XJ 1100 project

I bought an 82 or 83 (weren't they only made for 1 year)? XJ1100 a little over 2 years ago. I paid $1200 for it and another $800 to get it road worthy. It needed a new front tire, front brakes, steering bearing, fork seals, and the signal lights had to be rewired. Lesson learned, I will never trust anyone ever again when they tell me a bike needs nothing for certification.

Anyways, I was told the bike has been stored outside for 5 years and was hardly ever ridden. The bike isn't in great shape, but the engine starts and runs like it was bran new! Last season my speedometer started jumping around. I took the speedometer housing apart (by the front tire), Inspected the cable, cleaned everything and re-greased it. I took it for a ride again and the cable snapped! 8O

I went to my local bike wrecker and found that he only had 1 maxim 1100, and about 50+ other maxims (mostly 650's). I guess my bike is more uncommon then I thought. He showed me the 1100 and it was pretty much stripped down to the bare frame. Luckily it still had the speedometer cable and housing. I took that and installed it on my bike, but it didn't help anything.

It then dawned on me that someone must have rolled back the speedometer with a drill and in the process, screwed up the internal gears. Looking the way it does, I have my doubts that it only had 26,000km's on it.

Because of this bikes rarity I don't think I'm going to be able to find a instrument cluster for it and I have no intentions of spending big bucks to find an original.

Now that I've replaced pretty much everything on this bike, I don't see what else could possibly go wrong (knocks on wood). I'm kind of getting tired of riding this bike and as it sits, it's not worth anything if I were to resell it. I thought about making some kind of project out of it. I really wanted to do a cafe racer, but I think its the wrong type of bike. It looks to bulky to me. I have also considered turning it into a bobber. I think it would look much better that way, but I'm not really the bobber type of person. I cant even stand regular cruiser bikes, and choppers... don't even get me started.

I'm still leaning toward the cafe racer style. It already has a 4 into 1 pipe with drilled out baffles. It sounds nice and it's loud but not Harley loud.

So what should I do. Any suggestions?

[/img]

[/img]

[/img]

 

You can bring that bike over to me. I will take real good care of it for you. J/K

The only thing that you can really do with an 1100 is let it be a cruiser. It is far to bulky, and with the wrong styling to do a cafe. as a bobber the PtW would be dangerous.

BTW: There have been a couple stock guage clusters on ebay for a while. It should not be that hard to find one.

Ghost

 

Or you could just ignore the labels and turn it into your bike,in the style that you like.......who's to say it can't look like a cafe racer? Lets face it,you're not going to fit drum brakes to it in pursuit of a truly authentic cafe racer style are you?! Style is subjective,if you like the profile of a cafe then just do it......its your bike at the end of the day,and if it pleases you then job done. 8)