Jon
XS400 Member
Hi all,
I've posted a couple times on the board in the past, but wanted to give you guys the full story of the 1982 Heritage Special rebuild into a brat / cafe style ride. Took me about a year and a half. Other than a few odds and ends, she'll be ready to ride as soon as the rest of the snow melts here in New Brunswick (CAN).
I picked up the bike for 700$, and it was actually in pretty good shape. Only had 12,000KM, which is crazy. I could have left it as it, but hey, what's the fun in that. The picture below is not mine, but looked exactly the same.
Got her home and started the teardown. Pulled the engine and tried to remember where all the parts went. (Took a lot of pictures on my phone).
Once I had it down to the frame, I cut the back end and welded on my seat hoop. Turned out nice, but the hoop metal was thinner than I thought, so ended up being pretty hard to weld without going through. I reinforced the rear frame with a steel bar that you can't see under the cross section.
Next I started scrubbing, polishing, de-rusting, scrubbing some more...
The carbs were in good shape, just needed a good cleaning. I ended up rejetting the main jet and pilot jets since I was installing Uni pod filters. As others suggested, I went 2 up on the main jet and 1 up on the pilot jet. Also moved the needle 1 position. Air/fuel mixture screws are now turned 3 turns out. I also synced the carbs using a homemade manometer, and glad I did since one side was pulling quite a bit more than the other. (Now it idles and sounds great, no hanging revs).
Brought the pipes back to life too...lots of scrubbing on those. Mostly just Coke and aluminum foil though...quite amazing what it can do.
...on to part 2
I've posted a couple times on the board in the past, but wanted to give you guys the full story of the 1982 Heritage Special rebuild into a brat / cafe style ride. Took me about a year and a half. Other than a few odds and ends, she'll be ready to ride as soon as the rest of the snow melts here in New Brunswick (CAN).
I picked up the bike for 700$, and it was actually in pretty good shape. Only had 12,000KM, which is crazy. I could have left it as it, but hey, what's the fun in that. The picture below is not mine, but looked exactly the same.
Got her home and started the teardown. Pulled the engine and tried to remember where all the parts went. (Took a lot of pictures on my phone).
Once I had it down to the frame, I cut the back end and welded on my seat hoop. Turned out nice, but the hoop metal was thinner than I thought, so ended up being pretty hard to weld without going through. I reinforced the rear frame with a steel bar that you can't see under the cross section.
Next I started scrubbing, polishing, de-rusting, scrubbing some more...
The carbs were in good shape, just needed a good cleaning. I ended up rejetting the main jet and pilot jets since I was installing Uni pod filters. As others suggested, I went 2 up on the main jet and 1 up on the pilot jet. Also moved the needle 1 position. Air/fuel mixture screws are now turned 3 turns out. I also synced the carbs using a homemade manometer, and glad I did since one side was pulling quite a bit more than the other. (Now it idles and sounds great, no hanging revs).
Brought the pipes back to life too...lots of scrubbing on those. Mostly just Coke and aluminum foil though...quite amazing what it can do.
...on to part 2