1978 - sr500

[kboehringer]

XS11 Friends,

I've been away from the site far too long. Unfortunately, yet ANOTHER job change a few months ago has reduced my personal time to basically non-existent. I've worked EVERY DAY (including weekends) for almost 40 days!!!! That said, I was able to find a couple hours a few weeks ago to run down to Don's house in Florida and purchase his SR 500.



I spoke to Don about this bike once or twice and this year I was able to get the bike added to my collection (Mike I'm back in the lead ;-))!

This particular model is very special to me as it was my first "REAL" street motorcycle. While all the rich kids were driving XS11's, XS750/850's in High School.... I had an SR500 as it was all I could afford.
Here's my original (note the date in the corner):



Even with working every stinkin' day... I manage to find a few minutes to fix SOMETHING on the bike each day.... THIS ONE HAS TO BE READY FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE Vintage Yamaha Rally (AKA - XSSE).

Although Don LOVED this bike and owned it for more than 40 years..... The last few the bike has been dormant and basically outside. There is a TON of work to do to bring this ole' girl back to ORIGINAL form.

We all love photos so here are a few Before & Afters. In some cases I could only find parts a little better than what I had. Those will be upgraded again when even better parts become available.

Headlamp Bucket B&A


Bars & Gauges B&A




Carb B&A




Gauge Dampers


CONTINUED

[kboehringer]

A few more pics of the progress:

Exhaust B&A


Found a BRAND NEW IN THE BOX COMPLETE Exhaust from Ontario!
You DO NOT want to know how much I paid for this!! (it was more than I paid for MOST of my bikes)



Front Master B&A



Engine Side Covers= B&A



Tail Lamp B&A



Valve Covers B&A



I'll keep ya'll posted.....THIS ONE IS GOING TO THE VYR!!!!

KURT & Muffy

[MPittma100]

Hi Kurt,

Last year Jeff, Scott, and I pushed this bike out of Don's shed to take photos of it to post in a for sale ad. Glad to see you ended up with it. Nice story about being your first bike in high school. Just think of how much more gas those big XS110s used than you did?

Very nice work on the restoration of the crusty parts. That's a lot of elbow grease. Anxious to see her in person.

[Radioguylogs]

(Mike I'm back in the lead ;-))!

Solidly I'd better get to work on some kind of sneak attack. In the meantime, I have to stop selling bikes.

I am really enjoying your "before and after" pictures. Don will appreciate seeing how amazing it's coming out.

Nice work!

That thing will be a riot in the mountain curves this fall.

[2manybikes]

Off to a good start! Its fun to work on something with some history. It adds a bit to the project. Glad you found some time to unwind.

[2WheelFun]

Buddy of mine had an old 400 thumper back in high school. I had a CX650C and he used to ride at the ragged edge to keep up. What a blast.

Enjoy the new project, it looks like it is coming along really nice. Great work!

[kboehringer]

XS 11 Friends,
Time for a few more B&A photos and maybe a question as well.

I've got to pick my battles (i.e. E$penses) on this machine as safety and reliability have to come first. After that HUGE($$$) exhaust pipe purchase I need to lay low around Nancy for a little while (LOL).

I've been looking for a replacement fender and found nothing but what looks not much better than what I have for $50+$20ship. I can buy brand new from the mothership for about $180. I just happen to have in-stock (i.e. Attic) a pretty nice fender from an '80 XS11G. As it turns out it will bolt right on and looks pretty darn nice.

Fender B&A


Although certainly not perfect, the "Spare" XS11 fender is vastly superior.

HOWEVER, I noticed a very significant difference in the reinforcement UNDER the fender. The OEM SR500 fender has ENORMOUSLY larger reinforcing including some reinforcement in the tail of the fender. JeffH & I have been discussing this and we think the XS11 fender will be just fine for how I intend to drive the machine. There are some difference in that the XS11 has 37mm fork tubes while the SR500 has 35mm tubes. Perhaps this is why they reinforced the fender so much? That said, the XS11 is a HUGE machine by comparison so that wouldn't seem to make much sense? Maybe like some of their other machines, Yamaha just completely over-engineered this fender? Thoughts????



More B&A.....

Front Headlamp Ears B&A -Not perfect but much better.



Shock Tower Bolt Repair B&A



The Left shock tower was repaired a little hastily with a standard bolt & nut, it certainly worked, but was a little on the ugly side. In order to get the OEM acorn back on this had to be cut off and the existing post drilled & tapped to accept a repair stud (custom made 6mm x 10mm) Now If Muffy gets on the back I don't have to worry about this thing poking here in the leg.

Tach Cable B&A


New cable with the correct O-ring installed should stop the leaking better than the RTV silicone did.......

Fuse B&A.
Here's a modern upgrade as glass fuse and holder are significantly unreliable. Sorry, won't be original here!!!!



Side Cover B&A


Side cover was repaired after a fall off on the highway... Replacement side cover from Evil-bay is in perfect physical condition but will need some paint and a decal.



I'm gonna have a LOT more...... but this is the end of the update today.

Provide your thoughts on the fender reinforcement if time allows......


Kurt & Muffy

[2WheelFun]

Original fender brace offers very little reinforcement. Run what you brung. Looking good!

