No Such Ting As A Stupid Question

[Dwayne "Tuffy"]

I need to know if there is anywhere in the world where you can purchase new cam insert bearings for the head of an 81 XS 1100. The original bearings have been lost between owners and there has to be somewhere these can be sourced. There are a lot of motors out there that eventually will need these bearings and it will be a sad day for all XS 1100 owners to eventually have to scrap their rides due to an over site at Yamaha in not having these critical components available. If these products are not available, we are doomed to extinction as an owner group when eventually there are no used parts available.
Maybe,as an association, we can approach a manufacturer to build these and other critical insert bearings.

[Crazcnuk]

There are no bearings between the cam and the head.

The cam rides in the aluminum of the head itself. There is no downward force on the cams, so they will not wear into the head, usually. Any wear would be in the caps that hold the cams down. Those, if they wear, can be machined and rebored.

[XSPastor]

Yup!

The Crazy Canuck is right. No such thing as a cam shaft thrust bearing on an XS1100.

[randy]

No wonder the poor guy couldn't find them!

[trbig]

we are doomed to extinction as an owner group

Man, the Chicken Little doom and gloom scared me for a minute.. then I remembered that there are a bunch of these things found in old barns and such all the time! I think we'll still be OK for a few more years.

Hopefully someone will realize there's a market for some of the things that are unobtainium at this point. There's still a lot of these old bikes around.


Tod

P.S. I'll probably still stick around to pester you guys even when all the bikes are gone and all there is to do is poke fun at TC in his new electric wheel chair.

[DiverRay]

Tod

P.S. I'll probably still stick around to pester you guys even when all the bikes are gone and all there is to do is poke fun at TC in his new electric wheel chair.

Tod, I expect you will be trying to outrun him in your "big bore" chair!
And yes, the head IS the cam bearing for the XS1100, and the XS750/850. If there is oil, there should be almost NO wear in the head.