1982 XS400 project

[El Bandito]

I don't see a project thread forum, so moderators, please move this thread if it's inappropriate here.

So, I picked up a Yamaha XS400 DOHC as a project bike yesterday, trailered it home, and took stock of what's going to need to be done.

For starters, it wasn't starting, but the former owner said it worked fine until he put the seat on. I suspected a broken fuse, and after checking all 4, and consulting my handy dandy German wiring diagram (I do not speak German, but we got by), figured out that the ignition fuse was not working. Off to PartSource for fuses, and then I got the bike to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnFI4zD9myU

I'm working on my maniacal laugh.

Since that video from this morning, I've removed the seat, gas tank, intake and carbs, and am about to cut off the exhaust. The exhaust is so corroded that there are huge cracks in the side of the mufflers. Can anyone recommend a store that carries Mac exhaust products? I love the two into one chrome number they manufacture (also, no one else manufactures exhausts for this bike. Good think I like it.)

Other issues: There is oil leaking from the head gasket on the right side of the engine. I have a gasket set on it's way from Vancouver to help with this issue.

Other other issue: not as pressing, but the bike is kinda multicoloured right now, with a purple tank and side panels, and a black rear fender. The tank has been repainted, and is quite orange peely, so that'll need to be fixed. Thankfully, I found a whole set of extra emblems in the back of the bike! Score!

The bike is otherwise in good shape. It will need a new front tire to certify, but the electrics are good (if suspicious - there are definitely extra parts in there, and the fuse box isn't stock.) More with pics tomorrow!

 

[El Bandito]

Day 2 was carb day, and it all ended with a bang.

My daughter went to sleep for her afternoon nap, and I ran out to the garage, rubbing my hands with anticipation. The carbs had been removed on Sunday, and I'd spent the evening reading, re-reading and re-re-reading everything that I'd have to do.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.

The first problem is that my carbs look much more corroded than the ones in any pictures:

Fortunately, it would seem that over the last 30 or so years, no one has overtorqued the bolts, and as my wife said after the waterskiing accident, I lost my bottoms!

The floats are in great shape, and seem to be resting within spec. The jets all came out easily, and were mostly clean. There was a little bit of gunk in the bottom of the carbs, but very little varnish. If I had to guess, these have been cleaned no more than a couple of years ago.

I cleaned one set of jets at a time, to make sure nothing got mixed up. Odd that the main jets are different sizes for each carb - must have to do with the off centre air intake.

Hmm... looking at these pictures, note to self. Do not use that loaf pan again for banana bread.

Now, a word to the wise, that I should have kept in mind. If you have rusty bolts, soak them before you try to remove them with something like PB Blaster. I did not, and now I can only get one breast exposed - ah - top removed. These little bolts are pretty soft, and I'll be going to the hardware store for four new ones after I drill out the one I've now rounded.

Otherwise, everything is coming up roses. I was working in the garage with the front and side door open, help open by a pile of bricks, and was running out of time before I knew my daughter would wake up. Sure enough, as though it was a sign from above, a huge gust of wind told me it was time to clean up by slamming the side door and shattering the window.

So, that's it for today. God told me it was time to stop. Tomorrow, I'll finish the carbs, and then get back to work on dropping the engine.

 

[El Bandito]

All right, I only had an hour today between stuff to do, so let's get down to it.

First priority was removing that screw. Handy easy out screw remover and a drill bit did the job.

Once I got the cap off the carb, everything looked great, except for the cap and the screws.

So I grabbed my lemon juice in the kitchen, fired up the stove, and gave them all an acid bath. Just like C3PO in Star Wars.

Note to self - kitchen reeks of burning lemon and hydrocarbons. Air out kitchen before wife gets home.

Once they were all back together, they look, if not new, at least the same. Note the replacement screw - my hardware shop has limited selection, but they are close and cheap, which is good. I'm open to suggestions for replacement hardware with the right caps, as you will see later that my bike has a few screws loose (proof that maybe it was made for me.)

So, here's the bike so far (I believe this is my first picture posted here of it - I do have a seat and a tank, and all side panels. They'll come up later, perhaps in an official before and after shot once I'm done.

Tach cable removed:

I took a look at the side sprocket cover, and it looks like the bike is missing at least 3 fastners. Can anyone confirm what size and length I need for replacements here? There's the top one, which is easy to see in the picture, but one of the bottom screws is missing too. The three screws that were there were two different sizes, so I'm open to suggestions.

And of course, the horror once it was off. I don't think this has been degunked in 30 years. You can't see it, but there's even a spider web in the top left corner.

That's it for today. I drained the oil, soaked every screw I could find with PB Blaster, and now have to search for a saw to cut off the muffler. I think my dremel will do it, but I am currently out of saw blades.

Next time: dropping the engine (hopefully not on the ground.)

 

[klr_guy]

Boo - none of your pictures work.

 

[El Bandito]

Hum. They all show for me, but I've uploaded all the pics to my server so they hopefully can be viewed. Worky?

 

[klr_guy]

they all work now - thanks. Good write up.

 

[Franko!]

Pic show for me...

Great work!
I like to see old bikes being brought back to life.

 

[El Bandito]

Once my wife was home, and dinner was done, I was able to take some time with the Dremel to take off the old exhaust. I love my Dremel. I think of it as the motorcycle of power tools. Small, nimble, with a 17,000 rpm redline. Cuts through anything.

The biggest challenge was finding the right angles to get through it without the blade touching anything else (like the chain - I'd rather not replace it if I don't have to spend the money.) 10 minutes of lying on the ground, hoping I've swept up all the broken glass, and the exhaust split in two.

This side doesn't look too bad - I cut the cross pipe before the seriously rusted section.

