This thing's gonna nickel and dime me to death...

sounds like that guy wanted to learn how to play golf as much as most of us want to ride our xj's!

i just got my baby running after two weeks up on the center stand, rode it all evening yesterday and woke up extra early to take the looooong way to work!

 

Congrats!! I live 5 minutes from the office, yet when I ride to work for some reason it takes me at least half an hour.

 

There is nothing cooler than tooling around on a virtually brand-new 25 or 27 year old motorcycle. These bikes, once properly resurrected, are as bone reliable and thoroughly capable as anything you can buy today for 3 times as much, and still have to spend money to maintain. I paid $800 for my '81, put another $800 into it, and it runs and rides like a brand new bike (except for an occasionally psychotic turn signal self-cancelling circuit.) WELL WORTH every penny. I paid a bit more for the '83 (eBay) and won't have to put as much into it, but when it's done I'll have another virtuallly brand-new bike, for less than half the cost of a modern rocket. I might HAVE BOUGHT a new modern bike, but they just don't make "real" motorcycles any more... As far as the displacement thing goes, these "little" 550's will outrun my 850 Norton so I too do not feel the least bit "short" on zip, even on the freeway. Last but not least, my 8-year old installed and properly torqued the new set of plugs in the '83 and changed the air filer element himself, then informed me that he was sure he got the screws "sufficiently tight." I checked--he had!

 

Amen to both points!

 

It's not the displacement I'm after. I feel a little cramped on the 400 and I want something with a bit more room on it for me.

 

padawan: i know, takes me half an hour to get to work in the morning, but once the sun is out and it's nice and warm, seems to always take me about an hour to get back home! :wink: