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I'd been having major dramas with weeping fork seals on my '79SF and after being run around by the local Yamaha dealer up here who refuses to acknowledge the existence of a Yamaha XS1100 Special (they were not marketed over here), I decided to do something about the oil soaked front end on my Special. A couple of years back, I'd picked up a low mileage, but very sad looking '78E which has so far donated its wiring harness, rear wheel and starter motor in the cause of keeping my bike in top running order. I moved the donor up into the garage beside the Special and was trying to decide what to do with it. The front fork legs were shot with quite heavy rust on the front faces and the sliders were covered in a greenish tinted oily stain that looked decades old. My eyes moved around the garage from bike to bike, and then I spotted a pair of fork seals hanging on the wall. These were the result of my first experience with my "local" dealer, about a 100klm round trip from home, which he had assured me, were right for my bike, and I was mistaken with my identification of my pride and joy. After racing home with them and tearing the front off my bike, I discovered that he was, in fact, wrong, and had supplied me with the wrong seals. My phone call to the dealer only caused me more stress as he was convinced that someone must have done a front end swap on my bike before I bought it and could not be swayed into admitting any error on his part. This was after destroying my old seals in getting them out so I was a bit pissed when my bike would have to have a bit of a spell until some new ones were sourced. Good old Ebay to the rescue!
Ten days later, my new seals arrived and the old girl was back on the road again......For a while.
They only lasted for about 6,00klms before the oily ring made its return.
So here I stood with both models sitting in front of me and I thought, both have got the same diameter legs, it's only the sliders that are different besides the extra length on the Special, so I proceeded to strip the front of the standard, laying the bits out in front, then took to the Special and did the same. Then began the really fun bit of checking out what was different from fork to fork.
The fork legs, besides being about four inches longer on the Special also had a bush type thingie near the bottom, the damper rods had two more holes in them (and also needed a different holder to undo the bottom allen key bolt) and a slightly longer shank on the alloy end caps, and different threads in the top of the legs for the fork caps so they couldn't be swapped over.
The brake calipers held a little surprise for me in the shape of brand new pads residing in them! Bonus.
After cleaning up the sliders, I put the new seals in the top of them, swapped over the damper rods and alloy shanks in the legs and fitted the sliders carefully up over the leg bushes using the plastic bag-no-tear-fork-seal-principle. Loctite went on the bottom allen bolts and they were nipped up. After jacking the front of the bike up a long way, in went the Specials front wheel and Standards speedo drive on Standard axle and tightened up.Then the calipers went on, Made a bracket up to hold the brake line junction fitting about three inches down from its previous position and hooked them up to my existing master cylinder (The Standard's was seized up and had to be freed up using the 'hit with a hammer and drift backwards and forwards till free' principal so I wouldn't be using it in this application). I filled the forklegs with the amount of oil to suit the Special, dropped in the Special springs then set about getting the fork caps back on. I wish to christ the Standard's hex caps would've fitted as it took over two hours to get the damned things back in.The Standard mudguard was the last to be fitted and everything seemed to be aligned pretty well. The speedo cable screwed up into the instruments but was about six inches short of reaching the drive unit on the front wheel so was discarded until a much longer unit can be sourced. I then bled out the brakes which felt good on the lever then did a second check of all nuts and bolts for tightness. I stood back and admired my work then realised I still had the bike on the jacks and though sitting with both tyres on the ground, the centrestand was a good 1/2 inch off the ground. Hmmm...
I let the jacks down and thankfully, the bike settled onto the stand then I stood astride the beast and pushed it forward fully onto its wheels. The front end was noticably higher than before and when I sat it on the kickstand, it layed over quite a bit. Not so far that it would fall over though.
I liked the look of the bike and sat admiring it for a while till I realised that it was after twelve and I had to be up for work by five in the morning. Not bad though. I didn't lift a spanner till after 11 in the morning so it hadn't reallt taken that long to do the swap.
I got up the next morning and decided I'd give the bike a test run into work, about 15klms away, so I wheeled the beast out of the garage and fired her up. First impression was that it was now a pretty tall bike. I'm only 5'9" tall and weigh about 64kgs. Combine my proportions with those of an XS1100 Special with a 17" rear wheel and forks that were now effectively about 3 and a half inches over stock in length and it doesn't add up very well.
Surprisingly though, once i got moving, it was a real surprise. I gave the front brakes a couple of little dabs as i rolled down towards the highway and was impressed by how strong they felt compared to the old oil soaked rocking calipers on the Special. The first few bends in the road were taken cautiously but the bike tracked very well and didn't really feel much different to how it was before so I rolled on the throttle a bit and started to enjoy the trip a lot more. It felt great. I pulled up at work and was really impressed by the brakes and the way it handled. The lacked of a speedo isn't a major worry for me as I've ridden the old girl long enough to know how fast I'm going thogh I will have to get it working for the constabulary's benefit If I'm pulled over.
