XS-Time

Ha Ha I love that clip. I don't see to much of that anymore now that i'm on the island.I used to live quite a bit west on Hwy 16 from where you are. But when it does snow down here it's not to far off from that clip. Some people don't know how to drive in the snow.

OK I finally got all of my plain bearings and thought I would share what I found out. Through all this I managed to get a partial photocopy from my local Yamaha dealer. I assume that this is from the factory service manual and this is where most of my information comes from. The photocopy, my Haynes manual and the manual I down loaded all show a chart for selecting the crankshaft and con rod bearings. As I stated earlier the #’s stamped on the engine case and crankshaft are easy to find but I could not find any number for the con rod big end bearing. I think the number might be printed on the arm when new but does not last to long inside the engine. Looking at the crankshaft bearings I could not find a color or a usable number on them so I did not have much confidence in finding markings on the con rod bearings. I hade no choice so I just took the big end bearings out. To my surprise there were obvious color marks on the edge of these bearings half way from the ends. So with this info and part numbers from Yamahas online parts catalogue I went to my local dealer and ordered my parts. Now I should note here that I ordered parts for my second engine which came out of an 1982 XS400SJ. When the dealer looked on his computer based parts catalogue it only showed the dual overhead cam models. When I pointed out that he was looking at the wrong engine he had to go to the parts fiche to find my model. I was told the parts would be here in 4 days which surprised me. It ended up though that some of the parts were backorder to Japan, which is what I expected anyway. After several weeks all the parts were in except for one crankshaft bearing. After a couple more weeks I found out that the bearing had been discontinued. The dealer gave me the current part number and suggested that I try on the internet. I managed to find it from a dealer the next province over and it was even cheaper. So when I picked up my parts I noticed that the colors for the crank bearings were off. The part numbers were right but the colors were wrong. I suspected that they were packaged incorrectly and asked the dealer to re check them. When he got back to me he told me that all of the stock in the warehouse was the same. He suggested that I plastiguage the bearings it I didn’t feel confident in them being right. I agreed but mentioned that it gave no tolerances in either of my manuals. He said he would look into it further. When he got back to me he told me that Yamaha used the same bearings in the FJ1200 but that the colors were different. I looked up the bearings for a 1986 FJ1200S using Yamahas online parts catalogue and found the same part numbers as my 82 XS400 but the colors were listed as different. I don’t know why they changed the colors but I do know that if some one in the future tries to order bearings for my engine based solely on the colors on them, they will get the wrong ones. Not good! So the good news is the photocopy my dealer gave me. I has all the tolerances and specs for the 82XS400 engine. The clearance for the con rod big end bearing is 0.021-0.045mm (0.0008-0.0018in) The clearance for the crank bearings are 0.020-0.044mm (0.00079-0.00157in) I hope this can help some one and clear up some of the confusion. I do have other specs for this engine. If anyone wants them just let me know.

Leather Rat Board? Not a chance! I laughed out loud. I had no idea it was so complicated, I just figured it was slang for monetary units equivilant to what we use. It's not even close. I mean we have loonies and toonies but there nowheres neer as cool as 2 Bob and a Tanner! Drewpy I just sent my money so you can take me off the list of shame.

Sorry! I figured it out shortly after I wrote it. Doh!! 4p+96p=1 Pound. Normally I would make a joke about $1.00 Can = 75 Cents American but lately our Dollar has been close to par. But the freight charges are silly.

96 Pence = 1 pound? 100 Pennys = 1 Dollar. What happend to the other 4 Pence?

Nice Bike! How nice? I just scrolled through 15 pages of a fourm in Dutch. THEN I read that there is a translated page!

Thanks for the E-mail Drewps. Sorry I have been away for a while. I do remember a couple of months back saying I would take a patch so I guess it's time to put my money where my mouth is! How much is it going to cost for one sent to Canada? Yeh there are some words here that I don't understand either. Peeps ? 4p ? I assume thats 4 cents. (never was sure what a bob, quid or a shilling was) Oh and thanks for clearing up the "rats on the moon" thing.

So THAT'S where old bikes go to die.

Thank you again. I was hoping you were going to say that.

