The blue '76

If you're using that spray cable lube, I hate to tell you I told you so, but I did tell you so - that stuff is crap. Now you've discovered it through 1st hand experience, lol.
 
Replaced the gas cap rubber gasket, the old one was past it. Also swapped the plugs with iridium ones. Some cleaning up, and here is the result - for now:
View attachment 128019
I still need to do a ton of things, including changing oil and filters, check and set valve clearances, ignition dwell and timing, check the coil, charging current, rebuild the petcocks, rebuild the brake master cylinder, replace the clutch cable, and loads more. But for now I am just going to enjoy for a while riding it.
Funny thing was that the new tires I put on last weekend (Dunlop classic somethings) turned out to be much taller than the old, more modern looking ones. Now, when the bike is on its center stand, the rear wheel barely clears the ground. Oh well.

Looks great! I have the same bike/year. Very nice!
 
In this thread I will document my ownership, since last Saturday, of my 1976 french blue XS650:


I found it on Los Angeles Craigslist, in Thousand Oaks, about 50 miles from where we live, which is on board of a 46 foot trawler in Marina Del Rey. I picked it up early in the morning. The previous owner, a man about my own age (I am 58), had owned it since 2005 and must have barely ridden it, as it has 4,800 miles on it and it shows.

The ride home was scary. The seller had told me that the fork seals needed replacing, but what he hadn't told me was that the fork oil had settled into and had well-saturated the brake pads and disk. So I barely had a front brake. And the tires, although still having plenty of thread, also had cracks along the sides from sitting and they were from 2006, so ...

Well I made it home safe and started inventorying. The seller had purchased new fork seals, gaiters and brake pads, so I already had those. Tires were put on the shopping list, as well as original Yamaha key blanks (there was only one key), rubber bushings for the speedo and tach, as the old ones were way past it and this made them vibrate quite a bit. New cables, dust caps for the forks, petcock rebuild kits, spark plugs, oil filters, and some more stuff.

So today was the day to start tackling the many (back) maintenance jobs. What I managed:
1 - adjusted the cam chain. It was out (actually in) by maybe 3 mm.
2 - lubed the (no doubt original) clutch cable. Unfortunately, lube started leaking out of the cable about halfway. No worries, I will install the new cable from MotionPro next time, I just wanted to see if the original one was still salvageable. The clutch does feel a lot lighter now
3 - adjusted the clutch. By the way the bike also came with the Yamaha shop manual and tool kit, and I was able to do most chores today with that very tool kit
4 - pulled the spark plugs. They were in only handtight! They looked ok and I put them back in a bit tighter
5 - replaced the instrument seals with NOS ones I found online, in my native Holland. Instruments nice and snug again. The old seals literally felt and looked like toast (see picture below)
6 - replaced the seals in the blinkers
7 - tightened the shifter pedal and the sidestand - both had a lot of play
8 - now for the biggest job: changing the front tire. I had never done this on a motorcycle before, only on bicycles. Had gotten rim protectors, tire irons and window cleaner, but man what a job that was. Getting the old crusty one off was harder than the new one on. It's also something that gets easier with practice, it seems

Rear tire, new fork seals and oil, dust caps, new brake pads, oil and filters change, new iridium plugs, ignition dwell and timing, valve clearances, petcock rebuilds, new gas cap seal, checking out the charging voltage, coils resistances, spark plug wires and caps resistance, compression, and likely many other things I forget now - all this is next in the coming week (as soon as the package from MikesXS shows up on Monday).

Can't wait to start riding it as one of my three commuting bikes (the other two being a 2016 BMW C650 Sport maxi scooter and a 2018 BMW G310R sport bike). My commute is about 8 miles each way, through Los Angeles traffic. Thanks to lane splitting it takes me 20 minutes when by car on most days it would take at least an hour and fifteen minutes one-way. Oh, that's another project: fitting narrower handlebars so I fit in between the rows of practically stationary cars, trucks, SUVs, city busses, Porsches, etc etc. There's hardly another bike on these roads, strangely enough.

My main idea is to keep the bike as original as possible, except for the handlebars. I even found NOS original grips that I will be fitting shortly. So no electronic ignition, PMA, drilled brake disk, new generation carbs etc. Instead, I will try to keep everything just as Yamaha designed and built it.