I've got a pair of short shockies off an 1100 Virago at home which I had tried for a while but I pulled them back off as they reduced cornering clearance too much, but with the new front end, won't be a problem now and will help immensely with low speed/parking maneouvres. I'll post some photos as soon as I find my camera and I'll keep you posted on how the mod pans out in the long haul.
Regards,
Errol
Ten days later, my new seals arrived and the old girl was back on the road again......For a while.
They only lasted for about 6,00klms before the oily ring made its return.
So here I stood with both models sitting in front of me and I thought, both have got the same diameter legs, it's only the sliders that are different besides the extra length on the Special, so I proceeded to strip the front of the standard, laying the bits out in front, then took to the Special and did the same. Then began the really fun bit of checking out what was different from fork to fork.
The fork legs, besides being about four inches longer on the Special also had a bush type thingie near the bottom, the damper rods had two more holes in them (and also needed a different holder to undo the bottom allen key bolt) and a slightly longer shank on the alloy end caps, and different threads in the top of the legs for the fork caps so they couldn't be swapped over.
The brake calipers held a little surprise for me in the shape of brand new pads residing in them! Bonus.
After cleaning up the sliders, I put the new seals in the top of them, swapped over the damper rods and alloy shanks in the legs and fitted the sliders carefully up over the leg bushes using the plastic bag-no-tear-fork-seal-principle. Loctite went on the bottom allen bolts and they were nipped up. After jacking the front of the bike up a long way, in went the Specials front wheel and Standards speedo drive on Standard axle and tightened up.Then the calipers went on, Made a bracket up to hold the brake line junction fitting about three inches down from its previous position and hooked them up to my existing master cylinder (The Standard's was seized up and had to be freed up using the 'hit with a hammer and drift backwards and forwards till free' principal so I wouldn't be using it in this application). I filled the forklegs with the amount of oil to suit the Special, dropped in the Special springs then set about getting the fork caps back on. I wish to christ the Standard's hex caps would've fitted as it took over two hours to get the damned things back in.The Standard mudguard was the last to be fitted and everything seemed to be aligned pretty well. The speedo cable screwed up into the instruments but was about six inches short of reaching the drive unit on the front wheel so was discarded until a much longer unit can be sourced. I then bled out the brakes which felt good on the lever then did a second check of all nuts and bolts for tightness. I stood back and admired my work then realised I still had the bike on the jacks and though sitting with both tyres on the ground, the centrestand was a good 1/2 inch off the ground. Hmmm...
I let the jacks down and thankfully, the bike settled onto the stand then I stood astride the beast and pushed it forward fully onto its wheels. The front end was noticably higher than before and when I sat it on the kickstand, it layed over quite a bit. Not so far that it would fall over though.
I liked the look of the bike and sat admiring it for a while till I realised that it was after twelve and I had to be up for work by five in the morning. Not bad though. I didn't lift a spanner till after 11 in the morning so it hadn't reallt taken that long to do the swap.
I got up the next morning and decided I'd give the bike a test run into work, about 15klms away, so I wheeled the beast out of the garage and fired her up. First impression was that it was now a pretty tall bike. I'm only 5'9" tall and weigh about 64kgs. Combine my proportions with those of an XS1100 Special with a 17" rear wheel and forks that were now effectively about 3 and a half inches over stock in length and it doesn't add up very well.
Surprisingly though, once i got moving, it was a real surprise. I gave the front brakes a couple of little dabs as i rolled down towards the highway and was impressed by how strong they felt compared to the old oil soaked rocking calipers on the Special. The first few bends in the road were taken cautiously but the bike tracked very well and didn't really feel much different to how it was before so I rolled on the throttle a bit and started to enjoy the trip a lot more. It felt great. I pulled up at work and was really impressed by the brakes and the way it handled. The lacked of a speedo isn't a major worry for me as I've ridden the old girl long enough to know how fast I'm going thogh I will have to get it working for the constabulary's benefit If I'm pulled over.
I've got a pair of short shockies off an 1100 Virago at home which I had tried for a while but I pulled them back off as they reduced cornering clearance too much, but with the new front end, won't be a problem now and will help immensely with low speed/parking maneouvres. I'll post some photos as soon as I find my camera and I'll keep you posted on how the mod pans out in the long haul.
Regards,
Errol
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