!!! 1986 XL600R Adventure Bike Rebuild !!!

[crobox]

Thanks fellas! I too am pretty pleased with how it turned out.

One thing that bothers me slightly is the different shades of blue in different places. But you know, you can't get adhesive vinyl sheet in EVERY shade of blue (just 2 shades) and you can't get automotive spraypaint in EVERY shade of blue (just one shade that I was able to find) so you work with what you got. In particular I wish the vinyl on the side covers and the fairing was a bit darker... more like the tank or the rear fender. But that's just the artist in me nitpicking, I guess.

Originally Posted by Zombie_Stomp

Do I have a gig making you a seat cover? If you want the XL logo, I'd need to make 24 seat covers and wait for screenprinting, but I can do the replica seat covers.

Well I would be dumb to say no! My only request is to try to match the shade of blue pretty closely to the tank and rear fender. What shade you got?

Originally Posted by Zombie_Stomp

EXCELLENT BUILD! Having that shop really speeds things up, right? I know testing has been limited, but how is the custom o-ring oil seal holding up thus far? I really love the bracket solution you came up with. Everybody should have one of those on their XL.

Thanks dude! I was because of your concise statement about the decompression shaft seal being the ONLY one you can't change without removing the engine that I came up with that whole thing. At this point the custom O-ring seal insert is working flawlessly. I do seem to have one oil leak, which is where the stator wires exit the case side-cover at the U-shaped grommet seal. I think I assembled that particular area without extra silicone, and later read about using a little extra sealant there.

Originally Posted by Zombie_Stomp

P.S. I would personally enjoy the sight of shock boots on it.
Bar risers? Definitely! When you stand up while foot-steering over the rough stuff, your arms, shoulders, and neck will thank you. Go for the highest rise possible.

Shock boots? Not sure I'm a huge fan. But I'll consider it.
I'm sure I will just make my own bar risers, so I can make them however high I want them. Any suggestions for specific dimensions?

Cheers,
Christian

[Zombie_Stomp]

I always wanted to make my own bar risers and even took a CNC machining beginner's class, but just didn't make it that far. Too many different media I wanted to work in. I wanted them to have a very unorthodox logo that said, "Fuck you, I'm riding!". That's some inside humor from the film Idiocracy. Anyway, I would start with 2", and if you make a pair for me too, I'll be your shop slave when I visit. Also account for available additional cable length with handlebar risers, as this is a big part of Rox Riser's disclaimer regarding potential throttle cable binding...

[crobox]

Thanks bro. The way I routed the throttle cables (and actually the clutch cable too, for that matter) I have plenty of slack. I don't think 2" of rise will cause me problems. Might improve things a bit, actually.

For some reason, the "stock" routing, as per the illustrations in the Honda manual, were all too tight, so I did something a little different. Working very well... no weird throttle issues or anything.

[crobox]

Even though this photo was taken with my phone, it shows the correct colors much better than the previous pix.

[Zombie_Stomp]

Sent an e-mail regarding bar riser construction and universal-ity. I started this thread a few years ago because I wanted to make ones with rubber bushing dampeners. But now that my XT has those built in already, I'm not as concerned with that feature. But just for the hell of it, "How are Rox Risers Constructed?": http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=480809

I hear that those bar end weights they sell for $80 work really well. They are mounted inside the bars with a weight suspended on a spring steel rod to create a counter-vibrating object that is out of phase with the vibes coming in, thereby cangcelling the vibes out altogether. Hey, you could probably make that too! Just need to make 'em with a threaded hole so bark busters can also be fitted.

Anyway, looking forward to your next machining adventure: 2" bar risers!!

[crobox]

I read your thread about risers, and it was descriptive enough that I started designing some in my head. Polyurethane tube stock can be purchased from McMaster Carr. The design I was cooking up in my head actually looked a lot like

these.

And I gotta say, those look pretty damn slick, and I am frankly a little impressed with the price. I thought they would cost more.

[betitou]

What an awesome job, Christian!
Wish I was so handy...

[Stretchah]

Originally Posted by crobox

Even though this photo was taken with my phone, it shows the correct colors much better than the previous pix.

Good work, and even better now I can see the real colours :) Very impressive build and thanks for a great thread - now looking forward to some great ride reports

[crobox]

Originally Posted by Stretchah

Good work, and even better now I can see the real colours :) Very impressive build and thanks for a great thread - now looking forward to some great ride reports

Thanks man!

Yeah, it's been too cold here recently to ride much. But I am planning a weekend camping / trail ride trip with some friends. Should be fun.

