Couple of newb questions

[Stoop22kid]

Picked up a 79 xs650 special a couple weeks ago. Seemed to run fine until I found the cracked intake boots. Replaced those and went ahead and put stubby pods on and took the airbox off. Now it's not running right. I know I probably need to re jet it but where do I start? Also the petcock on the left side is leaking....can I take an axed bobber tank on with a manual petcock instead of rebuilding mine? Thanks in advance for any answers yall can give me.

Justin

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

Welcome to the forum, Justin.
Try this: In the upper/left searchbox, type "Up on the mains".

Yeah, weird huh?

Well, that's the common buzz-phrase that comes in threads discussing your situation.
Warning, thousands of threads in there, so pick the best ones...

 

[weekendrider]

I'll second TwoManyXS1B's welcome to the site.
Your "not running right" problems might be summed up in two words. Stubby pods.

 

[Stoop22kid]

Thanks guys. I'll give it a look.

 

[retiredgentleman]

I know it sounds crazy, but you could run the bike with the stock airbox, as it was designed by motorcycle engineers to work best that way.

 

[Stoop22kid]

Looks like I'm gonna have a few more problems.....yellow sludge and lots of metal shavings in the oil.

 

[angus67]

Yellow sludge is water in dirty oil. Put the air boxes back on, and fix it before modifying

 

[Red Beard]

Justin: First welcome to the forums and congrats on the bike, I have the same year and have had some of the same issues. So Ill save you a lot of headache

1) As for the Pods: Uni filters are outstanding, they are the only filters I have found that are simple to tune with. Plus you cant beat the price

BUT

For now, I would get the thing running with the stock air box and do a fresh oil change on her (make sure to clean out the sump and filter as well) Yellow sludge is nasty sh*t

2) For the petcock question, the 79 had vacuum petcocks, and they are a pain in the ass, so here is how to swap them to manual petcocks (no vacuum = no leak) with no extra expense : http://en.650wiki.org/index.php/5.02.1_Vac_Petcock_Conversion

3) For getting started on carb tuning: http://www.amckayltd.com/carbguide.pdf read that over and over and follow it to the T. Make sure you have done the cam chain/ valves/timing in whatever else order that carb guide tells you, these machines are picky and there was a lot of trial an error that went into that guide, so trust it. There is videos on how to do all that stuff if you search the forum, I think Carbon made a few that are great.

4) Good luck and have fun, report back to us what you find and how it all goes

-Beard

 

[Stoop22kid]

Thanks beard! I had it running before I changed to pods. Only reason I did is because I had to replace in intake boots because they were all cracked up. The yellow sludge isn't what bothered me as much as the metal shavings I found all over the magnets and in the bottom of the engine. I think I'm going to go ahead and do a complete rebuild and start over. That way I know everything is being done right.

 

[Red Beard]

Well my policy is if it aint broke dont fix it.

Metal shavings aren't normal...but they aren't uncommon, I would give it a few thousand miles with some oil changes and see if the shavings decrease, before you go and rebuild the whole thing. I personally use Shell Rotella 15w40, its a diesel oil and it has ran great in my machine.

Unless you were referring to rebuilding the carbs, then if so by all means I recommend that.

These machines can really end up being expensive by the time you get into an engine rebuild you start looking at things like 700cc or 750cc big bore kits, or 270 or 277 degree rephases, hot cams, etc etc and things can end up being pricey. I don't know how much money you want to throw at this thing but that's just my 2 cents.

If you are really hankering to spend some money, put it towards like a PMA and a pamco if you already don't have one, those mods are worth their weight in gold in the reliability factor.

 

[Stoop22kid]

Well I've got big plans on a small budget haha. I want to eventually do a 277 rephase with a pma and new ignition. I plan on having this bike for a while so I might as well throw some money into it while the overtime is still rolling in and I can afford it.