76 XS500 inspection

[Dirk_Gently]

Well, i've had the new toy for just under a week now and have had time to look it over a bit. Thought i'd share my evaluation. This will be my 1st "project" bike as all my previous bikes have been runners at purchase. I'm enjoying pulling it apart and seeing what I ended up with.

The Good:

1) No rust on the bike. It may have been neglected, but it's sat somewhere dry. No fittings have been particularly hard to remove thus far.

2) I clipped my trickle charger to the bike's leads (no battery) to see what lit up and happily headlight, tail light, signals, neutral light, high and low beams, and break light switches all seem good.

3) I can move thru all 5 gears and find neutral without a problem

4) basically complete bike with very few parts being non-original or missing

5) kicking the bike over it feels like I have compression, but my compression gauge doesn't have a fitting for this bike's plug holes...so, this could be a problem. I'm an optimist though and there was resistance when kicking so i'm hoping.

6) brake pads have lots of life.

7) only 12k on the clock

The Not Bad, Just Needs Work:

1) YIKES! What a smell from the tank. I've seen some varnished tanks before, but dang. Nothing but sludge in this one. The tank itself is solid, so an acid bath and coating will probably work everything out.

2) Petcocks have a little funk in them, but only on the pick up tubes and at the fuel inlets. The brass filter screens look brand new. Looks like the bike was never run with the nasty gas.

3) seat is mostly good. 1 small rip, but I can probably sew it up or get the seat recovered.

4) Forks need new seals at the very least. They're dry and I haven't pulled them apart yet.

5) Front and rear master cylinders and front caliper (haven't pulled the rear yet) were pretty funky. I can't get much fluid to flow from the master cylinder reservoir to the lines. I'll probably need to really pull them apart and hope to find the clog. I'm considering a replacement master cylinder for an easy fix up front - CBR F2 I hear works?

The Bad

1) sizable dent in the tank. Not much to do to fix this one. maybe replace the rank. Maybe try to have the dent pulled?

2) a nylon washer inside the carb's slide gouged a ring into both the slides. The nylon ring does not slide smoothly up and down because of this. Shopping e-bay for a replacement set of carbs. Stick with stock? Or any other bike carbs any good?

Of course it's early days yet, but I'm hopeful to have it running once I collect enough parts.

[jrhendryx]

These bikes didn't have anything to keep the forks from smacking into the tank, so I bought mine with dents on both sides.

from what I understand, it is possible to get some carb kits, and I havent heard anything about replacing them with something else. It would be nice if they could be swapped out for the 650 carbs, since the parts are so much easier to come by.