It's 1979

[Grimly]

Made the blanking plate from some scrap 3/8" (10mm) mild steel plate, with enough left over to make a couple of adapter plates for the GSs when I get around to replacing the petcocks on them. The older GS petcock responded well to a replacement rubber multi-holed selection washer and some re-facing of the mating surfaces, but the newer one still has a tendency to leak very slightly, so might need total replacement.
The front brake seals arrived and are now in place with brakes bled up fine. I think I'll fit a Honda Deauville master cylinder, as I like the feel of them and they have an adjustable lever span, but that can wait.

 

[Grimly]

Noticed a couple of weeks ago that one of the Hagon shocks had blown its guts, so was waiting on some new shock bushes to allow me to fit the old GS shocks to the XS. They arrived, that's done. I don't know whether the Hagons were the right size, but the GS ones are an inch longer at 13". Seems to make no difference to the ride height anyway, as these old original GS shocks feel more softly sprung than the Hagons. They'll do for now, just to get it back on the road. Given that I'd bought the GS shocks as used-but-good just to keep the Suzuki going when the Killer Pothole blew the air shocks on that, I wasn't expecting too much of them, but they worked well enough, if not fantastic. Amusingly, I only recently re-discovered the damping adjustment on them. I'd totally forgotten about that, since it's been so long since my last original set of GS shocks.
Here's a tip for anyone with OEM GS shocks - check under the rubber cap at the top for corrosion - my first set rotted away completely there, due to road salt being trapped underneath.

 

[Grimly]

Had got the XS400 tank back weeks ago from a local who brazed a couple of fuel tap outlets onto it. When I went to pick it up he told me he'd soldered them on. Ok, that would work, if the solder is good and properly done.
Only, it's not.
One of the fittings damn near came completely out of the tank at the slightest nudge today when I was painting it.
Can just imagine that happening when going along the road, so glad it happened now, before there was any fuel in it and it makes it easy to rectify.
Of course, it will wreck the paint I've now done, but it's not showroom, so I'm not too bothered about that. A few quick repair blasts will fix it.

Oh well, re-instate the Special tank for now.

 

[Grimly]

[TABLE="class: tborder, width: 100%, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: alt1"] Great golloping blobs of Fry's Lead-Free solder fixed that up, good. Not pretty, but strong enough. Installed the taps - LH side, an On/Off/Res tap (must check the flow rate on that, as the main inlet pipe on it seems a bit thin) and the RH tap is a Reserve-only genuine BAP tap, as used to be fitted to many older Brit bikes.
I think I'll get a BAP Main tap for the LH side and do away with niggling worry about the fuel supply. I'd hate for it to run into lean-out trouble later on, when it could be avoided.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: alt1"]My intention was to have On/Off/Res on the left and another Res on the right, but to make sure of sufficient fuel flow I'll forego that, and just have one reserve.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Grimly]

Uncertainty and doubt about flow-rate and demand exceeding supply made me re-instate the Special tank, which looks much better than it did, now it's got a fresh coat of black paint. I still don't like the shape of it, but it will do for now. Stripped, examined and re-built the vacuum taps and surprisingly they're perfectly fine now. The slight leakage they were showing was probably due to them sitting for years dried out.

 

[Grimly]

Fitted an AGM battery to the XS650 - since it has no starter motor, I reasoned a much smaller battery would be fine and since I fancied an AGM, I decided to try something out. I trial-fitted an alarm system battery of 7Ah, which might (or might not) live happily with the charging system of the bike. I wait to see how it pans out.

 

[Grimly]

I thought I'd not get out on it today, as the weather forecast was not good at all. It turned out to be erroneous (no surprise there, as the weather in Ireland can change very quickly, seeing as we're on the edge of one of the world's great weather factories). Anyway, decided to have a venture out.
After warming it up in the workshop and wheeling it out, as soon as I sat on it and took it onto the road, it felt for all the world like a 70s lightweight of small capacity - like a 250 Superdream or XS250. In fact, the low weight, narrow bars and better weight distribution than I'd been used to for years, kind of threw me and it took a good mile or so to get the feel of the bike. Once it had warmed up I started to give it some throttle.
It pulls like a freight train - any resemblance to a 250 went out of the window when the throttles opened up. The Mikuni VM34s fitted to it had made me wonder if any of the POs had done any internal engine work. Guess I won't know for sure until I ever have to pull the head. In the meantime, there's a few small things needing done but I'll have this on the road for the rest of the summer, at least.

