Resurrection of a 1980 XS11 aka "Millennium Falcon"

[fullmetal]

Hey guys, what's going on? Finally got around to making a thread on here, I'm hoping to pick your brains for knowledge! I have a few threads on different sites about this bike, and I've made a bit of progress, so my first few posts are just gonna be an introduction and a bunch of pictures to get everything up to speed.

I bought a 77 yamaha xs360 last november that I've been converting into a cafe racer (finishing that one up right now) and I've fallen in love with the whole process.

About a month ago, me and a friend, who were fixing to get a place with a third friend, were about to go halfsies on a 1981 yamaha xs11. However, our other friend bailed out of getting a place and we had to abandon that plan. it broke my heart to let the bike go, but it had to be.

I told a classmate who rides about the bike, and something magical happened. He said he had a friend with a xs11, and he got me in touch with him. His friend had a 1980 xs11 that was his dad's before he passed, and it was sitting in storage since. The bike quit running shortly before the passing, and he wanted to fix it in his honor. Unfortunately, he didn't know what to do, and his wife forced him to put it in storage. His agreement with the storage place is up in two months, and the wife wanted him to scrap the bike.

So he gave a deal: if i can get the bike running before his contract is up, he'll give me the bike. otherwise, it's bound for the junkyard. So this is me attempting to rescue this poor bike before it gets reduced to scrap metal.

[fullmetal]

A few more details about the bike. The bike was once fully dressed, it came with the Venturer fairings originally. At some point the owner's dad had wrecked the bike, destroying the fairings, the original gauge cluster, and leaving some gnarly scarring in the crash bars. He claims the cluster was replaced around 20k, and another 20k was put on the bike before it stopped running. The replaced gauges show 80k, so I can only take his word for it at this point.


He believes the bike isn't running due to electrical issues. The bike was his dad's daily during the season, so it was ridden nearly everyday. He claims that one morning when his dad was getting ready for work, he turned the key and the gauge cluster didn't light up. He pressed the starter button, but again, nothing happened. He planned to fix it, but sadly, he suffered a fatal heart attack just a few days later.

The owner took the bike and wanted to fix it and ride it in his dad's honor, but he has no experience working on bikes, he lets the dealership do all the maintenance on his 2 gixxers. As a result, it just kinda sat in his garage for a month or so before his wife started demanding he get rid of the bike. He resisted, of course, and found a storage unit not too far from his house where he could occasionally come in and awkwardly stare at the bike (his words not mine). He tried to sell it a few times, but most people ran for the hills when he mentioned the supposed electrical issues.

My plan for attack was to first check the wiring harness, clean tank+carbs and change/add new fluids. It sat just as his dad left it, with gas in the system and a dead battery unfortunately, so I know I have some fun in front of me. I took off the tank and the seat and began examining the harness, but it didn't take long to find problems.




Wires were splitting in some places and I found some poor attempts at patching up some spots. The headlight's wiring is a mess, there's a random white wire that runs through the bucket to a far spot in the harness that's connected to the headlight connector in place of the original yellow wire, which was torn and left exposed.




The connector to the gauge cluster is also concerning, it's slightly warped and melted for some reason. Maybe a short somewhere in the system caused that?



Checked the fuse box under the right side cover, and 3 out of 4 of the fuses are there. It looked like the wiring for the tail light was removed from the box (that's the blue wire taped to itself, I believe) for whatever reason. The main fuse is located under the left side cover, and it was essentially obliterated. It was covered in corrosion, which I cleaned out of the connector.



The wiring is a mess on this bike, but I haven't found anything else that seems like it'd be a problem. I'm going to replace all the fuses for sure. I think it'd be easier to take the harness off the bike to patch up what needs to be patched. I'm not sure yet. Haven't done that before, and there's waaaaay more wiring on this bike than my xs360, but I'm always up for a challenge haha.

[fullmetal]

The gas that was left in the tank. Thankfully, the tank wasn't full, but the carbs were!


