project 1978 cafe racer

BustedNuckle

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Hey there, Well i finally finished up most of my 1978 xs 650 cafe racer. When i bought for 1300.00 it was not running and the paint was terrible and overall just in really neglected condition. This is what i have done. Pulled everything off of it but kept motor in. Tore the carbs apart and did a deep clean, adjusted the valves (crazy tight), adjusted cam chain, set my points, did a static timing adjustment.. yes it was off!! I drained the oil and there was a liter of gas in it and must have been due to petcock seal, Sump filter was torn and i did a screen fix using piece of metal and JB Weld.. not a large amount of metal shavings. Compression test was about 150 per cylinder. I decided to do an oil change and try to get my carb adjusted.. yes the air mixture screw was way off. After a number of kicks i was not getting any success but then realized i forgot to apply choke. It fired up with a lot of coughing and weezing and back firing..i adjusted the mixture screw and it ran very nicely. The next day i went to the garage and checked the oil levels hoping that the gas had not leaked into the crank.. yes it did again and there was a big puddle of oil as well. I traced the oil leak to the clutch pushrod seal.
Well at least i knew it was running and so i drained the oil and made a parts list. I decided to paint the flat black bike and go with a charcoal colour. The tank had a lot of layers of paint and a little bit of bondo.. i took it down to pretty much metal and fixed as many dents and imperfections as i could ( i am new to body repair and painting) After a lot of work i was ready for paint.. just used rattle can and a lot of clear coats. It turned out ok.. not perfect but i was happy with it.
I changed the vacuum petcocks out for standard on/off/reservoir type and capped the vacuum barb. Changed my clutch pushrod from a two piece to a one piece and replaced the bushing and the seal ( grinded the outside edge to keep the seal from getting wrecked. New alternator brushes, valve and sump gaskets, starter button.. which had snapped off, clutch lever, battery.
Took it out on the road for a test run and it performed great until i hit 4500 rpm and then it would sputter and not go any higher. Thought that i would have to adjust the main jet but thought that maybe it was the cheap pods i had on there... took them off and went for a spin and sure enough went up to redline no problem. ordered some uni foam pods so hopefully they work well. Been a really fun project.
 
Really really nice looking bike Busted. I like these bikes cafe style. After I build my hardtail I may build my '77 as a cafe. Yours has great lines. Did you do a build thread? If not it can still be possible to do it post build. Many here have done so. Before and after pictures are always fun to look at. Regardless it appears that you have done a great job bringing the bike back to life.
I hope you get it all sorted out and it gives you a whole lot of smiles per miles. Thanks for sharing.
 
Really really nice looking bike Busted. I like these bikes cafe style. After I build my hardtail I may build my '77 as a cafe. Yours has great lines. Did you do a build thread? If not it can still be possible to do it post build. Many here have done so. Before and after pictures are always fun to look at. Regardless it appears that you have done a great job bringing the bike back to life.
I hope you get it all sorted out and it gives you a whole lot of smiles per miles. Thanks for sharing.
thanks Bluz, unfortunately i lost all my build pics when my tablet imploded so just thought i would do an overview. Next project i plan to log the build step by step as i also enjoy reading and seeing the build pic progression.
 
I like the rattle can ethos. Local auto paint company used to mix up any auto color on the chart in spray cans with decent fan pattern spray noodles. Did a few "daughter oops" repairs that way.
 
Nice looking bike, catches the cafe racer look nicely. But you know you have a repair coming up don't you. The seatpan has split on both sides around the catch. Bugger!
 
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