1982 XS400 project

[Lunatic]

Great job, looking forward to seeing the end result. I've got an XS650 Cafe/fighter/mutant, love the old XS's

BTW, there's now a forum dedicated to the XS400, http://www.xs400.com/ XS650.com is run by the same guy and it's a great board.

[El Bandito]

Thanks for the tip. I'm actually cross posting over there, and they've got some great ideas.

[El Bandito]

Whew! It's been a long weekend.

My plan had been to get the entire bike painted, or at least primed over the Easter long weekend. Alas, my wife insisted that I actually spend some time with family, so there was a bit of a break.

No worries - during the break these arrived!



Which means that I was able to replace the head onto the engine, and get it all back together.



It still needs more cleaning. I'm debating whether or not I should take the time to strip the black spray paint off of it, or if it isn't noticeable. Hummm...

Anyway, back to paint. Here's what it looked like when I got the bike:



I tried to get a shot to show just how much orange peel there is in the finish. I'm pretty sure a previous owner just rattle canned it in their garage and called it a day.



As I stripped it, my suspicions were confirmed by the absence of any kind of primer. Still, now it's all pretty!





Which means it's time to prime. It's been a while, so I'm starting with the side panels, as they're smaller, so there's less cleanup if I screw up.



More tomorrow!

[El Bandito]

In the end, I couldn't resist, so I took off most of the black paint. Now that is a clean engine:



If I was going to cafe this bike, now is when the metal polishing madness would start. But I'm not going to. It looks great as it is, I think.

A couple of things are happening simultaneously right now, but I'll try to make sure this makes sense.

First, putting the bike back together. It seems it goes together much easier than it came apart.

I moved the engine onto a small platform under the bike, rolled it forward, and attached the bottom engine bolt.



Then it was just a matter of pivoting the engine up to get the middle engine bolt:



And attaching the top mounts.



Reattach the carbs and air box, and we're ready to roll:



Well, except that the gas tank is still not painted. So, while all this was happening over the last week, I also kept up with the painting. First, the side panels:



I have decided that I like the colour - it's a pearlescent blue/violet metallic, that should sparkle and trick the eye once it's clear coated and buffed.



They still need clear coat and buffing, but I've put them aside so I can work on the tank. I need the tank so I can test out the motor, so now it's primed too.



I've just finished sanding and putting on the first 12 coats of colour. I'll take pictures after the next 12, when it should start looking like the final product.

Still to do: repair and paint front fender, paint rear fender, replace front brake pads, bleed front brakes, tune engine (timing and carb balancing) and take er for a test ride. With some luck, we'll be there by this weekend, next week at the latest.

[gnatwest]

Any news?

[El Bandito]

I didn't think anyone cared, so I stopped posting. Thanks for reminding me!

So... things have moved along, but I got lazy and stopped updating. So here we go.

First, the painting is done. What a pain. So much sanding. I don't have a sander, so everything's been done by hand. That means that when I got tired, and thought I was done, the tank looked like this:



Which was okay, I thought, until my wife informed me that "it doesn't look like the paint on my car." Right. More sanding, polishing, waxing, and it finally looked like this:



To be fair, it does look much shinier now. The white bars are a reflection of some plumbing in my basement. Now, it does look like her car, only better.

So, painting done, I was very excited when my exhaust arrived. It was labelled on eBay XS400 all years. Right. Should have done my research.

Here's the old and new exhausts side by side:



Those of you with older XS400s will recognize the bends (if you're really nerdy about exhausts). But these bends don't fit the DOHC engine. See?



That's pressed as far in as it will go, and the exhaust is a little bit blocked by the engine. Back it went, stern letter to the sellers, and I purchased the correct part. Now I know that when looking for exhausts for the DOHC XS400, include the key word "Seca" and you can't go wrong (for engine parts, that is.)

New exhaust came a couple of weeks later, and it's a beauty!





The reorder also let me get the 2-into-1 that I'd secretly been lusting after as a second thought. Nice.

So, then onto the front brake. While pressing in the piston to put in a new pad, I heard a pop, and suddenly had no brake pressure at all. When I finally pulled everything apart, there were a couple of problems found.

1. The master cylinder had broken. New kits are pretty cheap, and while the circlip caused me a great deal of swearing, the new one fit in perfectly.

Here's the old cylinder with my specialty circlip removing tool. Two wood nails did the trick to break the circlip free enough to get it out with my circlip pliers.



Old to new comparo (new on the left.)



New master cylinder in, I discovered...

2. Rusted out bleed screw. I couldn't bleed the brakes because the channel through the bleed screw was completely corroded. I went hunting online for a replacement part, and couldn't find one for less than $80. $*)#U@!!! So instead, figuring I had nothing to lose, I soaked it in boiling lemon juice. Cleaned it up in no time!



Which let me bleed the brakes, with the new pads and seals installed. Nice!

Next task was the leaking front forks. The right was leaking, but I figured the left couldn't be far behind. Now, this job sucks. Trying to get the freaking caps off the tops of the forks was a nightmare! Little circlips that can only be freed when there's pressure on the fork? Who designed that?

I figured there had to be a better way. And there was. Take notes, people, because based on my internet research, this job is frequently cited as brutal.

First, I loosened the handlebars. I took my 3 inch ratchet extension and an 8mm socket, and carefully wedged it between the loosened handlebars and the centres of the fork caps. Like so:



A couple of things: a) don't let the socket press against the inside of the fork tube. No one wins in that situation. 2) make sure that you go slow, and try not to fire a socket extension into your forehead, and iii) if you try this too, and it works for you as well, you owe me a beer.

Cause it worked really well for me:



Next problem with the fork tubes is getting to that little recessed 6mm hex bolt in the bottom of the fork tubes. I couldn't use my regular allen keys, and couldn't reach with my ratchets. So, another makeshift tool:

First, get yourself a giant 6mm allen key, like so:



Next, chop off the little bit with something, like a dremel (I love dremels.)



And finally, load the long bit into your 6mm socket. Add a gigantic breaker bar, and you have an awesome new tool:



Which loosens your damper tubes, and lets you disassemble your forks, easy peasy. Well, except for getting the seals out, which is still brutal. In my case, it took a whole lot of swearing and elbow grease. I'm open to suggestions for next time.

At this point, I have done the following to the bike:

Repainted all the tins, plastics and the tank.
Replaced the fork oil
Replaced the fork seals
Replaced the front brake fluid
Replaced the front brake pads
Replaced the front brake master cylinder
Replaced the spark plugs
Replaced the head gasket
Cleaned the carbs
Balanced the carbs
Checked the float levels on the carbs
Replaced the gear shifter (it was held together with electrical tape)
Replaced the exhaust
Discovered that under all the grime, the swingarm is silver, not black
Replaced a 20 cent fuse
Replaced the tired out battery.

And here's the result:











This has been an awesome bike to work on. The whole time I kept thinking of things that could be modified. But instead, I think it's time to sell and move onto the next project. But you can be sure I'll be watching for anther XS400.

[gnatwest]

Looks totally awesome.

Ive got a 79, thats waiting to be rebuilt thats why I wanted more updates. Your project got me excited but Im nervous about opening everything up.

[El Bandito]

The 79 is the SOHC - much easier to find parts, but a little different from mine. If you haven't already found them, the guys at www.xs400.com are really knowledgeable about the SOHC engine.

[Freestyle72]

Angle grinder is on sale at Canadian tire for $19.95 right now.

[El Bandito]

Angle grinder is on sale at Canadian tire for $19.95 right now.

Picked it up. Thanks!