Kawasaki video worth watching

Not an XJ but there is a lot of basic info from the video that carries over to the XJ.
I like this guy too.
I normally don't watch Shadetree but this guy he had I thought was MUCH worth watching.
Low compression caused by improper valve clearance

 

That and the follow-up were good. Was cool to see the carb sync in the second vid.

 

Thanks for sharing the video, @Melnic! The insights shared in the videos can be really helpful for understanding and maintaining our XJ.

 

As he says in the vid, a lot of bikes were parked up when they became a pig to start and the cost of getting them sorted out at the local mechanic or (worse) the dealer was too much.
Years would pass, with the bike just lying at the back of the garage until eventually one of us buys it. By the time the new owner gets it, there's a lot more gone wrong with the ravages of time, of course, but the base reason is easily fixed.

 

yup, 2-3x more $ than most people think to fix a bike like this.
In the past 2 years, I've brought back 3 bikes from the grave. The first bike I guesstimated there would be twice as many things wrong with it than when I evaluated it. I was correct. What I did not realize was I would spend about 4x the time I guessed doing it. But much of that was a learning curve. I did it for the experience anyway.
By the time I got to the 3rd one, I better estimated what needed to be done and strangely, flipped it for small $ gain vs expenses but if you counted my labor, I made $5 an hour. Again I was not in it for the gain and was actually trying get it working for a friend who ended up not buying it.

Friend was looking at a non running suzuki recently and was telling me he thought it would only need $50 carb rebuild. I told him always count in new fluids, filter, brake pad/shoes, brake line, caliper rebuild, master cylinder rebuild, and TIME. Tires are easiest to evaluate though but don't forget to factor that in.
Bring spring time, he ended up getting another bike, spending more $ on something that was ready to ride.

 

As long as folks remember to look at date codes as well as tread depth and sidewall checking . . .

 

EXACTLY!

I also happen to already have a durometer gauge to look at the hardness. There is a lot of argument/conjecture about age of the tire and usefullness/safety.