Thanks for the info about speed and sport i'd never heard of them before. They are deffinitly going into my binder. Plus they are on my side of the pond. I have a Haynes manual and one I downloaded (?) and they both talk about the stamping numbers but I if you have the genunine Yamaha manual it's hard to argue. What does your manual say about the rod bolts? Thanks again for your help. You seem like the go to guy for xs400's around here.

Thanks Drewpy I also have the Haynes manual and the way that I read it is that for the Crank bearings you subtract the numbers on the case from the nunbers on the crank ( or the other way around). I have found those #'s ok and I have found the set of numbers on the crank that relate to the con rod. But I am sure that there is a number on the con rod itself so that you can do the same subtracting formula to get the correct bearings. I have found that the con rod bolts are discontinued from Yamaha and they were expensive when available. The manual says they should be changed but if I can't find any is it OK to use the old ones?

Hi I am trying to order new con rod / crankshaft bearings for my 82 XS400 SJ (sohc) engine. The bearings are orderd by cross referencing stamping numbers on the case ,crankshaft and connecting rod.I can find the stamping numbers on every thing but the connecting rod. Does anybody know if they are stamped on or printed on? It almost looks like there might be something printed on but I can't read it. Thanks! ps any body know where to get con rod bolts?

I love your bike. I keep coming back to stare at the pictures. I like that you did all this without spending a lot of money, I am trying to do the same on my XS400 (not spend a lot of money) I keep thinking that you should make a plate out of aluminium and mount it behind the top of the rear shock. That will make it look like the top shock adjuster on the Velocette. A set of spoked wheels would look good to. Now if only you could find someone to make you a set of fishtail mufflers out of stainless steel??

Hi. Sorry I have been away from this site for a while. If anyone would like more info on this, I came across a couple of web sites that help shed some light on the topic. The first one is a site for ultra light aircraft. They take their ignition system very seriously. He does a couple of tests to see how resistance affects the spark. http://www.ultralightnews.ca/articles/resistorcapsandplugs.htm The second one I believe is a site for BMW F series bikes.You’l have to ignore all the info about rebuilding the resistor caps because ours are not rebuildable. There is some good info here also. http://faq.f650.com/FAQs/PlugCapsnCoils.htm The short story is that I feel perfectly fine putting 5K ohm resistor caps on my bike. I don’t believe that there will be any downside to the decreased resistance.The 5K caps are also much more easy to find.

Not all spark plugs have the threaded ends but the ones that are threaded come with a thread on cap so they can be used with "standard" wires. Use the threaded ones.They stay on better. I agree with the solid core wire but you should use resistor caps. The caps are the end of the wire that pushes over the top of the spark plug. They screw onto the wire and are available separatly. Your 81 should have electronic ignition like mine and not the points style. See my earlyer post asking about proper cap resistance. If you look on mikes-xs they list non resistor caps (for the 650) only for point style ignition. They show 5K Ohm caps for electronic ignition, but it souds like our 400's came with 10K Ohm caps. I'm still trying to figure out if the 5K caps will work in place of the 10K caps.

Thanks for the reply duaneage. What I am talking about is the resistance in the plug boots (cap). In my old bike with a 6V system and magnito , it is perferable to have no resistance in the plug/wire/cap combo to get the most voltage to the plug. The downside to this is RFI noise, heard as a crackle on your car radio. The manufactures started to use resistor caps and spark plugs to eliminate this. I didn't know if the RFI would affect the TCI (black box) and if it needed a specific resistance in the caps to operate properly.

You will have to check your local laws. I know that here in western Canada they are not legal. The problem is that in an accident they don't deform like the metal ones, They crack open and spill fuel all over the place. Still they look nice and the price is reasonable.

Hi I have a 1981 XS400 with the electronic ignition. I want to get new plug wires as the old ones look like they are original. I don't want to buy factory ones as they are expensive. I found a web site that has bulk wire and NGK plug ends. The only problem is the ends have different resistor ratings. I don't know what is the correct resistance for the stock wires. If my bike had points I wouldn't worry about it but I don't want to mess with the TCI unit. Does anyone have any ideas?