paultsmith

Thanks, I'll recheck all of the wires. It is only intermiten, as I have only been shocked once, and was holding onto the HT wires with out a problem. Must be a fault somewhere. I think this may be related to the problem I was having before, when sometimes I would here a puff sound, when I turned on the ignition, I think the coil was discharging or send a high voltage to the spark plug.

Hello, Well yesterday I was running low on gas, so as I was driving I reached down and turn the petcock from On to Reserve. But just as I finished doing this I got a huge electrical shock. I am now trying to find out what could cause this. Any thoughts? I might have touched the pickup coil wire when I was turning the petcock, or maybe the spark plug wires. The spark plug wires are brand new and have new plug caps on them, so I didn't think this would be the problem, but the shock was very strong. Is the pickup coil on top of the cylinder outputing a high voltage too? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Is there a way to know if I need to rebuild my master cylinder? I can squeeze the lever and it feels fine and is moving the piston/

Thanks, I haven't rebuilt the master cylinder. I just thought everything was fine since it wasnt leaking, but perhaps the internal seals are not great. Perhaps that is the way to go, but for the price of the rebuild kit I think I might just buy the entire cylinder, $20 for the kit and $70 for the entire control. Besides my reservoir diaphragm is on its way out and the metal retainer is starting to rust. Should I be concerned at all with the caliper piston, there was some slight rust on the outside portion that makes contact with the pads. I cleaned it up and it seems to be fine, but woulld this hinder performance? I also have a rear drum brake. I replaced the pads, however it is very poor also at braking, perhaps just how it is or should I scuff up the drum with some sandpaper for improvements.

I just buttoned up my XS400, turning it into a cafe racer. I am a little concerned about the stopping power. It doesn't come close to stopping on a dime, and I was wondering what componenet is most likely responsible for this. I can really pull on the brake lever and it won't lock up, perhaps I have ABS I am sure I have the air bleeded from the system. I also put it in new brake pads and replaced the seals in the caliper What should I replace to get some more stopping power, brake lines, rotors, piston, cylinder reservoir? I was thinking it may be my brake line, as it is the original and after placing some lower bars I need to snake the line around quite a bit.

I am having an intermittent noise sometimes when I switch the ignition of my bike on. It is an 81 XS400. The noise sounds like a large puff or release of air. It only happens sometimes and occurs about a second or too after I turn the key to run. It happens before I start the bike. It also seems to happen when the bike has been sitting and moved around without turning it or starting it for hours. Any thoughts on what could be causing this? I thought it may be the battery breather venting or perhaps the engine breather releasing some pressure, but am not sure why it would happen all of a sudden once it gets the 12V of power. May also be the carb breather vent or gas tank venting???? It happens every once and a while and I cant seem to pinpoint the problem as it happens pretty quick Thanks

thanks, going to use my 5kohm new caps

I am replacing the spark plug caps and high tension wires on my XS bike. The service data sheet says that spark plug cap should have a resistance of 10kOhm resistance however the new caps I bought have a resistance of 5Kohm and I am having a problem finding the 10kohm caps. Any one know if there will be a problem using the 5kOhm resistance caps? The bike has CDI ignition. There was not a problem with the old caps and whe I measured them they were at about 6kohm.

got it, took out main jet and tapped it out

How do I remove the needle jet on a Mikuni 34 carb? I want to take it out of my 81xs400 and give it a good cleaning, but they both seem really stuck in there.

Is there a way to open the tachometer and speedometer gauges on an XS? I have a spiderweb on the inside and would like to crack it open to clean out the web. I would also like to paint the metal ring around the glass, without having to tape everything off. It looks like there is a metal ring crimped around the plastic to hold the glass on these gauges, but was wondering if there is an easy way to open it up. Thanks

Hello, I have an 1981 XS400. The exhaust headers on the bike are rusted up quite nicely and I have the presence of some RTV where I joined the slipon pipe to the exhaust header. I was thinking about wrapping the header with exhaust header wrap to conceal these uglies but was wondering if it is a bad idea. AS the bike is air cooled, I was wondering if using exhaust header wrap if it would prevent proper cooling, and was wonderig if this would cause my exhaust valves to get too hot and eventually end up burning. Any thoughts?

If you have the transistorized ignition you can check the resistance of the pick up coils resistance. It should be about 700 +-150 Ohms

To check Ignition Coil Measure Ohms Primary coil resistance 4.0 ohms, red/white & Orange Wires Secondary coil 8.6-9.5KOhms orange and spark plug lead

Thanks for your help everyone. I did a bunch more compression tests and each cylinder was giving me the same pressure +-10psi. I also checked the valve clearance and adjusted them. One cylinder was very loose and the other very tight. I reasembled everything and was still having the same problem! Checked compression again and it was good again, so I decided to take apart the carbs. I cleaned the carbs again and put them back on the bike. I will probably need to do some synchrnoization soon. One slide comes down much faster and not as smooth as the other. I also took out the mixture screws and noted that one of the small orings had caught on the spring, so it was probably not seating correctly. I put everything back on the bike and still not much of a change. I left the bike idle for many minutes and then held it at 4-5K rpm. The bad cylinder was sputtering and oil/mositure or gas was visible all over the inside of the left exhaust pipe. It started backfiring a bit and some white smoke was coming out. I just kept it idling at 5k and after a while it seemed to clean itself up. It seems to be running fine now. The bike had been sitting for a number of years and I had put in some oil in the spark plug holes, before along with some carb cleaner into the carbs too. Perhaps there was just a bunch of gunk and buildup in that cylinder that was giving me the trouble. Currently the bike is at the dealer getting safety inspected and new tires, but I drove it for about 20mins today and it sounded good, and there was a lot of heat from the bad cylinder.