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What have you done to your XS today?
- Thread starter I am Carbon
- Start date
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- maintenance
Yaaahooo....It lives! Great back ground story too. Keep us posted on your progress.
j343my
XS650 Enthusiast
Got my front brake installed today. All that's left to do is bleed it.
Did mine recently too. I went for a Brembo 13mm m/c and the reverse-bleed method, which still needed the bungee-the-lever-and-leave-overnight bit before there was a brake to speak of! All good now though.
What m/c will you use?
What m/c will you use?
j343my
XS650 Enthusiast
I am going to try an 11mm M/C. How do you find the 13mm?
Beautiful bike but terrible brake line routing, you need to fix that, lol. Route it inside the headlight ear and down over the front of the lower tree .....
You can attach a guide for the line on the lower tree where the original line splitter was .....
You can attach a guide for the line on the lower tree where the original line splitter was .....
Before this setup I had an 11mm m/c with the standard caliper, and that worked pretty well. Pandemonium say 12-14mm works well with the Brembo Goldline caliper; I chose 13mm as that's what Ducati used with this caliper on the early Monsters. Good enough for Ducati, ....... And yes, I find it pretty damned good.
If I'd had a suitable 1/2" m/c among my spares I'd have used that (12.7mm). I think 11mm with this caliper will be too small but if someone else knows different I'd be glad to hear
I put the 11mm m/c on my SR500 and that's transformed the brake - being lighter that the XS helps of course but it really is like the difference between night & day.
5Twins - thanks but I think I'll keep it like this at least for a while. A bit fed up with bleeding brakes TBH! Not my favourite pastime. But maybe over the winter ....
Cliff
Good point!!
Quite simple really. Just like our partners can take off a brassiere without removing their jumper/sweater.
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Fitted new valve stem seals, lapped the valves and installed new head gasket.
Torqued down the head, installed the E type cam chain adjuster and found this.
.?
Torqued down the head, installed the E type cam chain adjuster and found this.
.?
Oops.
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Fwiw... there's been discussions in the past on how much that baffle helps. There's been some who (claimed they) tore motors down and found it was already missing... and not blowing excess oil out the breather. 
I'm inclined to just give it a try as is and fit a check valve to the breather rather than dismantling the top end again and finding another head gasket.Fwiw... there's been discussions in the past on how much that baffle helps. There's been some who (claimed they) tore motors down and found it was already missing... and not blowing excess oil out the breather.
I think that's how I'd play it too.
Doh!Fitted new valve stem seals, lapped the valves and installed new head gasket.
Torqued down the head, installed the E type cam chain adjuster and found this.
Replaced the leaking clutch cover gasket ,adjusted the valves to 004 and 006 and fitted the motor back in the frame.
Got all the engine mounts buttoned up and started on the counter shaft sprocket nut with the large tension wrench, got it to 55 ft lbs before the valve stem got torn out of the wheel from the pick handle I had through the wheel to hold it
. Should have got the wife to sit on it with the brake on. Must be my old timers again.
Got all the engine mounts buttoned up and started on the counter shaft sprocket nut with the large tension wrench, got it to 55 ft lbs before the valve stem got torn out of the wheel from the pick handle I had through the wheel to hold it
. Should have got the wife to sit on it with the brake on. Must be my old timers again.
Today I tried tidying up the brake line routing as per 5twins' comments and indeed how I used to have it. This reminded me why I routed it the way I did - the brake line is just a shade too short so the bend by the caliper is too tight (tighter than the pic suggests), everything too tight in fact and when the mythical fork brace eventually turns up it'll foul the brake line on heavy fork compression. So I undid the change ....
Fair enough, can't win 'em all, so I fitted the Magura clutch lever I bought recently in the hope that the extra cable travel will help with neutral selection. I tried various cable routings but because the cable exit position & angle is different from the original, it's hard to find a route that minimises bends. This is the best I could come up with but over the winter I'll try options with a longer, Special cable. If there's a magic formula I'd love to hear it!
All part of the fun of being non-standard, I suppose. But I wouldn't have it any other way
Cliff
Fair enough, can't win 'em all, so I fitted the Magura clutch lever I bought recently in the hope that the extra cable travel will help with neutral selection. I tried various cable routings but because the cable exit position & angle is different from the original, it's hard to find a route that minimises bends. This is the best I could come up with but over the winter I'll try options with a longer, Special cable. If there's a magic formula I'd love to hear it!
All part of the fun of being non-standard, I suppose. But I wouldn't have it any other way
Cliff
