Somewhere along in the timeline, the photographer went missing.... While the engine was out, I opened the two drainplugs, and felt around inside and found..... gasp.... a couple of large pieces of metal.... Ruh Roh........ The oil "filter" is a pretty crude contraption in the sump, meant to pick up and "strain" the big pieces.... the XS sump filter is a known weak point, and indeed.... Yes, those are slivers of metal... ....and these were the pieces I retrieved from the sump: So the engine was set upside down, on it's head (by the way, a very stable position!), and the case was split.
So far, opening the side covers had revealed a pretty nice, quite clean interior... But the truth would be outted when the case was split..... :eek1
It was with a little more than "slight" trepidation that I read up on the drama involved with "Splitting The Case"......
Great thread. I just seperated my XS from its sidecar this weekend to give it a well deserved makeover. I dont know where its headed but I want to make it a more capable dual sport setup. What were those rear shocks from? I used a extra set from my Scrambler which have a height of about 14" but now I want to add some more travel and better brakes to the front. I am thinking of something along the lines of a YZ or XT front end.
I just looked on eBay and PayPal to see what I bought... I found that I spent $37.00, but don't know much more than that.... will sort through my receipts to see if there is something a little more descriptive... The nice thing about the shocks is that they are eye/eye, so there are a myriad of options. If I remember, I went for shocks from a bike that would have been of similar weight/engine (as opposed to shocks from a 175 or such!)... Sorry can't be of more help than that for now....:eek1
One thing that really impressed me, once I opened it up, was the size/massiveness of the bearings... HUGE ball bearings for the crank mains, and generally just really strong stuff... 'course shoulda know that from the heft of the engine/gear... that sucker is seriously heavy, they packed a lot of gravity into those cases!! If you look at the middle, towards the bottom of the row of gears, you will see some dark grey and broken... that was the problem: The beauty of this design is that, once the cases are split, all of the bearings/gears are just laying there, easy to pick up and take out...... no shimming and all the precision stuff (NOT my strong suit!).... These are the busted/broken/nfg parts: So I did a search of eBay, and again, one of the blessings of XS is that they made a bootload of them, and parts are available for very reasonable prices. I found a full set of gears for about $50, shipped... hard to beat THAT! Nice, eh? They fit and work perfectly!
I VERY carefully pulled the shaft/gears apart, in sequence, and laid them out so that I could put them back together in the SAME sequence..... (we learn these tricks as we get "wiser" with age....) I just lifted out the entire gearshaft, did not disturb the shifting forks and other magical pieces.... ...while I admired the camshaft drive system from its underside, as well as the MASSIVE main roller bearings for the crank (without disturbing them, lest I annoy the gods of engine-roar magic....)
so, gears removed.... PS: did I say that I found a barely-readable photocopied download of the original shop manual for these puppies... very helpful, indeed!
Ahh... you see Baza and overloading go together Baza & Bev stuck near the top of heart break hill after an 'off' entering the '11 TTT rally
Gotta build them right to make them work!!!! Good to see another inmate who's prepared to do dirty work on their ride, think most XS650 riders have been down this road of discovery MikesXS are good people to deal with, 650Central is worth looking @ too, Mike Morse is a top bloke who knows his XS's Good spannerwork & keep project photos coming Cheers Baza
That's a classic shot ..... ....reminds me of my boys when they would see a puddle... we're all just boys at heart!!
Will didn't want the original tank to the bike... it was actually in pretty good shape, with no rust, a coupla chips in the paint. Very different in size from his chosen tank, off a DT175 iirc... So the decision was to strip the DT tank and try to do something in the bare-metal look... ...and with some wetsanding it ended up looking pretty good... it had some dents and dings (patina!) that show up more with the bare metal... I used some metal-wash (dry powder mixed with water from Eastwood) in a spray bottle to keep it wet as I sanded... and it was truly amazing to see how long the metal stayed non-rusty! months!
Buddy keeps an eye on his domain.... He doesn't much like the smells that I make in the garage and shop, but he hangs outside, keeping the world safe for dogdom... all dogs walking to and from the park across the street are duly announced, and warned....
Have you checked out my buddy John's(SOS) thread?Very similar build. http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=843072
I bit the bullet and bought an inexpensive powdercoat setup.... the gun kit was about $100 on sale from Eastwood, and I found an old wall oven ($50) on the local Craigslist....and got it installed in the garage... yeehaw! But, then in the way of these things, if you have a powdercoat setup, you have to have a blaster, and some media.... so a cheap blaster, a bag of soda, a coupla bags of HomeDepot sand (and a requisitioned sifter!), and we could do a proper prep.... ...and of course you havta have the TUNES.....
Ooooff... he has a lot more "builder" skills than I... I am just assembling bits and pieces to make the bike fun. I took a welding course, but don't have the facilities (nor would I begin to TRUST my own welds for something critical like a shock mount and swingarm!) But, we both havin' fun....no bout adout it!
Got a coupla little bits p'coated, then went for the big guns.... We were finally able to get a set of rear ss spokes, so we got this done which gave us "inspiration".... (......damn! did WE do that??!!!) When powdercoating wheels, the bearings have to be pulled, so all new wheel bearings (AND headstock bearings, AND swingarm bronze bushings).. so we did all the "weak points" that people report as the bikes age.....
Will went off to his summer internship, and I was left behind, once again, to toil in the bowels of the man-cave.... Got the front rim p'coated (yes, you can get a 19" rim into the oven... working VERY carefully, it just about fits on the diagonal....) and the wheel laced.... and the new tires mounted...