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First, I'd like to say that this site has been incredibly helpful in assisting me to get my 1978 XS1100 in working condition. The answer to almost all of my problems was never more than a forum search away. It was really comforting knowing that many other XS11 riders had gone through the same issues I was having and come out the other side victorious.
I bought the bike about 2 weeks ago after I got home from a 4 week Army training regiment at Ft Lewis.
The guy I bought it from had bought it from another guy who bored out the cylinders and dropped some forged pistons in it as well as done some other cosmetic work as you can see (plus a shoddy paint job at best). The bike ran well when I went to see it but the clutch lever had conveniently broken before I got there. I really wanted the bike at the time so I dropped the guy $875 for it and came back two days later with a clutch lever to pick it up. Needless to say when I took off in first gear it sound more like an M240B than a motorcycle; first gear wouldn't stay in. Lovely, transmission issues, I thought. Rode it an hour back home only running on three cylinders and a near dead battery and got the thing parked (only after stalling out on a hill two times and dropping the bike).
Rebuilt the carbs on it and rode it around for awhile before I stumbled upon the 1st/2nd gear fix on this website which gave me hope that I had just wasted almost $900 on a hunk of steel. I had never been in a motorcycle transmission before so I pretty wary about trying this but what the heck it's already broken. After reading the forum post about the fix I got the attitude: "yeah I can totally do this". I was mistaken. It was much more difficult getting that damn countershaft out than I had expected. Broken retaining plates inside this thing, stripped screws, the whole works. It looked like someone had been down the same path I was travelling but with the wrong tools and about a quarter the patience.
Put the transmission back together, said a prayer to my God, and slapped it into first gear and boom! it worked
. Rode it around some more, still having charging issues (battery not charging at all). Finally got around to taking a look at the electrical system last night and discovered a short to ground on two of the three stator coils so I placed an order for a new one. Hopefully, this last piece of the puzzle will bring everything back into perfect working order but we'll see.
The bike has been a chore to own so far but it's a great bike I could see myself riding for some time. Thanks to everyone that has made contributions to the various repair threads on this site, I truly could not have gotten to this point without that help.
I bought the bike about 2 weeks ago after I got home from a 4 week Army training regiment at Ft Lewis.
The guy I bought it from had bought it from another guy who bored out the cylinders and dropped some forged pistons in it as well as done some other cosmetic work as you can see (plus a shoddy paint job at best). The bike ran well when I went to see it but the clutch lever had conveniently broken before I got there. I really wanted the bike at the time so I dropped the guy $875 for it and came back two days later with a clutch lever to pick it up. Needless to say when I took off in first gear it sound more like an M240B than a motorcycle; first gear wouldn't stay in. Lovely, transmission issues, I thought. Rode it an hour back home only running on three cylinders and a near dead battery and got the thing parked (only after stalling out on a hill two times and dropping the bike).
Rebuilt the carbs on it and rode it around for awhile before I stumbled upon the 1st/2nd gear fix on this website which gave me hope that I had just wasted almost $900 on a hunk of steel. I had never been in a motorcycle transmission before so I pretty wary about trying this but what the heck it's already broken. After reading the forum post about the fix I got the attitude: "yeah I can totally do this". I was mistaken. It was much more difficult getting that damn countershaft out than I had expected. Broken retaining plates inside this thing, stripped screws, the whole works. It looked like someone had been down the same path I was travelling but with the wrong tools and about a quarter the patience.
Put the transmission back together, said a prayer to my God, and slapped it into first gear and boom! it worked
. Rode it around some more, still having charging issues (battery not charging at all). Finally got around to taking a look at the electrical system last night and discovered a short to ground on two of the three stator coils so I placed an order for a new one. Hopefully, this last piece of the puzzle will bring everything back into perfect working order but we'll see.The bike has been a chore to own so far but it's a great bike I could see myself riding for some time. Thanks to everyone that has made contributions to the various repair threads on this site, I truly could not have gotten to this point without that help.
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