Kickstart spring replacement

[QTreiber]

Hello,

There is a 1979 Standard on eBay right now, which looks attractive to me, but states "Kickstart spring is weak and needs replacement".

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Yama...7170073?pt=US_motorcycles&hash=item3a60810019

Does replacing the kickstart spring require major surgery? Is the spring still available?

The seat on this bike is not original. Are original seats hard to find these days?

Thank you for any advice,
Armin

 

[xjwmx]

Major surgery defined how? Risk of death to the patient? No such thing. Any one you get you'll probably have to go through inch by inch to get it as reliable as you want, which is major in terms of time.

Is the spring still available?

Everything is available. That's a great thing about this bike. Weird stuff for the first couple of years might not be available.

 

[QTreiber]

Major surgery defined how? Risk of death to the patient? No such thing. Any one you get you'll probably have to go through inch by inch to get it as reliable as you want, which is major in terms of time.

OK, let me rephrase: roughly how long does it take a person with average mechanical skills but no specific XS650 experience to replace the kickstart spring and what is the degree of difficulty...?

Thank you,
Armin

 

[Visegrippe]

Following the instructions available here, and in a shop manual, not very hard, and shouldn't take more than anhour, very straight forward.

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[pumps]

Gotta drain the oil...here read this.By inxs. He is a real smart fellow. Spring might not even need replaced, just installed correctly.
http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=772

The oem seat can be found. You might need to do a recover but hey part of the deal. A great used seat can cost a bit. I have a friend who has an OEM new seat cover on a used pan that looks damn good but I don't even want to know how much. Plenty of guys dump the original seat when they chop a bike. Watch the classified forum here , ebay , craigslist etc. Nice looking bike. I've been mulling around changing over to the blue when I get mine painted.

 

[angus67]

i would think the spring is installed wrong also. there isnt much tension on that spring in its upright away position.
that scratch you might be able to wetsand out. still looks blue. nice bike btw. ide buy a retored good runner for that.