Spark plugs removed and fresh ones put in. In sequential order. 1 and 2 had oily residue on them, 3 and 4 were dry.


Carbs removed and taken off for cleaning.


The wiring harness removed for patching.


Cleaned up the essentials.







Moving day was May 24th, the bike officially became mine! I found a storage facility literally down the street from the one it was at, she'll have to stay there for a bit longer.

[fullmetal]

After putting the the patched up harness back on and testing the electrical system with a new battery, the gauge cluster lit up! I was so stoked, the next day I went to the unit, slapped the carbs and the tank back on, and tried to get her to fire. Poured the gas in the tank, and the right side petcock started raining gas essentially, but I was determined..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfUDSxN4rzI

...and now we are all caught up . I believe the problem was with all the flaws in the harness, it shorted out somewhere and blew a fuse. With that patched up (i still need to figure out the headlight/tail light situation) and the fuse replaced, she purrs like she never missed a day.

Now that I know she runs, it's time to get her roadworthy. The tires are dryrotted and the brake system could use some refreshing. I want to keep it stock-ish for a season or two before doing an overhaul. Valves, timing, compression, and changing all the fluids are on the to-do list. Is there anything else I missed that I should check?

[jwhughes3]

Watching your video I want to say congrats for persistence.

Also the XS11 likes to be started by pulling the enrichment lever full out and hitting the start button without touching the throttle at all. It seemed to me you were pressing the button while simultaneously twisting the throttle to "give it gas". In the XS this opens the butterflies too much - the choke is enough extra fuel. After it starts wait 15 sec then close choke 1/2 for a minute then close rest of the way.

It took me a long time to train myself to not grab that throttle. If it won't start this way then the carbs are not yet right (bench sync or clogged in pilot circuit).

Also when you pull your rear wheel for a new tire, grease your hub

Best luck,
John

[CaptonZap]

Also when you pull your rear wheel for a new tire, grease your hub

Best luck,
John

And clean and grease the left rear wheel bearing. With that many miles, it's due.
If you are clever, you can pull the inner race sleeve, and douche the old grime out using a spritzer full of solvent, (gas), and a blow gun, leaving the rollers in place. That saves taking the rear wheel apart.
Repack, and your done.
CZ

[Orange4]

I like your bearing cleaning advice but I would make sure its ethanol free gas because the ethanol tends to makes rubber swell. Not good for seals.

Awesome rescue thread! That bike is in pretty good shape other than the harness. If it's real bad Andreas often has reasonably priced harnesses.

[DiverRay]

Electrical isn't that bad, once you've done one or three... I would replace the OEM fuse block with one from TC as a first step. There is the room to put ALL the fuses in one place, so it's easy, and they are the "newer" blade type.
For connectors, try this site: http://www.oregonmotorcycleparts.com/ Tony is a member, and has been supplying parts for many models and makes of bikes. You can get most of the connectors from him, as well as the crimp tool.

[skids]

That is a pretty good looking bike. Good luck on the carbies. You have more self confidence with the electrical than I would have -- taking the harness all the way apart! You will get it going...

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Full Metal,

AWESOME JOB!!! Okay, the MAIN fuse was relocated to the left side in the 80+ models. Another few points of corrosion and failure are both the main ignition key switch assembly contacts, as well as the emergency On/Off switch on the handlebar. The melted plug was probably more due to just the corrosion and resistance causing extreme heat=melt vs. an actual short.
Fuseblock info: http://www.xs11.com/forum/showpost.p...5&postcount=10

There is a small "starter" jet down inside the float bowls....it needs to be open and flowing for easy choke/enrichener starts, can't remember if you saw the carb 101 thread, we know that you're experienced with this stuff, but just wanted to give you all the info you could possibly use.

Along with the Wheel Hub to final drive spines, you also need to PULL the final drive from the swingarm, clean, inspect and repack the driveshaft to final drive splines....the Zerk fitting there doesn't work to properly put the grease where it needs to be.

