bullet308
XS400 New Member
...well, not quite...my father is still alive, if not by much. :-(
My dad, upon retirement from the railroad in the early '90s, got back into motorcycles in a large way and over time, built himself a very nice one-man semi-professional motorcycle shop in his back yard and was the areas only BMW Airhead wrench around these parts for a number of years. He made lots of friends, and along the way, accumulated a few motorcycles...
Personally, I put about 100,000 miles on several motorcycles, including 57k on my beloved KLR 650, which I sold about twelve years ago when I got married. Decided the risk wasn't worth it anymore...
Now, my dad is in a nursing home, terminally ill and I am having to raise funds to keep him in the very nice facility we found for him. That entails selling his house, and that entails moving all of his stuff out of there. So, I purchased a 12x32 portable garage building and put it in my back yard and have been dragging his stuff over one trailer load at a time.
Included were no less than eight motorcycles, including two '77 Airhead BMWs, one '65 BMW R50, a '77 Suzuki 750, a '72 Honda 125 (with all of 27 miles on the odometer), an '87 Honda TLR200 trials bike, and (of relevance) two '83 Yamaha XS400J Maxims. None of these bikes have been run in at least four years, some of them not in 15 or more. All sorts of parts, tools, accessories, and a Weston pneumatic lift to boot, not to mention welding gear, lathe and milling machine. Like I said, a rather complete one-man semi-pro shop. Most of the bikes are going to be sold off as I get it fixed up, but the big-ticket item is the house and it has to go NOW...
Oh, and if anybody happens to be trying to restore a Honda Twinstar 200, Rebel 250 or anything in that class...I do happen to have a factory brand-new motor for one...just sitting there...
One of the Yamaha's has been run in recent years, the other is a parts bike that spent a decade or two rusting in a tool shed...good parts donor, though.
I love the idea of a nice, light 400cc twin to ride around on, and these Yamas are about as good as it get in the light twin category. Also, I have two of them, and they really are not worth very much compared to the rest of them...and I really dislike heavy, ill-handling bikes like the BMWs and the Suzuki, and the 125 and 200 really are not enough bike to move my big ass around very well...
Only problem is, I am tall, and I HATE these early-'80s cruiser styled bikes...would much rather them have been an earlier, more standard-configured SX400 variant that I can stretch out on a bit. What I am most comfortable with, of course, is my old KLR 650...big and tall with room to stretch out on, fairly light, with a comfortable-for-me sit-up-and-beg riding position. and the long-travel suspension saved my ass big-time on a couple of occasions...
So, I see people have done all sorts of mods on these things to turn them into scramblers, cafe' racers, dirt-oriented dual sports, on and on...how about turning one into a "standard"? Or a road-based dual sport/adventure tourer?
Below are some pics to illustrate my situation...
My dad, upon retirement from the railroad in the early '90s, got back into motorcycles in a large way and over time, built himself a very nice one-man semi-professional motorcycle shop in his back yard and was the areas only BMW Airhead wrench around these parts for a number of years. He made lots of friends, and along the way, accumulated a few motorcycles...
Personally, I put about 100,000 miles on several motorcycles, including 57k on my beloved KLR 650, which I sold about twelve years ago when I got married. Decided the risk wasn't worth it anymore...
Now, my dad is in a nursing home, terminally ill and I am having to raise funds to keep him in the very nice facility we found for him. That entails selling his house, and that entails moving all of his stuff out of there. So, I purchased a 12x32 portable garage building and put it in my back yard and have been dragging his stuff over one trailer load at a time.
Included were no less than eight motorcycles, including two '77 Airhead BMWs, one '65 BMW R50, a '77 Suzuki 750, a '72 Honda 125 (with all of 27 miles on the odometer), an '87 Honda TLR200 trials bike, and (of relevance) two '83 Yamaha XS400J Maxims. None of these bikes have been run in at least four years, some of them not in 15 or more. All sorts of parts, tools, accessories, and a Weston pneumatic lift to boot, not to mention welding gear, lathe and milling machine. Like I said, a rather complete one-man semi-pro shop. Most of the bikes are going to be sold off as I get it fixed up, but the big-ticket item is the house and it has to go NOW...
Oh, and if anybody happens to be trying to restore a Honda Twinstar 200, Rebel 250 or anything in that class...I do happen to have a factory brand-new motor for one...just sitting there...
One of the Yamaha's has been run in recent years, the other is a parts bike that spent a decade or two rusting in a tool shed...good parts donor, though.
I love the idea of a nice, light 400cc twin to ride around on, and these Yamas are about as good as it get in the light twin category. Also, I have two of them, and they really are not worth very much compared to the rest of them...and I really dislike heavy, ill-handling bikes like the BMWs and the Suzuki, and the 125 and 200 really are not enough bike to move my big ass around very well...
Only problem is, I am tall, and I HATE these early-'80s cruiser styled bikes...would much rather them have been an earlier, more standard-configured SX400 variant that I can stretch out on a bit. What I am most comfortable with, of course, is my old KLR 650...big and tall with room to stretch out on, fairly light, with a comfortable-for-me sit-up-and-beg riding position. and the long-travel suspension saved my ass big-time on a couple of occasions...
So, I see people have done all sorts of mods on these things to turn them into scramblers, cafe' racers, dirt-oriented dual sports, on and on...how about turning one into a "standard"? Or a road-based dual sport/adventure tourer?
Below are some pics to illustrate my situation...
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