Cy Welch

My XS11 is named Brutus (he's a brute of a bike) and my XS400 is named Baby (she's my baby, getting ready for a complete resto).

Frankly in that situation I would have had HER wear the helmet and went without myself. Never endanger the passenger more than yourself.

I'll have to say I rather like the spoke wheel look on them myself. Now if the drum brakes just worked worth a darn. What I would like to do (eventually) on my xs400 is convert to disk on the front while keeping the spoke wheels.

Actually it is the original (or at least OEM seat) but the PO did a crap job of recovering it. He just pulled to new material over it and apparently considered it done. I'm going to get it professionally recovered to fit nicely into the bike as soon as I can afford it. Oh, and the windjammer was dealer installed, making it was was often referred to as a "dealer Venture". The difference between a factory and dealer Venture was the factory had a pacifico fairing that was Yamaha branded with matching bags and the dealer version used the vetter fairing and bags. Next is going to be adding a vetter trunk in place of the luggage rack and matching the paint job on it too.

Any of the XS models with mechanical speedo and tach will work with the 400.

Yes, but next is to get a gun and put my compressor to use and stop using rattle cans.

You might be able to find one on ebay, but they can be quite rare, but when you find them they are much cheaper than from the dealer. I hear there is an H4 conversion kit for that size, but I can't remember where the site is for them.

I actually found a used set on ebay for mine that ended up being far tighter. Now my wiggle is pretty much gone, now if the helpers when we moved hadn't scratched the paint I would be far happier, I'm begining to wonder how many times I'm going to have to repaint my little 400, I've done it about 4 times so far. At least this next time I should only have to redo the tank instead of the tank AND the side covers.

If the idle is sticking high it's the idle mixture being lean. The diaphram has nothing to do with that, and neither to the main jets. You might consider changing the pilot jets to bigger ones that you have now if you can't adjust it with the idle mixture screws. Adjust the screws out for the highest idle (don't forget to turn the idle speed adjuster down as you do this) and the problem should go away. I ended having to go way further out than I thought I should be idle speed is rock solid now and when I let off the throttle it comes right down without hesitation.

Just finished phase one of the repaint on my XS1100G, just wondering what folks thought. Before After

Should be 3 vacuum hoses. The ones from the petcocks go to the rubber boots on carbs 2 and 3 (the center 2) and the one from the bottom of the engine (vacuum advance line) goes to the vacuum port on the number 2 carb (the one ON the carb not the one on the boot).

I'm not sure that a magnet would do much good since I'm pretty sure that's all aluminum, which for some strange reason I have not been able to get a magnet to pick up.

It's pretty rare for them to be so bad that you can't rebuild them. What is it about them that makes you think that they are not fixable? They can seem pretty bad as times but if you get a good carb kit, it comes with the most needed parts (needle valves, valve seats and gaskets) normally needed. I tried 3 replacemend carb sets with mine and ALL of them were worse then mine, and after rebuilding them they now work great (and it idles and runs perfectly now), I just need to replace all the gaskets in the engine now from it's long sitting time, plan on doing that this fall.

You can get new master cylinders from MikesXS and they will fit just fine. Just don't tell them it's for an XS400 or they won't sell them to you. All the XS models share the same disk brake parts except for the XS1100 specials.

I had this problem with mine, and it turned out that the idle mixture was too lean. You can't just go by the number of turns but need to either use a colortune or adjust by ear (adjust the screw out a little on each carb as long as the idle speed goes up keep going, then when it starts to drop off again, go back down slightly). Once adjusted correctly (and you WILL need to reduce the idle speed screw as you do this) it will drop right back down every time.

The switches for those are available as complete assemblies from MikeXS, just don't tell them it's an XS400 as they only sell parts for XS650's, but the control pods are the same.

From what I have seen/heard all the XS models use the same calipers and pads.

No, the mixture screws are on top of each carb between the slides and the carb mount, and on 80 and newer they are under a brass plug which needs to be drilled out to get to them. I would suggest changing them, along with the o-rings that go around them as they are probably pretty gone and idle mixture tends to not adjust right without good o-rings.

I would not recommend chen chin, they seem to grip fine but they wear really fast. And they don't wear evenly either.

You don't have breaker points, you have electronic ignition. Unless you take it apart that part of the engine is never supposed to be opened up. Check your timing and if it's right don't worry about it.

The traction and price are good, but they don't seem to last long. I expect I will go with a different brand next time around even though they have a pretty good match to the type of tires my 400 came with.

Best place for information on parts and such for an xs11 would be xs11.com. Lots of information specific to the bike.

Rules and courtesy are the same as for cars, you dim your headlights when approaching oncoming traffic. In some localities it's actually illegal to use your high beam in built up areas.

I didn't remove the speedo cable from the hub, I disconnected it from the speedo along with disconnecting the brake cable from the lever. After that the two parts just seperate. I didn't replace the drum I just cleaned it up after disassembling the whole thing. Spent about an hour with the sandpaper getting the rust as cleaned off as I could (13 years sitting in not the best of conditions). Then about 6 months later I took it apart again, broke the glaze with sandpaper again and put in new shoes again is it's been good since then.

I would have to agree. JB Weld is the best stuff out there. Get things good and clean and it should be able to fix up that leak just fine.