Hi Everybody,

Last week I've bought a "garagefind" XS500 that hadn't been running for a long time and because I didn't drive one since 1980.......why not? At the first glance it looked O.K. and 100% original. The second glance was less promising: badly rusted inside of the fueltank, broken clutchcable, rotten mufflers, battery died, no starterbutton, dirt and grease everywhere and so on..... but this is all part of the "classic bike" fun of course and I took it home anyway. Because I didn't hear the engine run when I bought it I decided to make that happen before making a restauration plan. I "Kreemed" the fueltank, cleaned the petcocks and installed a new battery. After adding a few litres of 98 unleaded (Do they run on this?) I pushed the starterbutton for the first time. You can watch the result here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BjpEN7xwnG4

After this event I made a "to do list" and took the bike further apart and started to clean it. I orderd a new clutchcable in England and am wrestling with the oilfilter assembly at the moment. At least I will be busy this winterseason . This is my first post at the yamaha club and you will probably see me back with a few questions and solutions in the technical forum and hopefully share some do and don'ts with you all!

Curly

Hi Everybody,

Last week I've bought a "garagefind" XS500 that hadn't been running for a long time and because I didn't drive one since 1980.......why not? At the first glance it looked O.K. and 100% original. The second glance was less promising: badly rusted inside of the fueltank, broken clutchcable, rotten mufflers, battery died, no starterbutton, dirt and grease everywhere and so on..... but this is all part of the "classic bike" fun of course and I took it home anyway. Because I didn't hear the engine run when I bought it I decided to make that happen before making a restauration plan. I "Kreemed" the fueltank, cleaned the petcocks and installed a new battery. After adding a few litres of 98 unleaded (Do they run on this?) I pushed the starterbutton for the first time. You can watch the result here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BjpEN7xwnG4

After this event I made a "to do list" and took the bike further apart and started to clean it. I orderd a new clutchcable in England and am wrestling with the oilfilter assembly at the moment. At least I will be busy this winterseason . This is my first post at the yamaha club and you will probably see me back with a few questions and solutions in the technical forum and hopefully share some do and don'ts with you all!

Curly

Hi Curly,

Nice old bird you have there but remember to change the oil filter every 3k miles as the o.e unit would clog up in that time, I guess tho oil has got better and you may be able to strech the 3k limit

Regards Jim