Back in the saddle

[nzemke]

I just became a proud owner of a 1978 XS1100E with 20K miles. I was lucky enough to pick it up for what the guy had into it. Last time he worked on it was a year ago before he duct taped all of the ports and wrapped it up tight with tarps. It has new brake pads and a rebuilt carburetor. He put it under a tarp after he couldn't get it to idle. He could get it started and get it up to 6.5k rpms without so much as a flinch but it just won't idle. He thinks that he just forgot to clean out where the needles rest. I will not admit to know everything about motorcycles but I did rebuild the carbs on a 1979 750 Kawasaki about 8-9 years ago. hoping that was enough to get my feet wet but any advise is welcome.

Photobucket slideshow of my bike

[bikerphil]

You are probably going to have to thoroughly clean the carbs, paying careful attention to the pilot circuit, very small passages in there that easily clog and will cause symptoms as you describe. Read this beforehand...

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35974&highlight=carb+cleaning+101

[nzemke]

Thank you!! That is very detailed!

[mikubuilder]

it wasn't very clean in the picture, but I think you still have old style glass fuses...contact TC for a blade style fuse box...#1 mod for this bike

welcome to the most knowledgeable forum, you won't be disappointed...

[nzemke]

well I found the issue, needle 1 and 4 were sticking. Off to the store for some pipe cleaners

[nzemke]

well I found one more issue...I have put some superglue on it and I'm waiting for it to dry before I put it back together. I found it only by chance as I thought to test and make sure each needle would drop at the same rate...and well they didn't

[jwhughes3]

Get some liquid electrical tape to fix that diaphragm tear. It will last longer.

John

[nzemke]

well it's all back together and I plan to put it back on the bike tomorrow and try to get it running I want to get at least a month out of it before I take the carburetors apart again when I can afford to purchase some new diaphragms

Wish me luck!

[nzemke]

Well while I wait for payday or the wife to decide we're good for the rest of the week, my week was otherwise left with a bit of extra time. So here is some of the progress that I achieved. I really should have snapped a photo of the bike as well with the bit of shine I gave it as well.

[Cuda 69]

looking good,welcome to the site.

[nzemke]

Thanks! It's been a fun project so far. I put the seat and tank back on the bike but still need to swap out the polished rear fender and get a headlight. So here's what she looks like without the deep clean.

[nzemke]

Been a while since I posted on this but figured I would tell you all that I have done to it since I last update this thread. Right now I'm waiting for the storm to pass overhead so I can get back to the finishing touches.

Since I got her I went through the electrical as best I could and have found that the horn doesn't work and still has been the lowest of priorities so its not done yet.

For the first summer I managed to get it running but the only way to get it started was by kick start. I have since gotten this working properly by replacing the battery and the main starting module. I also Cleaned out all of the contact points on the main kill switch.

I took apart the top end of the engine and cleaned all of the soot and made sure I didn't have any bent parts. Went through all of the shims and used the ones from my spare bike to match up. One of them had a gap twice what it should be. They are now all where they should be. I replaced the gaskets as I put things back together. and torqued it all to spec.

When taking the pipes off I wrapped one side to see what it would look like. I gotta say I really like what it looks like. So I have the wrap for the other side and waiting for the weather to clear before getting outside to remove them. I rode it to work two days in a row to see what it would do and I'm getting popping from the mufflers and not the mufflers which I guess you could expect since I didn't replace the gaskets. Second time around I have the gaskets so after wrapping it I will replace them and hopefully get rid of the pops.

I feel that with how many times I have taken off the carbs I have become way to comfortable with them. After completely rebuilding them and replacing all of the copper parts they work far better then they did before. I have them synced but the gas to air mixture is off. So I now own a colortune plug and I know that a lot of people do not like them but I am a software engineer and made some software to allow me to perfectly calibrate the colors between cylinders to within a very small deviation of each other.

I added the headlight light to it instead of the fearing and now have to take it off to have it machined so I can move the turn signals back a couple inches. Otherwise the light slowly starts pointing towards the ground instead of out front. Currently I need to clean all the contacts on the left handle bar to hopefully fix the issue with the turn signals not blinking.

I replaced all of the oil in the calipers but I didn't bleed it properly on the rear so it stuck as I was coming up to a stop light so it stopped a lot faster then it should have but that should be fairly easy to fix by re-bleeding the brakes. Otherwise she is running pretty awesome.