[kboehringer]

Original fender brace offers very little reinforcement.

Ordinarily, this is probably true.

This OEM SR fender is nothing like anything I've ever found with this level of reinforcement/bracing on any fender of any of my bikes. The XJ series fenders are braced internally much stiffer than my XS11's. This damn thin is a MINIMUM of TWICE as heavy as the XS11 fender.

Now, the SR is a "Shakey" little bugger with it's huge single bore. I'm suspicious all that extra weight and bracing helps avoid fatigue/stress cracking an ordinary (lighter weight) fender might not withstand. I don't think they were attempting to provide fork bracing (like a T-Kat), there's not enough beef for that making the assertion that it doesn't offer much reinforcement a true statement.

KURT

[Radioguylogs]

Seems plausible the extra bracing was a countermeasure for vibration induced shaking and/or cracking. Resonances can amplify the vibration input.

It would explain why the little bike has more bracing than the big bike.

[kboehringer]

Seems plausible the extra bracing was a countermeasure for vibration induced shaking and/or cracking.

Mike,
Thanks for the confirmation. I started the bike on the center stand which pulls the front wheel off the ground slightly. That "THUMPER" shakes the wholly heck out of that front end. I mean unbelievable shaking the whole front end is just bouncing. If left alone, the SR on the center stand will actually "WALK" across my driveway it shakes so much. The extra reinforcement has to be there to protect the fender.

As a result of this "test", the fender I reclaimed and put on the SR is an XS1100G fender that is actually VERY MUCH nicer than the one on Mayberry (the blue XS11SG bagger), I'm going to switch fenders to avoid cracking the better one. The one on Mayberry isn't really tooooo bad and is definitely an improvement over the one that came on the SR. I'd just rather risk cracking up a lesser quality fender, and keep my eyes peeled for a stock SR fender in nice shape.

PROGRESS UPDATE:
The delivery services have been very good to me today: wheel bearing F&R, skid plate, gaskets, new shocks, new acorn nuts, foot rest bushings, etc. etc. all showed up today. I'm having difficulty finding QUALITY tires in the OEM SR500 sizes and TT variety so the wheel bearings and wheel re-painting will wait until I have new tires. Riding is also on hold not only because of tires (21 years old front, 12 year old rear) but I'm also waiting on custom SS brake lines from LEN at Xj4Ever.com. NO Brakes & Bad Tires = NO RIDING.

The foot rests felt more than a little "Spongy" so I replaced all the bushings today:
BEFORE


AFTER:


The bike came without the little skid plate / fender to protect the frame oil supply line, one nice size rock kicked up would make for a bad day:
BEFORE:

AFTER(Still available NEW from Yamaha as it's the same for the newer SR400)


I really couldn't splurge on fancy shocks and I don't plan any long riding events on this (Vintage Yamaha Rally aside). So EMGO's offering was appropriate for this machine. Don told me the shocks on the machine were not original anyway so nothing really lost as far as the "Restoration" is concerned.

B&A (New & Old):


They look much better and feel a heck of a lot better {bouncing my ass on them in the driveway since I can't drive it ;-) }




Really no time to do further repairs today......

Hopefully all of you are having a nice ride this weekend!!!

KURT.

[kboehringer]

Working on the tire(s) and rim(s). So far, only the front is complete: New Tire, Bearings, Seals, Filed and buffed out all the dings and gouges, painted, balanced, and then little more polishing of the neglected edges....

Something about that FLORIDA air? Don really isn't anywhere near the Gulf or the East Coast.... Still, the degradation of these rims is crazy! Seen this before after a short tour at NAS Jacksonville but that was sort of understandable with all the salt in the air

Front Rim B&A






Now I need to get started on the rear.... OMG this one might be a little worse than the front!

[jetmechmarty]

I assume you can buy a new SR fender for $$$?
Until there is a better option, rust can be removed from a chrome fender with phosphoric acid. I put my experience with it here.

[2manybikes]

In case you were wondering, I have been monitoring this. Since I havent seen any Harley parts yet, I decided to comment again. As usual, great work and fantastic pics. That front wheel is a masterpiece. Unless one has actually (properly) resurrected an aluminum rim, then you cant really appreciate the time that goes into it. Tread lightly though, the Parts Police are keeping an eye on you!

[kboehringer]

I assume you can buy a new SR fender for $$$?
Until there is a better option, rust can be removed from a chrome fender with phosphoric acid. I put my experience with it here.

Marty,
Thanks for the idea. What that stuff did for that old XS11 fender you did was amazing. The OEM SR500 fender is pitted really pretty badly on the chrome. I may be able to make that fender somewhat presentable using the method you show. I'll give it a try!

Yes. A new fender is available from Partzilla for about ~$180-190. I've found that Partzilla is substituting current year SR400 parts for Vintage SR500 parts. The guard I purchased was apparently a current model part that Partzilla assumed was the same but it is slightly different than the original 1978 part. I'm concerned that I may not really get the correct fender for my large expense. Or, I will end up waiting MONTHS for the fender to come from Japan (FJ1200 mirrors took over 3 months to receive).

You're pretty observant so you may have noticed I'm sticking with the Pirelli Route tires you recommended to me years ago. That was some good advice you provided all those years ago! Thanks!

KURT