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When I bought the XJ11 I knew there were things to fix but I had no idea how one vehicle that hadn't been chopped by an amateur could have so many things done wrong to it. I've put hundreds of hours into this restoration since late 2010 and still I keep exhuming idiot things the PO did. The most recent I found last night but I have to kick myself as well for not going over every single bolt & nut before driving it in the first place but who does that when they buy a vehicle? You look to fix the obvious.
OK, so I have a list of things to do to make the bike both look right & be back to stock again. I keep whittling down at the list & last night I get to the "De-rust Chrome on front axle bolt & Castle Nut" job and I'd already replaced the rusty cotters with SS cotters but hadn't undone the nut. So I remove the SS cotter and just out of habit & before I removed the castle nut I thumbed off a bit of grime on the nut & instead of letting me push the grime off, the castle nut rotated... The idiot PO didn't even put the nut on finger tight, just put it on & cottered it.
I've always thought the bike was a tad unsteady going slowly in slow circles/parking & one time I was tightening a glove & had both hands off the handlebars for a second and the bike immediately started wobbling violently at lower speeds. I tried it again to see if it was the road & no, it happened every time. My 650 doesn't do this. Now I know why... I torqued the castle nut to I forget, 75 pounds of torque, whatever the # the manual says, and it's like it's a different bike with none of the wobble issues.
I'm putting on new tires so I'd have found this out then but this PO was amazing, he did so much incompetent stuff to this bike. Thank God most sellers aren't as bad as this one.
OK, so I have a list of things to do to make the bike both look right & be back to stock again. I keep whittling down at the list & last night I get to the "De-rust Chrome on front axle bolt & Castle Nut" job and I'd already replaced the rusty cotters with SS cotters but hadn't undone the nut. So I remove the SS cotter and just out of habit & before I removed the castle nut I thumbed off a bit of grime on the nut & instead of letting me push the grime off, the castle nut rotated... The idiot PO didn't even put the nut on finger tight, just put it on & cottered it.
I've always thought the bike was a tad unsteady going slowly in slow circles/parking & one time I was tightening a glove & had both hands off the handlebars for a second and the bike immediately started wobbling violently at lower speeds. I tried it again to see if it was the road & no, it happened every time. My 650 doesn't do this. Now I know why... I torqued the castle nut to I forget, 75 pounds of torque, whatever the # the manual says, and it's like it's a different bike with none of the wobble issues.
I'm putting on new tires so I'd have found this out then but this PO was amazing, he did so much incompetent stuff to this bike. Thank God most sellers aren't as bad as this one.
I know I was both amazd and appalled at what I found when I did this with Banshee, like rear brake pads worn halfway through the metal (not the pad material, not the rivets, the metal material of the pads!!) A cracked rear rotor due to the matal on metal heat developed (cracked S/S rotor?!!) could go on and on just like you.
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