Stuck in the seventies, new to me SF

[w8lon]

Hello all, new member and old Yamaha fan. This one should be in the stable soon and hopefully ready for Fall Color touring by mid August. Long time rider but parked the road bikes in the early nineties, now that I live in a rather desolate area it is time to ride again.
http://up.craigslist.org/mcy/4519384337.html

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there,

Looks like a nice 79SF, advert doesn't mention miles??

Just an FYI, the fork gators are not OEM, but help protect against rusting/chipping! The Exhaust is also Jardine 4-2 not OEM, but OEM are next to impossible to find and $$$$$! The Jardines are one of the better aftermarket brands/styles vs. MAC! And it has a full fairing and saddlebags along with the smaller windscreen. The Handlebars also look to NOT be OEM which is good....the OEM/Buckhorns are horrible on your wrists....at least to most owners....JetMechMarty being one of the few vocal members that actually LIKE the Buckhorns.

Anyways, not sure if you're familiar with the XS11 series, or if this is your first time owning one. Find Catatonic Bug's member page in the Members List from the Blue Menu Bar just at the top of the forum....not the VERY TOP Menu bar....that one doesn't work. Follow his link to his website, you can download owner's and service manuals for your bike there in PDF format!

And if you haven't been on a bike in a decade or more, we highly recommend taking an MSF type refresher course to get you refamialarized with STREET riding and SURVIVAL techniques...those cagers out there are even more ignorant and Inattentive than 20 years ago now with Cell Phones, GPS and the like!

T.C.

[BA80]

Miles.....what miles? It's a 35 year old SF in GREAT shape with Jardine Spaghetti exhaust.

You haven't got it home yet?

[w8lon]

Mileage is 21,500, and yes kind of figured after market exhaust as owner stated that the Yamaha hard bags would not clear the exhaust without modification.
As for refresher course have been actively riding ATV's and Motocross bike in the past few years, defensive driving around here is Black Bears, Deer, new two foot deep washouts on trails that were not there the evening before. As for the drivers with cell phones the original reason for taking a break, 100k logged miles on the road thought things were getting crazy in and near the big city.

Looking forward to using the resources mentioned when the old girl is paid off.

[BA80]

If you notice, the down pipes in front of the engine criss-cross. Thus the name "Spaghetti ". A pretty rare aftermarket system these days.

It looks pretty much plug-n-play in the pics, maybe a tune up, fluids change and a carb cleaning/adjustment.

Rally in the UP next month you should try and make. I'm gonna try to.

[cajun31]

Great looking machine

Wow great bike and great price for all that you are getting. Welcome to the site and good luck with the new ride.

[w8lon]

Owner had to move out of state due to a family health issue. We had it running last weekend when I looked at it initially, battery died before the choke lever was found. Owner had it licensed last year and rode it but said it was in need of tuneup and petcock rebuild, missed the K&S rebuild kits on the bay for $5 last week. His price lowered considerably after moving

[mikubuilder]

Great find, and welcome aboard!

[madmax-im]

Very nice acquisition!!! Thats a Pacifico fairing and will do a heckuva job keeping the elements off of you and @ $850 thats a downright steal... Good luck riding it and welcome to CH.11

[Prisoner6]

Hi, Lon -

That looks like a nice score on an SF ... and for only $850.00!!

Good job, and welcome to the forums!

[w8lon]

The 79' SF is coming home tomorrow busy cleaning out the garage in preparation. My original intent of saving gas money with my daily 135 mile commute to work changed last week as I am averaging a deer a month during my travels, had I been on the bike either deer would have been hit.

Work and projects may have the SF waiting until Spring as I try to put the pieces of my work truck back together in a hurry.The Wife's Subbie is scary low riding, as in through the windshield by clipping them at the knee's, truck first. I would not be typing this if on the bike, hit both deer on dead run and never had chance to take the foot off of gas pedal, like they were shot out of a canon at me

Will definitely have time to tinker on the bike between projects this week and get her running though.

[w8lon]

Bike was delivered Saturday afternoon. An inventory of parts taken and cleanup of the crusty old girl began. Have a full set of Yamaha bags and trunk with no mount, bag brackets will need modification as they were from a Venture. I see no way to line the brackets up with the Jardine mega phones sticking up as far as they do. Also missing the original headlight bucket and front turn signals, hopefully in his storage unit.

Battery was topped off and allowed to charge overnight, and took a charge well. As I started the bike today it was apparent that water had entered the air box as it ran for a few moments with white smoke out of the exhaust and stalled. Unscrewed the air filter to find it soaked with gas/oil mixture, flooded. Someone along the line had put in a K&N filter so this was cleaned and re-oiled . Bike was hosed off again to get rid of the spilled gas and fire hazard then restarted, same thing again with oily gas dumping out of the airbox, hmm!

Case was drained of the 1.5 gallons of gassy oil as someone had left the petcocks on allowing the engine to fill with gas. Either a bad petcock or sticky float to contend with perhaps. With the crankcase level as high as it was the vacuum system may have been sucking the extra through the carbs causing the flooding issue.

Bike cleaned up great with a little Brillo pad action on exhaust the chrome looks great. Fuse box had been replaced with waterproof connectors with mini blade fuses, will have to get rid of the shoddy electrical tape and twisted wire connections with solder and heat shrink tubing this week. Perfect project for the anal retentive, obsessive compulsive new owner, let the fun begin

[mikubuilder]

sounds like you have all major points covered

carb cleaning is a MUST with those bikes, but once done correctly and set properly they're good "forever"

[w8lon]

With fresh oil added this evening and a new filter the start button was tapped and she took off running great. Other than the oil soaked exhaust taking a while to burn off runs great throughout rpm range. Bike was allowed to run out the float bowls and get good and warm trying to clean out exhaust.

After a cool off and additional few ounces of oil added it was restarted and ran smoother still with no more smoke, we have a winner! Tuned many bikes in the past with an original set of Yamaha mercury carb sticks, have to ask my brother if he still has them or remembers whom he had lent them to years ago. If I remember right the factory carb sticks were around two feet long with four mercury filled tubes that hung on the handlebar while you tweaked away.

May just have to check with the insurance company yet for this seasons fall color touring, plate it and go for a putt.