New member, build issues

[beastcoastxs]

So about 3 years ago I bought a running XS11 Special. I use the term running as exactly that. It started and ran but was not road worthy at all and completely hacked up by the PO. Fast forward 2 and a half years, a divorce and 3 moves in a year later and I finally got the room to work on this thing. As I said before it was in pretty rough shape but some TLC and a lot of maintenance later and I made a neat little cafe type build. The bike has been gone through from front to back and whatever needed to be redone within budget was. It was in no way capable of a restore so I went this route and I hope you all like it but if ya don't... to each their own. Sorry for the dirty low quality pictures but I do what I can with a crap phone. And I just blew a shop light... and I was out of brakekleen. haha







Issue 1:
I'm running rear only brakes by default. I have a set of brembo gold calipers from a Ducati that I heard might fit but I don't know where to get these magical caliper brackets for them or if I need to fab some myself and the clearance from pad to rotor seemed a bit tight but maybe thats just me?

Issue 2:
I'm currently running headpipes to collectors with no mufflers because the 4-1 set up I have needs longer exhaust studs. So, is there somewhere that offers longer studs or am I better off finding some grade 8 studs at the hardware store?

Issue 3:
The real problem... After getting the charging system figured out and syncing the carbs I thought I had the bike done. About three miles from home to make sure it was in running order I lost all power to the rear wheel. Engine running great and transmission shifting through with no problem but no go. After listening to what sounded like a roll of nickles in what I think is around the middle drive gear for my 3 mile push home I had some time to think. I'm really not familiar with these shaft drive bikes and I have been led to believe they're bulletproof and about as close to maintenance free as you can get but I'm learning that's not the case with mine somewhere along the line. I researched on here a bit before tearing into the bike and after checking out http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42556 I thought I had a good direction but so far everything is good. All I have is a Clymers and I know you guys have way more experience with these than I do so try to steer me a little here. I'm not familiar with metric bikes so much let alone shaft drive but I am mechanically inclined so point and direct and hopefully I'll get it done. whats my next step and where do I start with this middle drive gear? I'm not even positive where the middle drive gear is and the book is trying to tell me to pull the motor if I'm reading it correctly and I don't think that's necessary. I also thought maybe the clutch had something to do with it but I haven't dived into that yet.








Sorry if I messed up links or pics let me know if I need to change something. I'm new to this forum stuff.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Matt

[Jerry]

Take a look at the splines that go into the final drive. The splines can wear to the point where they will not engage. Replace the shaft to fix the problem.

The middle gear can also fail if lubrication/maintenance is not been good but generally (not all) this failure is a "lock-up" and the engine won't spin.

Another point that could be a problem is the shift pins under the left-hand cover; there are threads on replacing these as they occasionally break. This is an external fix; you do not have to get into the tranny. Do a search on "shift pins" to get more info.

There are several bobber conversions among XS11 owners but most of them do run front brakes and I would recommend doing the same since front brakes provide the majority of your braking power.

[DiverRay]

For the longer header bolts, go to the local parts store and buy a pack of exhaust studs & nuts for a smallblock chevy. The "new" engine uses 8mm, same as the XS! I like to heat the head around the studs BEFORE trying to remove them. IF it feels like it's not moving, STOP!! give it a shot of rust breaker, heat and try again. It can take a while with some of them...
The "nogo" does sound like the driveshaft to final drive is the problem. I and others here have spare parts, and member andreas has a business selling spares at reasonable prices!
You WILL need to fab up mounts for different front calipers. You may be able to drill and tap the "old" mounts to give you a place to fit the newer brakes, but as I've not done that I can't tell you what would be needed for clearance. The rotors should fit the Brembo's, you probably need to retract the pistons all the way.
Hope this information helps a bit! Oh, and you saved the bike, so the looks are second! If it's what YOU want, it's right.

[motoman]

Better off acquiring a used set of Special front calipers. If the Ducati calipers are dual piston, the stock XS master cyl. won't work. Nothing wrong with the parts shown in picture. Should of ask HERE first. Getting idle mixtures and a sync will never succeed till you get some muffs on that thing. FWIW, ask here next time........before you just go diving in and removing pieces, no matter what you think of your mechanical ability. From the pics shown, you got a l-o-n-g way to go before bike ends up running correctly. No insult intended...........just letting you know how it REALLY is buddy.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Beast,

Glad you found your way to the forum! Okay, ready to take notes?

Okay, you've got the Standard front lower tubes, but the uppers look longer, so wondering if you or the PO put special upper tubes which are LONGER into the standard lower sliders. But the standard sliders are EASIER to make a mounting bracket to mount the Brembos.

