XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father - DONE!

Re: XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father

That is looking really nice.Thoughtful and generous gift,should be lots of good Karma following along.
Now where are my sons they need to see this.................

 

Re: XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father

Two things:

-The channel in the caliper for the seal needs to be cleaner than what I'm seeing in the pic above; and let's have a close look at the piston for signs of pitting where the seal rides.

-Cable luber:

 

Re: XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father

So it's been a couple weeks since your dad's birthday, I was just wondering if you''ve given him the bike yet. And if so, what was his reaction? Did you get to ride with him yet?

 

Re: XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father

Indeed I've been slacking on updating you guys! Sorry to leave you guys hanging!

Life has just been crazy crazy, commencement is next saturday and I have a few more things I have to get hammered out this week in order to ensure I graduate! haha.

Plus I'm going to be homeless come the 15th as the place I've been renting sold and since the lease was contingent on the house not selling, that kinda threw a wrench in that. So between those and a few other things, life's been keeping me on my toes!

But Yes! I will update you guys with the rest here in a sec so I can put off working on that paper just a littttttle bit longer

 

Re: XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father

Alright, so here's the last bit!

There's still things that I want to do to it, but for now it's rideable, reliable, and safe, so that's what's most important

OH! Does anyone have the connecting rod/latches for the seat?? It was driving me NUTS trying to figure out how the seat latched. Well turns out after finding a picture of what it's supposed to look like with a google image search, it turns out I'm missing the entire latching part! Doh! 8O

I'm still waiting to come across a clean chrome front fender, and I did not have the time to get the remainder of the dent in the top of the tank pulled. Hopefully next winter I will be able to get that popped, strip the tank, and then bodyfill and sand out the remaining imperfections, and finish it off with some new paint on the tank and side covers.

I want to put in new fork springs and replace the rear shocks with some nice progressives.

I also have to tap the other mirror threads, It had one mirror on it when I bought it and just a plug in the other, but when I tried swapping the matching set of mirrors over from the parts bike, the clutch perch was the wrong thread/too small of a hole. Not quite sure what's up with that but I did not have the correct tap in our metric set at work so I had to leave it with one mirror for the time being.

I still have yet to wash it lol. By the time I finished bleeding the brakes it was about an hour from sundown and I wanted to hit the road so I wouldn't freeze - well I froze anyways haha. Plus to me a good detail job is 10hrs+ and that time was non-existent, and I figured my dad would rather have his son home and a dirty bike than a clean bike and son not home I'll go home this summer once life settles down and I can spend a weekend with my dad detailing our bikes, I want to polish the cases as well.

I originally had planned on bringing it home on thursday, but the caliper rebuild kit's tracking said it would not arrive until friday. Well friday comes and I wait and wait and wait but no rebuild kit. I was really bummed. But since I had to get it home that night there was nothing I could do other than clean up the old seal best I could and re-use them and run them that way until I have the time to pull it all apart again and rebuild the caliper with the new seal. Really hate having to do something twice that is completely unesassary if the package would have showed up on the date they promised, but my only other option was to drop 57$ for an OEM set from the local yammie shop.

I also borrowed a tach cable from another parts bike at the shop as the new motion pro cable I had ordered failed to show up in time as well.

So those two things kinda sucked but it mostly worked out so on to the good things!

It was a frenzy on friday so I diddnt really do as well at taking pictures, but I did grab a few. I ended up just picking up and throwing in a new cheap wet cell, it'll be okay for a season or two at least. I also picked him up a batt. tender so it can sleep happily in the garage and get the most out of it as well.

New SS brake line -



Going back together:













Ready to go -


So me in all my wisdom, when I glued that collar, I failed to even think about positioning it correctly. So I had to hit it with the grinder to make it work. I have a replacement now and next time I'm home I'll throw it on no problem.


About to make the maiden voyage home!


