 81 XS650 Few questions with PICS and VIDEO

[buenrostrox]

Hello everyone, I'm from Omaha and just picked up an 81 this past weekend. She's a little cold blooded right now but I'll get to that in a second, I was still able to ride it home.

Here are a couple pics of when I got it home to start:

As you can see it's a "Special II" which from what I've read pretty much means ugly handlebars

Cosmetically she's in pretty amazing shape less some paint chipping on the left of the tank.

Mechanically she has two issues, a tiny oil leak and one cylinder that doesn't want to start with the other on a cold start. At first it will be completely dead, and after 30 seconds or so it will start popping (almost like popcorn in the microwave, but I have a video to show too) and after a good 3 minutes it will come to life.


I took a photo of the plugs after I pulled them, the one on the right is the "bad" cylinder. I'm not too keen on telling much from plugs, but I think the left is rich (sootier) and the right is lean (whiter)?

When I rode it home the power seemed relatively smooth, but I didn't get on it too much and the ride was only about 5 miles. I want to see what people have to say before I tear into it.

I also did a compression test while I had the plugs out and was surprised that the right cylinder checked out better (120psi) than the left (105psi). I read that anything over 100 is good on this bike so those numbers don't worry me.

Here is a video which hopefully captures the sound well enough to help diagnose:

I've cleaned and synced carbs before (on a Ninja 250 and a yamaha R6) so I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty, but that's the extent of my carb experience and I've never had this kind of issue.

Any help is appreciated, as well as greetings to the board, seems like a good place with good people!

 

[hotrdd]

I’ll chime in.. Check the Tech section of this website and make sure you have a manual, though if you are looking for the correct specs check the website first. Take care of this stuff in this order.

1) Cam chain tensioner.
2) Set the Valves
3) Set the timing
4) Synch the carbs & (Mix screws)
5) Report back

 

[Paulrxs650]

I'd second hotrdd with a couple of additions:

1. Strip and clean the carbs thoroughly, preferably with carb cleaner and an airline - rebuild and set to stock settings
2. Clean and gap plugs
3. If you're doing a compression test - make sure you do it with the throttle wide open - those look a tad on the low side

 

[buenrostrox]

Thanks for the input, I'm doing the chain tensioner and valve adjustments tonight, as well as cleaning carbon off the exhaust valves which I read in tech can help greatly with compression. Timing will have to wait until I can borrow a light and the full rebuild until I get a kit ordered, I'll do a sync and mess with the mixure screws too just to see if that helps.

Good call on the compression test btw Paul, I forgot to hold the throttle open so I'm probably 10psi off just by that.