TbirdIV
XS650 Member
Long time lurker here, just posting my on-and-off project, a 1981 special that I bought as a basket case a few years ago.
since owning it I've been slowly going through the mechanics, and planning a basic cafe build for it. Being pretty incomplete I figure it is a good candidate.
The Day it came home:
That was an adventure, burned through my pickup's oil pressure line on the way down, made a nice oil slick. Luckily it was within a mile of a Menards, so I limped it there, plugged the oil pressure port and went on. Then my buddy found the sportster in the same city so we picked that up as well. At this point the bike had good compression, no spark, most of the stock trim gone, wiring is hacked, center stand is cut off, brake system packed in a box, etc. I was told it had run recently but the ignition had quit, come to find out it had an early MikesXS electronic ignition that had given up, my best guess is it was kicked over without the spark plug leads grounded.
After getting it home I went through the carbs, replaced the leaky vacuum diaphragms with pieces from JBM industries, put in a new ignition module from mikes XS, put in a threaded insert to fix a stripped spark plug hole, and managed to get it to run on the bottle for a few seconds at a time.
I got married and moved into a new house soon after, so the bike was on hold for quite a while. Once I got back to it i found the rear swingarm bushings were shot, and the PO had broken the swingarm bolt and welded it back together - safety third? So I replaced them with some brass bushings. This piece of sandpaper on a drill bit is my answer for getting a nice tight slip fit between the bushings and my new swingarm pivot. Took a while, but I managed to dial it in pretty close. Then a flat file took care of narrowing the width for a slight protrusion of the pivot, if I remember correctly i adjusted it to ~.050".
Got the swingarm reinstalled with new dust seals, greased it, and also took care of new rear brake shoes, going through the fuel tank cap, and a new Biltwell mid-rise tracker type bar around then.
Sitting pretty after not having a swing arm for far to long:
After that the bike sat for a while, till recently a co-worker has been coming over to work on his '84 rebel 250 - it needed the carb gone through, front brakes, clutch, and a bunch of little odds and ends to get it running and streetable. Of course whipping around on a motorcycle lit the fires again, so I've been making good progress recently. Rebuilt the petcock, making sure everything is nice, flat, and polished (many thanks to the writup from xjbikes.com/gggary)
and the last couple evenings have been spent going through the front brakes.
Thrashed stock master:
This was to far gone, so I ended up ordering an 11mm master off of a ttr225 to replace it. I liked the looks of the ttr piece better, and at 11mm it should be a better feeling brake as well.
After that I started tearing in to the caliper. based on the marks, I'm sure its not the first time its been apart. looks like someone got a bit overzealous. Anyways, the piston was rusted in place. I got that removed with some channelocks, cleaned up the bore, and started a parts list. unfortunately the bleeder broke off flush during tear down but I figured I would let it soak in acetone/atf overnight and give it a go.
after cleanup:
I'd say it came out pretty good considering where it started, unfortunately the bleeder has refused to budge, even after heat-cool cycles, penetrant, drilling, impact, extractors, picks... and so on. So I think I will be ordering a new caliper for it shortly.
So that's where it sits currently, hoping to get it rideable yet this summer.
since owning it I've been slowly going through the mechanics, and planning a basic cafe build for it. Being pretty incomplete I figure it is a good candidate.
The Day it came home:
That was an adventure, burned through my pickup's oil pressure line on the way down, made a nice oil slick. Luckily it was within a mile of a Menards, so I limped it there, plugged the oil pressure port and went on. Then my buddy found the sportster in the same city so we picked that up as well. At this point the bike had good compression, no spark, most of the stock trim gone, wiring is hacked, center stand is cut off, brake system packed in a box, etc. I was told it had run recently but the ignition had quit, come to find out it had an early MikesXS electronic ignition that had given up, my best guess is it was kicked over without the spark plug leads grounded.
After getting it home I went through the carbs, replaced the leaky vacuum diaphragms with pieces from JBM industries, put in a new ignition module from mikes XS, put in a threaded insert to fix a stripped spark plug hole, and managed to get it to run on the bottle for a few seconds at a time.
I got married and moved into a new house soon after, so the bike was on hold for quite a while. Once I got back to it i found the rear swingarm bushings were shot, and the PO had broken the swingarm bolt and welded it back together - safety third? So I replaced them with some brass bushings. This piece of sandpaper on a drill bit is my answer for getting a nice tight slip fit between the bushings and my new swingarm pivot. Took a while, but I managed to dial it in pretty close. Then a flat file took care of narrowing the width for a slight protrusion of the pivot, if I remember correctly i adjusted it to ~.050".
Got the swingarm reinstalled with new dust seals, greased it, and also took care of new rear brake shoes, going through the fuel tank cap, and a new Biltwell mid-rise tracker type bar around then.
Sitting pretty after not having a swing arm for far to long:
After that the bike sat for a while, till recently a co-worker has been coming over to work on his '84 rebel 250 - it needed the carb gone through, front brakes, clutch, and a bunch of little odds and ends to get it running and streetable. Of course whipping around on a motorcycle lit the fires again, so I've been making good progress recently. Rebuilt the petcock, making sure everything is nice, flat, and polished (many thanks to the writup from xjbikes.com/gggary)
and the last couple evenings have been spent going through the front brakes.
Thrashed stock master:
This was to far gone, so I ended up ordering an 11mm master off of a ttr225 to replace it. I liked the looks of the ttr piece better, and at 11mm it should be a better feeling brake as well.
After that I started tearing in to the caliper. based on the marks, I'm sure its not the first time its been apart. looks like someone got a bit overzealous. Anyways, the piston was rusted in place. I got that removed with some channelocks, cleaned up the bore, and started a parts list. unfortunately the bleeder broke off flush during tear down but I figured I would let it soak in acetone/atf overnight and give it a go.
after cleanup:
I'd say it came out pretty good considering where it started, unfortunately the bleeder has refused to budge, even after heat-cool cycles, penetrant, drilling, impact, extractors, picks... and so on. So I think I will be ordering a new caliper for it shortly.
So that's where it sits currently, hoping to get it rideable yet this summer.