And yes that's a pan of cookies that my gf made for my dad too


And so I rode it home! Ran like a top, really had a blast riding it home, I had never ridden it other than riding it home from buying it and that was with bad tires, borderline brakes, ridiculously loose chain, etc etc etc. So this was the first time I really could ride it. These 400's are fun little bikes no doubt and someday if another were to come under my nose for a decent price, I'd have a hard time passing it up for a nice townie bike, fun little scoot thats super nimble compared to my 750. But that'll be after the 550 project's done

Ended up pulling into town around 9:30 and parked it in a friends driveway as I told my dad I would be getting a ride home with a friend to keep from arousing suspicion of being home without my car. I came into the house an ice cube and tried talking normally as possible trying to hide the fact I was shivering uncontrollably lol.


I had originally planned on getting home sooner and hiding the bike in the garage while my dad was still at work, but since I waited so long in hopes that the caliper rebuild kit would arrive I got home much later than planned and my dad was already home, so I had to come up with a plan B as I was too excited to wait until morning.


So after a bit I convinced my family that it would be nice to take a walk around the block. So around the block we went and when we passed my buddies driveway my dad commented on how Seth(my buddy) must have gotten a bike! I couldn't have planned it any better, I said well lets go take a look at it, and then after a bit of waiting I told him it was actually his. He really diddnt have any words and was just completely shocked and blown away. Mission successful

So I had him climb on and I gave him a ride around the block and then home as it was cold and also pretty late at that point.

So here she is it all her current glory!




And here are some pictures I took of my dad the next day when the sun was out







And he did take it for a ride around the block at least!!


The last temp he had gotten have now expired so he has to go over to the dmv and get another and then this summer we're going to take a trip up to Michigan together for a MSF course for a little father/son bonding trip, plus in Wisconsin its ~300$ for the class and in MI it's 25$!!

I was planning on buying a new helmet this season as well so now I'll have my eyes out for a buy one get one 50% off deal or something as he wants to get a new helmet and proper gear as well. He does have a helmet to wear in the meantime, but It's past 5 years old so a new helmet will be in store.

So yeah! That's all she wrote for now, I will update this thread in the future as little things are done to it, but for the most part it's another project in the books and I'm really happy with how it turned out and even happier with how much my dad loves it. It gives me the goosebumps and a big ol grin just sitting here thinking about it

My grandpa's house already sold and since closing is on the 16th of this month he's been a pretty busy guy, but once that passes and life settles back down for both of us there will absolutely be some rides together in the future

Plan was to take them to the Badlands in South Dakota, that will be a fun trip

Thank you to those whom have offered help or suggestion along the way and for following along on this adventure, I've sure had a blast

Happy spring riding and I will update this thread in the future with whatever updates occur!

Chris

 

Re: XS 400 Restoration Project/Present for my Father

As always...Excellent storytelling Chris!
Thank you for taking the time from your busy life to update us. I'm sure he can appreciate all the time and effort you put into it.
I hope my daughter grows up to be that thoughtful and generous.
Seems most kids nowadays are without thought and so self centered.
More people doing things like that in this world would make it a much better place!

I wish you and him many safe miles together.
Ride safe everyone!

Oh and now that he has an XJ...tell him to join the forum!!

 

Motorcycle uperstore dot com has some great prices on good helmets.

 

Sweet!

 

classic. great job.

 

Thanks so much everyone!!

I couldn't be happier myself

Have a few things to do to the girl, been ordering a few thing sand planning to take a trip home to spend a weekend with my folks and dad especially. My grandpas birthday was August 17th and want to spend time with my dad.

Finally found a seat latch on eBay for a decent price so that will be there by then, I have a new tach cable, have some new progressive fork springs and will pick up some 15w oil to go along, thinking about seals but I think they were good.

It killed the first battery and second too, seems like its not charging, but last time I went home I fired it up and it was charging, so I'm not sure. Regulator maybe?

That and I guess the start button is sometimes intermittent? Is that a switch contact issue?

But it obviously kicks just fine so that's why he's just been doing. It would be nice to sort out the electrical though.

In other news though, I bought another project

1976 Aermacchi built Harley Davidson SX 125

Maybe I'll post a thread here even though its a Harley