Seeking advise.

[sixtynine]

I had a BSA motorcycle back in the fifties and have had a hankering for another one ever since. My son-in-law was storing a 78 XS1100 for a friend who decided to sell it and I bought it.
It has 16500 km on it, looks good and supposedly the only problem is leaking petcocks. I am not a mechanic but did manage to change the oil and attempted to fix the leaking petcocks, but one still leaks. I charged the battery, put some gas in the tank (and floor), pressed the starter and lo-and-behold it started after a few tries. But here is the problem, it only runs on the two right hand cylinders, i.e. only the right side exhaust pipes get hot. WHAT TO DO? Please help.
Sixtynine

[mitch]

Well Where to start

First welcome to the site,hope you are mech inclined, you must be if you ran a BSA lol. I ran a few Brit bikes in my day. How long was it Parked? You will need to clean the carbs, check the oil for gas as sometimes the carbs will leak and it will fill the crankcase. Look on your left on this page and click on FAQ, thats a good place to start. Good luck, The XS is no BSA it will pull your arms out of their sockets when its running right. have a great day ........MITCH

[nashville_bill]

The left two cylinders' fuel comes from one petcock and the right two come from the other, so if you have only the right two running you might start looking at fuel problems. That could mean that the #1 and #2 aren't getting any. (I've been there before) Check the plugs and see what they look like. Also, check to see how much gas is in the float bowls on #1 and #2.

One coil feeds the spark to #1 and #4 and the other feeds #2 and #3 so you probably don't have spark problems.

Good luck!

[strom]

Take off the offending non running cyls. petcock hose, get another one, put the petcock to prime and blow like an idiot into the petcocks. Don't eat too much gas, it has a bad taste.
That should free some goo around the petcock filters in the gas tank.
Put everything back together, put it on prime, take a small hammer and GENTLY tap the bottom of each carb float bowl. That should free the needle/seat that the float is supposed to close when the carb is full of gas.
Try to start it.
Pull the plugs and clean em. Check for spark.
Try to start it.
Check the tech tips section... what to look for in a neglected XS...
Report back to us what's up....

LP

[scoobes]

why not just swap the fuel supply round so that the right hand fuel tap is feeding the other side,

[John]

Just rig it up to supply all carbs from one petcock. That's how I have mine set up. I have them both plumbed in, but I have eliminated the octopus, and am too lazy (forgetful) to turn them both on and off.

[TopCatGr58]

He's got a 78 Standard, doesn't have an octopus, but does have vacuum controlled petcocks. Like they said, check the petcocks, you can get actual rebuild kits for them from places like Partsnmore.com, don't get them from Yamaha-you'll pay and arm and a leg!!!!!

Most of us are not actual Mechanics, but have learned to "play" with these wonderful machines to get them to run right!! They were the most powerful and fastest bike of their time, so, yes, you'll need to learn how to respect it and ride it.

Yes, read thru the tech tips, you'll learn about the known bugs that can afflict us. The carbs are notorious for getting gummed up as well, but with modest cleaning efforts, you'll get it right. Don't forget to wear a face shield cause it'll be too hard to floss the bugs out of your teeth(from the Sh*t eating grin you'll have!!!!)


PS: Welcome to the Forum, just an FYI, for real tech problems, feel free to use the other Forum, this one is more for just shooting the breeze and off topic discussions!

[sixtynine]

seeking advise

Hi again.
Just a note to thank you all for responding to my S.O.S.
I will mess around with the petcocks to get them working right. I checked "partsnmore" website but the rebuild kit is out of stock.
I will let you know how things turn out.
thanks again
sixtynine

[scoobes]

check ebay there are always repair kits on there,