G'day everyone, cause I'm an old fart I thought it would be a good idea to ride the xs the long way to the annual xs club meeting last year , just over 3000 miles according to the speedometer.
After around 2,000 miles the xs developed a rattle, but still ran strong so I checked the obvious things and pulled the small oil filter finding nothing alarming.
Once I arrived at the meeting there were twenty or xs owners who suggested what the noise could be and the general consensus was the clutch cushion springs but i had my doubts because I have a rebuilt clutch basket fairly new.
Long story short it made it home ok and when I removed the clutch cover I discovered pieces of the right hand crankshaft bearing, not good.
So a new crankshaft and top end re build later i had her back on the road but with constant backfiring from the right cylinder.
After a lot of hunting I found out that the carby manifold was letting air in through the gasket.
She's running great now but the wife hasn't stopped rubbing it in that her Enfield did the trip without any problems.
We will be leaving in a few weeks to go to the moto gp at Phillip Island but I reckon I will be riding the bmw k1600 this time.
Safe riding gang.