A few developments with the bike...
•Replaced turn signal relay.. now I have turn signals.
•New mirrors coming in the mail soon.
•Will probably machine a fork brace one of these days (actually not super soon... I've moved on to some paying work finally!)
•Also have some vinyl coming in the mail, and will make a new seat cover soon. It's gonna match the tank, with the stripes. Will post pix.

Cheers,
Christian

[Taosmoto]

What a cool project! Can't wait to see all of the details in person. Unbelievable attention to detail...

[Taosmoto]

"Again, STOP IT WITH THE ETHER!"
Later,
Jack

Question for Jack: (Please forgive my pedestrian question) Why is ether so bad for the motor? I have a 2005 CRF250X and a KTM EXC 450 and neither really like to start in cold weather without a little blast of engine starting fluid. Any other suggestions for these cold-blooded beasts?
Thanks.

[TonyfromOR]

Originally Posted by Taosmoto

"Again, STOP IT WITH THE ETHER!"
Later,
Jack

Question for Jack: (Please forgive my pedestrian question) Why is ether so bad for the motor? I have a 2005 CRF250X and a KTM EXC 450 and neither really like to start in cold weather without a little blast of engine starting fluid. Any other suggestions for these cold-blooded beasts?
Thanks.

Hope you don't mind me jumping in. Ether is (obviously) very flammable and can ignite in your intake tract and air cleaner.

Most (not all) of my hard starting problems went away when I switched to ethynol-free gas. The ethynol is less volitile than gasoline; it vaporizes at a higher temperature. I think in the summer gasoline evaporates faster than the ethynol, so what started as E85 is now E55. The longer the gas sits in the tank, the harder it is to start. Ethynol-free gas here is about $5 a gallon, when you can find it.

[High Country Herb]

It has been a while since I visited this thread (or rode my XL), and I am very impressed with how it all turned out! I really like the orange around the number panels; I think it really ties everything together. I look forward to seeing what you come up with for the seat cover.

Now I'm motivated to get my XL out to do some riding, even though it doesn't look anywhere near as good as yours.

[LandsVW]

Thought I'd pass on what I learned. Most of you probably know this but some probably don't... 1986 XR600 dual carb

"Yeah, so I got crackin' today and pulled the float bowls off... Guess what? they were reversed! No wonder the dang thing wouldn't start and the choke had no effect! I bought some spray carb cleaner, went to work. some crud was in the main jets but nothing too serious. I have 125, 125, 45 as jets btw.

I put it all back together with new allen head bolts, set the air screw to 1 3/8's - which after more research seems to be the setting for a dual carb bike, and it fires right up! She runs really sweet.

How many years have people been fighting this bike b/c someone put the float bowls on the wrong side? Who knows...

...the left bowl has a small brass fitting right below the choke that enters another cavity and is either blocked or opened by the choke lever. The right bowl has the castings but has not been drilled out and the brass fitting is not there."

http://advrider.com/forums/showthrea...835547&page=13

Hope that helps someone!

[crobox]

So it's been a while since I posted here, which makes sense since the bike basically got finished a while ago. However, in the past few weeks I've finished up some things and made some new parts, so I'll stuff a bunch of pictures into this-here post and bring this thread up to date.

My bike never had a front sprocket guard, so I made one. I wanted to mill in a design, and played with different designs that I could handle on my rotary table. I came up with this design (which I now think is a bit visually "busy," but whatever...)



The next thing I made was a fork brace. It has helped quite a lot with high-speed front end wobble. Making the brace was a fair amount of work, and I thought about just buying one. But I figure that IF I can make it, I might as well. That frees up money for other stuff.



Ever since building the bike I have felt that the space beneath the headlight cowling looked "empty." On the euro-spec XL600s, there is an oil cooler there, but I didn't plan on doing that. I decided to put in a tool storage tube. It was a fair amount of work which involved a special fixture to hold the tube which uses the fender mount bolts and sandwiches between the fender and the bottom triple clamp, as well as flattening (or oval-ing) the tube, and of course lots of TIG welding. But I think it looks cool... it sorta looks like an aluminum version of the leather wrap thing that some Harley guys have in roughly the same place.



And FINALLY, just today, I made my new seat cover. I'd had the vinyl hanging around for months, but just never got to it. I think it came out pretty well.



And finally, two pix that show the overall bike:





I have also played around with jetting quite a bit in the last month or so, and found that a leaner-than-stock setup of 60/115/112 is working best for me. I'm at 7000 ft.

There's not a whole lot left to do on the bike, but the short list I can think of includes figuring out a mounting system for attaching a fiberglass military surplus crate that I already own to the rack, as I'd like to use it as a top box, and improving the bike's water-crossing abilities with various vent tubes and such.

Cheers,
Christian