Best Bike I Ever Owned

[Shacknasty]

SFV checking in. 1979 XS11 SF



Got my baby back in 1989 for $500 from the original owner. It had less than ten k on the clock and was garage stored. It wasn't running, so I trailered it home and spent a couple of days doing all the little jobs most of us know so well: carb cleaning and synching, battery, fuel lines, brakes, and a lot of stuff that is lost to the mists of time...



She was a daily runner for sixteen years and is now retired to a sedate life of strafing runs through the canyons and backroads two to three times per week. Fun...



Keep rollin' those original bad boys, the superbike of it's day, and maybe we'll meet up at a stoplight somewhere...

[Shacknasty]

The sun is shining so I'm gonna go ride the beast right now...

[planedick]

Nice

Good looking SF. Do you get to ride the twisties during the week like me?

[b.walker5]

Nice bike, but are you sure it's an SF. Seat grab rail is 80 SG, and the side covers look SG as well. Check the frame and engine numbers to verify, dont rely on the rego papers.

[crazy steve]

Nice bike, but are you sure it's an SF. Seat grab rail is 80 SG, and the side covers look SG as well. Check the frame and engine numbers to verify, dont rely on the rego papers.

It's a SF. I just parted a SG (well, maybe not... more later), and the sidecovers are different. The reflectors on the down tubes are different too. Plus the taillight/plate being integrated, as the '79 was the only Special where that was true. He's also missing the slotted rotors that came on the '80...

[b.walker5]

.. He's also missing the slotted rotors that came on the '80...

So's mine on the front, but only because some tosser PO crashed it and replaced the entire front end with a '79. Seat grab rail is definately SG, the SF is a simple tube, but then it may have been changed.

One way or 'tuther it doesnt matter to me but I think its still worth checking the numbers.

[Shacknasty]

Thanks for the welcome to the site. Like everyone else, I lurked for a while and have found this place to be a remarkable storehouse of XSsive info. Can't get much past you guys. Ya seem to know a thing or two about the old 1100s.

The grab rail is from an '80 (PO put it on), but the rest of the bike, except the Kerker, is straight up 1979. That one year the Special was a little bit different from the rest of the Specials. All I know is that I have not changed a thing on the bike because it all worked fine for what I needed.

I look at it frequently with a chopping/cutting/grinding/customizing eye, but it has a certain charm and hotrod cool that makes me happy. So I guess I will just leave her as she is...



Weekdays are the best for riding the twisties here in SoCal. Not as many obstacles, if ya know what I mean.

[planedick]

Filter

Doesn't that exhaust make changing the filter a little difficult?

[jetmechmarty]

The "Specials" came out for 1978 as the XS750 and XS650. The XS1100 was a year behind. All share most of the same distinct features. Some of the parts interchange.

[cywelchjr]

The "Specials" came out for 1978 as the XS750 and XS650. The XS1100 was a year behind. All share most of the same distinct features. Some of the parts interchange.

Also the XS400's as well. As a matter of fact, the XS400 came only as a special in the U.S. at least by 1980, as both the G and SG are just different versions of the special in 1980 (the G was the value model with drum brakes front and rear and wire spoke wheels, the SG had single disk front and drum rear with cast alloy wheels). BTW, even the XS400 uses the same front disk as the 1100 and the same caliper as the left side front standard XS1100.

I understand that the wheels are even drilled and tapped on both sides for the disk, it's just a matter of getting forks with the caliper bracket on both sides.

[Shacknasty]

The one complaint about the Kerker is that the filter cannot be accessed with out pulling the exhaust. I've yanked the pipes off countless times. Slap on a little Ultra Copper and down the road we go.

When the pipes give up the ghost, I'll weld up a new set, but until then-vroom vroom!

Keep on with the XS science. I like learning all the details that make our bike different and sometimes Special. BTW, I was parking the old XS today and a guy came up to me and said when he was a kid, too young to drive, he had a poster of an XS11 on his bedroom wall. Said he had always wanted one. He eyeballed mine so close that I had to clean the prints off the chrome. Made me smile.

[bikerphil]

The one complaint about the Kerker is that the filter cannot be accessed with out pulling the exhaust.

I have a Kerker 4-1 system and I can access the oil filter without removing the headers. Just barely enough room to get the cup out.

[Shacknasty]

Hey Phil, do you have an oil cooler? The thickness of the cooler adapter seems to be the only thing in the way of easing the filter cup out with the exhaust in place. But I ain't complaining...small price to pay for riding my XS!

[bikerphil]

Nope, no cooler. It makes sense to me now.