The Oily plugs are probably due to worn/dried up valve stem seals, for now you can use an oil treatment that can soften them back up and possibly get them to sealing a bit better until you can do a full teardown to replace the valve seals.

The headlight RELAY is a latching one that is controlled/triggered by a tap from one of the legs/phases of the alternator. There is a DIODE in line with that wire that sorta converts the AC into DC to power/trigger the relay...once it's triggered, it stays LATCHED until the key is turned off. SO...the headlight will usually NOT turn on until the engine is running...AND the alternator is working/charging. There is a way to BYPASS The Relay to TEST that the rest of the headlight circuit works...see the tech tips.

Get some Barnett Springs for the Clutch. Remember to use any flavor of 20/50 oil you want as long as it doesn't have anything in the lower half of the API seal, Friction Modifiers contribute to clutch slippage. Middle and final drives use 80/90 Dino Hypoid Gear, or 75-140 Synth Gear oil.

Brake caliper O-rings often develope corrosion behind them in the housing putting excessive pressure on the piston and causing it to stick, be sure to clean out the groove well, most can reuse the O-ring. See the Spooge hole tech tip for the Master Cylinders. A minimum upgrade is StainLess Steel lines to replace the spongy OEM vinyl ones.

Almost forgot, the Cam Chain Tensioner..lookup the ACCT Mod, highly suggested. There's another MOD that can be done to the CCT as well.
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...nute+cam+chain


T.C.

[fullmetal]

Thanks for all the responses guys! The wiring wasn't really a hard task. Nothing a bit of solder and some crimping couldn't fix. The only thing that isn't fixed yet is the headlight wiring, but that's nothing.

Regarding using the throttle during start-up, it was something I was doing to get that initial start. Before I started twisting the throttle, it didn't even want to sputter when I pressed the starter. I tried the throttle a couple times and got the engine to start coughing, so I kept going until she'd start and idle. Once it finally started, I shut her down and tried again, without the throttle, and she'd start every time. Perhaps that was just her age showing .

Due to a lack of free time, I can only work on the bike on the weekends, if I'm lucky, so progress will be slow. I also want to get this bike road-worthy spending as little money as possible (less than $500 would be GREAT), considering I spent the past few months draining my pockets to build a cafe racer that's still only 90% complete. Until that's finished, my bike funds are limited.

The pics are quite deceiving, she's not as shiny as they make it seem. There's rust everywhere, the clearcoat on the gas tank is gone, it's covered in dust/cobwebs/dry grass. When the winter rolls around, I'm gonna start collecting parts to start a bobber-ish conversion and give the bike a face-lift.

Until then, though, I'm gonna run some compression tests and see if the brake system is salvageable or if it'll need to be rebuilt. A rebuild kit is on the way for the leaky right side petcock, so hopefully I can get to that this weekend. I'll look into the new fuse block, but it's not a major priority right now.

[fullmetal]

Also, while I'm on the topic of brakes, do my master cylinders need replacing?

They're dry and cracking. The rear is in slightly better shape, but the front is the worst. I don't have a good picture of the rear cylinder. But idk if this affects them in any way, my xs360 has drum brakes, so this is still totally new to me haha.

[mrhammer2u]

Also, while I'm on the topic of brakes, do my master cylinders need replacing?

They're dry and cracking. The rear is in slightly better shape, but the front is the worst. I don't have a good picture of the rear cylinder. But idk if this affects them in any way, my xs360 has drum brakes, so this is still totally new to me haha.

Some things are best left alone if they're in working order. But that would drive me nuts looking at that crusty nasty reservoir. I would change it.

[jetmechmarty]

Some things are best left alone if they're in working order. But that would drive me nuts looking at that crusty nasty reservoir. I would change it.

It's nothing a little sandpaper and polish won't fix. There's also another active thread on replacements.

[BowlingSS]

Good luck with the build..

Bill