Foto of one of the crusty instrument seals, with its replacement:View attachment 127595more to follow ...
I also have a 76. Looks very nice, runs perfectly and I love the sound of the stick mufflers. Mine has 31 k miles though. One previous owner who installed an electronic ignition and oil cooler. It had been dropped and the right side had scrapes on the front fender muffler and turn signals. Slightly Bent bars and broken brake lever. I replaced with new old stock 75 mufflers and 77 front fender and new parts otherwise.. Still all stock xs 650. I'm about to go for a ride in the ozarks in a minute.
 
In this thread I will document my ownership, since last Saturday, of my 1976 french blue XS650:


I found it on Los Angeles Craigslist, in Thousand Oaks, about 50 miles from where we live, which is on board of a 46 foot trawler in Marina Del Rey. I picked it up early in the morning. The previous owner, a man about my own age (I am 58), had owned it since 2005 and must have barely ridden it, as it has 4,800 miles on it and it shows.

The ride home was scary. The seller had told me that the fork seals needed replacing, but what he hadn't told me was that the fork oil had settled into and had well-saturated the brake pads and disk. So I barely had a front brake. And the tires, although still having plenty of thread, also had cracks along the sides from sitting and they were from 2006, so ...

Well I made it home safe and started inventorying. The seller had purchased new fork seals, gaiters and brake pads, so I already had those. Tires were put on the shopping list, as well as original Yamaha key blanks (there was only one key), rubber bushings for the speedo and tach, as the old ones were way past it and this made them vibrate quite a bit. New cables, dust caps for the forks, petcock rebuild kits, spark plugs, oil filters, and some more stuff.

So today was the day to start tackling the many (back) maintenance jobs. What I managed:
1 - adjusted the cam chain. It was out (actually in) by maybe 3 mm.
2 - lubed the (no doubt original) clutch cable. Unfortunately, lube started leaking out of the cable about halfway. No worries, I will install the new cable from MotionPro next time, I just wanted to see if the original one was still salvageable. The clutch does feel a lot lighter now
3 - adjusted the clutch. By the way the bike also came with the Yamaha shop manual and tool kit, and I was able to do most chores today with that very tool kit
4 - pulled the spark plugs. They were in only handtight! They looked ok and I put them back in a bit tighter
5 - replaced the instrument seals with NOS ones I found online, in my native Holland. Instruments nice and snug again. The old seals literally felt and looked like toast (see picture below)
6 - replaced the seals in the blinkers
7 - tightened the shifter pedal and the sidestand - both had a lot of play
8 - now for the biggest job: changing the front tire. I had never done this on a motorcycle before, only on bicycles. Had gotten rim protectors, tire irons and window cleaner, but man what a job that was. Getting the old crusty one off was harder than the new one on. It's also something that gets easier with practice, it seems

Rear tire, new fork seals and oil, dust caps, new brake pads, oil and filters change, new iridium plugs, ignition dwell and timing, valve clearances, petcock rebuilds, new gas cap seal, checking out the charging voltage, coils resistances, spark plug wires and caps resistance, compression, and likely many other things I forget now - all this is next in the coming week (as soon as the package from MikesXS shows up on Monday).

Can't wait to start riding it as one of my three commuting bikes (the other two being a 2016 BMW C650 Sport maxi scooter and a 2018 BMW G310R sport bike). My commute is about 8 miles each way, through Los Angeles traffic. Thanks to lane splitting it takes me 20 minutes when by car on most days it would take at least an hour and fifteen minutes one-way. Oh, that's another project: fitting narrower handlebars so I fit in between the rows of practically stationary cars, trucks, SUVs, city busses, Porsches, etc etc. There's hardly another bike on these roads, strangely enough.

My main idea is to keep the bike as original as possible, except for the handlebars. I even found NOS original grips that I will be fitting shortly. So no electronic ignition, PMA, drilled brake disk, new generation carbs etc. Instead, I will try to keep everything just as Yamaha designed and built it.

Foto of one of the crusty instrument seals, with its replacement:View attachment 127595more to follow ...
I just bought some of these. Like gold. Cost me 70 bucks for the two little sponge rubber bands.
 
Shoulda asked, or done a search, on here first. We could have helped point you to cheaper options.
 
Back
Top