It doesn't show well here, but the clamp was wrapped around a big rust ball. And I'm pointing to where the right exhaust was completely rotted through.

No regrets about cutting that off.

And today I ordered my replacement 2 into 2 exhaust (in the end, about $100 cheaper than the 2 into 1. Someday I'll get a pipe bender and make my own, but for now it's down to what's on Ebay.)

 

[RetroGrouch]

For a job like that, a cheap grinder with a cutoff wheel from CT would be much more efficient.

 

[El Bandito]

Efficient in which way? I already own a dremel and the cut off wheels, so this costs me 0 additional dollars. A CT grinder, while faster I'm sure, would also have to be purchased. Cost efficiency is lower for the grinder, time efficiency is higher.

A grinder is on my wish list for someday, though...

 

[Freestyle72]

Efficient in which way? I already own a dremel and the cut off wheels, so this costs me 0 additional dollars. A CT grinder, while faster I'm sure, would also have to be purchased. Cost efficiency is lower for the grinder, time efficiency is higher.

A grinder is on my wish list for someday, though...

When I bought my angle grinder from CT it was on sale $45, for the grinder + 20 cut off discs +10 grinding discs or so... To date I've only used one disc. It's more than I will need for a while lol.

 

[RetroGrouch]

I bought my CT grinder for $20 on sale. I just used it to cut through a piece of .25" aluminum plate. A grinder is a very helpful tool when building, restoring and modifying bikes.

 

[GreyGhost]

Another vote for the poverty CT angle grinder (the one that goes on sale for $20). Even though it sounds like a bag of marbles when you use it, the damn thing just keeps working.

 

[El Bandito]

Unfortunately, I had the flu these past two days. I won't go into details... but I'm feeling much better today.

So much better that I decided to take 30 minutes this evening and take out the engine.

Step 1 (if you ignore all previous steps, which I do not recommend), remove front sprocket:

Off with the upper engine mounts. These will need to be cleaned, as they're quite rusty, especially on the inside.

Remove the two monster lower bolts, having first held up the engine with a jack, and voila!

I admit, this was a lot heavier than I expected. I suppose a beach ball of metal should be heavy, though. None of my lazy layoubout former friends were willing to come over and help, citing issues like children and broken legs. I just won't be calling them anymore.

Next step? Clean the crap out of everything. This bike is filthy, and I have no interest in getting all the crap from the outside into the inside of the engine. That's Saturday's plan!

 

[El Bandito]

Sorry for the delay. I've been better for a bit, but I've been very busy. I decided that my daughter doesn't need a morning nap anymore, partially so I can have a longer uninterupted period in the afternoon to work on the bike, but it seems that instead she just isn't sleeping at all.

But we shall persevere.

In the meantime, I got the engine up onto my workbench and under the halogens. Here's why I'm bothering to replace the head gasket:

You can see that the left hand cylinder is leaking oil. I'm hoping when I open her up that it's just the seals, and not something bigger.

Before opening her up, I wanted to get her nice and clean. As you can see, her bottom is a little dirty:

She still needs some work, but she's looking better:

I had better luck with the back and sprocket area:

And then I finally took off the cam cover:

I love how that looks. I stopped there because I realized I still didn't have my new gaskets, and there's no use moving forward without them. Tonight I instead pulled the rear swingarm to inspect the rear brake, rear shock absorber, and make everything clean, and I have a few shots to share, but right now they're stuck in my phone.

So, until tomorrow!

 

[Rotten_Ronnie]

Subscribed! :happy1:

 

[El Bandito]

Last night I had some time, and no gaskets, so I turned my attention to the frame for a bit. For the most part, it's in really good shape. There isn't even much surface rust, and so I'm not going to have to touch it. I was a little concerned about the gunk on the swingarm, though. Here's the before picture:

The swingarm came off easily enough, but I was horrified once I started cleaning it with some engine degreaser. The black paint was coming off! But hang on, now the alignment marks were appearing, and they were silver. A quick check on google images confirmed that the swingarm is not supposed to be black - it's supposed to be silver. That's a lot of grime.

While cleaning:

I reinstalled everything, retorqued the bolts, and then removed the front fender so I could inspect the front brake. The caliper is in great shape, and should just need a bit of cleaning.

With the fender off, you can really get an idea of what a chopped XS might look like:

Um... I suppose it would just need an engine. More on that later!

 

[skip]

subscribed.

I have wanted to do a bob'ed version of a xs for awhile now.....but I think my wife would kill me if I brought another bike home.

Looks great so far!

 

[El Bandito]

Ugh - wrong gaskets. I hate delays.

 

[El Bandito]

All right, so where were we. Here are the DOHCs:

Which were carefully removed. Now it's a NOHC:

I love egg cartons for this kind of work. It's like having little small parts dispensers that can get covered with oil, while making sure that I don't lose anything, and all the parts stay mated:

I was really worried about losing the chain into the engine compartment.

And here's what I found when I got the head off:

You can see exactly where the oil was leaking out through the gasket on the bottom left of the photo.

I cleaned off the oil, grime, and gasket remainder using the flat of a screwdriver, a 3/4 inch chisel and tin foil, as well as lots of carb cleaner (is there anything carb cleaner can't do?)

While cleaning everything off, I discovered something that absolutely delighted me under all the grime at the front of the engine:

An Easter Egg! This little logo is completely invisible when the engine is assembled, sitting between two fins on the engine. And especially when it's under all that grime.

After an hour or so of cleaning, it's all looking much better:

And that's when I discovered that I was sent the wrong replacement gasket set. Which means I'm now stuck. Fortunately, there's still lots to do, such as cleaning the cylinder head, which will be tomorrow. Then, we paint!