 

[Grimly]

Well, after a bit of running around the back roads, today I took it up the local by-pass and gave it a bit of welly. It reaches an indicated 80mph quite rapidly and seems happy enough sitting at that speed, but I suspect it's actually around 70mph. Need to check - 80mph indicated corresponded to 5000rpm, so I'll look at the sprockets and x-ref with others' posted figures for a corrected reading.
Still got a couple of niggling oil leaks, but I'll attend to them soon enough - clutch pushrod seal will be renewed when I delve into the heavy clutch action, and the bottom filter plate needs a couple of helicoils and a new gasket as a matter of course. The valve-adjust access panels could do with new o-rings, and one of them is weeping, also the cam oil seals are showing signs of age, which is to be expected. All this can be done as part of the shakedown - it was never a full-on strip and rebuild, just a get-it-going exercise.
Today was also the first shopping trip with it in its new guise of Pragmatic Ratter, with a topbox strapped to the nifty little platform, and I picked up some groceries and nuts 'n bolts to fasten the side panels on that will protect throw-over panniers from the springs.
When I got back to the house, the rear brake decided it didn't want to play any more and went away. Sodding thing - again, not entirely unexpected from ancient seals, and the rear brake was a bit of a forgotten item - it worked and seemed ok, so was left untouched, pending a later rebuild.

 

[GS1150Pilot]

Such a cool little bike, grimly.

 

[Grimly]

It's like chalk and cheese leaping from one to the other - the Yam feels like half the weight of the GS, and is really nice to throw around, but when I get back on the old Suzi, it feels so smooth in comparison. Horses for courses, really.
It's now got a 14mm master cylinder from a Kwack GPz/EX500 and it stops on a dime/penny/cent (delete as appropriate to your locality), but there's a bit of lost motion in the calipers which is translating to wasted lever movement up top. I've ordered new pads for now and will try to find some decently priced bits and bobs to replace the worn anti-rattle/squeal shims and the caliper slider boots too. Once they're properly done, I suspect they'll be good enough to keep, but if not, I'm looking seriously at fitting a pair of slider Brembos from a NTV650/Deauville, as they've hit the sweet spot of being not too old, plentiful used, and cheap.

 

[jbird7262]

This is one I did all the paint and body work on.

 

[jbird7262]

 

[jbird7262]

And another one

 

[jbird7262]

One more...

 

[jbird7262]

Everything on this bike is "wet paint" by me, all PPG single stage and bc/cc

 

[Grimly]

Ooh,, nice.
Love the fuel level indicator - any problems with that?

 

[jbird7262]

That bike was delivered to the customer at a car show so the fuel line was not connected, but they work great!, but the bungs have to be tig welded into the tank, I think I have done 3 different choppers with those, none have leaked, and it gives you a visual of how much gas is there, none of these bikes are long distance rides, more just bar hoppers, beach cruizers. All the owners have big street bikes if they want to ride long distances.

 

[Grimly]

Well, that was easy...

Well, that was easy...

I put some new pads in the fronts - cheapo Caltrix, as I didn't want to spend too much if I was wrong - and the lost motion has largely disappeared, thanks to the presence of unworn and square pads now. There's still a bit, but I suspect that's caused by slight wear on the sliding pin and bush and possibly ancient rubber of the bush on both sides. The angled wear on two of the pads was a dead giveaway to worn sliders and pins. I'll replace those in due course, but for now it's got two-finger stopping with the 14mm m/c and the lever is still a reasonable distance from the bar at full squeeze. These old brakes are actually decent enough if kept in good order, and when these bikes were new, I don't recall them having rubbish brakes, especially with the twin fronts.
Moving on to the rear brake - I dismantled the rear caliper and found nothing out of order, everything was free to move, but when I laid the brake line down on a slope and cracked off the union at the top of the m/c body, a spurt of air came out.
I know where that came from - when I laid the bike on its side when I was doing the starter blanking plate. Oddly though, it didn't show up until a couple of hundred miles had passed.

The small brake bits and pieces - the anti-rattle and anti-squeal shims don't seem to be available outside of getting an OEM overhaul kit, so I'll have to stump up for a couple of those by the look of it. Since I'm planning to replace the Caltrix pads with something decent, I'll buy OEM with the kit included - seems to be a fair price anyway.

 

[Grimly]

Fitted a pair of the lighter carb springs to the VM34s today. An immediate difference, as expected. Almost turns it into a proper throttle, instead of a wrist exercise. It's still not as light as I like, so looking seriously at fitting a set of carbs from the GPz / EX500, which several XS owners have discovered work well and only need a touch of re-jetting.
Oddly, I could buy the springs from a US supplier and including shipping they were just over the cost of one spring from a UK supplier.
http://www.nichecycle.com/ncs/mikun.../vm34-06-spring-throttle-valve-by-mikuni.html
Nice to know the shipping costs for small / light items hasn't gone as insane as the other rates.