Measure the diameters of the brembo pistons. I put newer Yamaha dual piston calipers on my SPECIAL, but had to do some serious mods to my special fork sliders and fabbed a bracket to make them work/fit. I also had to remove a little from the inside of the caliper housing to allow room for the rotor to be able to slide within it without rubbing. The XS uses a fairly large front master cylinder and puts out a decent amount of volume, and the front caliper's piston is also quite large. Newer calipers often use fairly smaller pistons, and so with some simple math, you can compare to total surface area of the new caliper pistons vs. the OEM XS piston. I found that my dual pistons were slightly LESS in total area than the OEM XS piston, and so I was able to determine that my MC would adequately drive the newer calipers since the same or slightly less volume was needed to push/drive the pistons vs. the OEM! See this thread for some inspiration:
http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...ial+fork+brake

There is a tech tip on how to make an adapter plate for the standard for mounting Harley Davidson calipers! Check out the MODS section, brakes.

Next, you will still want to check out the middle drive to make sure that it has enough and good quality gear/hypoid oil in it. Remove the upper FILL allen head cap first to make sure you can get it open/off before actually DRAINING the middle drive via the large HEX head bolt under the engine behind/rearward of the main oil pan, there is a prominent recess where it's tucked up in, see manual for pictures/example. You may need a dipstick, you can make your own if you don't have one in the stock tool kit. We have a tech tip for that also! You will want to use either DINO Hypoid 80/90 or Synthetic hypoid 75-140 range to refill it!

Motoman was right in that what you showed looked okay as to the splines, but you didn't show the other end of the drive shaft...it has teeth also, and those have been shown to wear down due to lack of maintenance lubrication...the zerk fitting at the final drive is inadequate, you have to take it apart, and manually clean/lube with good quality grease with molybdenum. That drive shaft grease loose either rusty or dirty. The swing arm boot may have cracks in it allowing water to enter into the area around the u-joint where that end of the driveshaft fits into!?

Your air filters look like the inexpensive EMGO brand cone filters, and they have a prominent lip that can restrict airflow to the inlet ports and screw up the carbs performance! See the tech tips, mods, carbs for info on various types of velocity stack adaptions or other better quality filters....from Partsnmore and mikesxs.net and are actually called XS brand! But yes, you need to put a muffler or some form/amount of restrictor that will provide a little backpressure to help with the carb tuning.

T.C.

[mack]

Drive Train

This might be of use to you. I made this for someone else but it shows the drive train for an XS11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCwMkFsKfWA

I think your issue may be more related to this photo. This is a worn one.
Note that the inside of the final drive / drive shaft connection will look the same.



This is what they're supposed to look like.


Hope this helps.

[beastcoastxs]

Thanks for the replies fellas

I knew I would catch a lot of guys on heres attention without the front brake! haha. Thats really going to be the last thing I get around to. My daily doesnt have front brakes either. I know it's not as safe and what not and I will eventually get around to putting something up front but for now I'm more concerned with getting it going down the road again. Also I look forward to researching this harley brake mod since I have some of those laying around already. I have tons of parts laying around so I should be able to make something work no problem.

As for the exhaust, that will be the first thing I do once I get it moving under its own power again. I spent the time to bead blast and ceramic coat the 4-1 I have now and was really upset when the studs were too short. It's like a supertrap setup if any of you are familiar. Speaking of which, I'm a Harley mechanic so if I make references to stuff with different names or whatever sorry in advance. Anyway my exhaust has a stack of baffles that are removable at the end so tuning once I get those studs swapped is going to be an awesome difference.

The splines on the other end of the shaft are all good too. I was hoping to find the issue by now but no luck. It get scarier every partI take off and don't find the problem haha. What is the zerk fitting youre talking about Topcat?

I will be upgrading the filter pods to k&n(at least that was the plan) after I put the new exhaust on. Those came with the bike so I have no idea what brand they even are.

As far as the front end goes, talk about confusing me when I first started building this thing. Frame says special, fork lowers appear to be standard and I'm not sure about the tubes. Someone at some point obviously changed them out but I dont really know. I rebuilt the forks and they are in good working order now. A little pitting but nothing too bad in the travel area.

I tried to get on here before I started tearing into it but I couldn't wait any longer. If you saw the before pics of the bike and the work I got done in a couple months I'm pretty sure you'd understand how close this is to being done. I'm ready to get it back on the road.

Thanks again guys and now that I have a couple days off hopefully I can post some good news.

-Matt

[mack]

Sound

Well your into it now so if you haven't already, disconnect the u joint from the middle drive and inspect the splines on the u joint. If they're good start the motor, put it in any gear and see if the middle drive rotates. I take it that you don't have a center stand so someone to watch and listen is an asset.
Try to locate if the sound is coming from under the shifter cover. If not Drain the oil from the middle drive, then remove it. Remember you'll need to hook up a master ground for the motor. Once the middle drive is off, start the motor again and see if the middle driven gear is rotating when in gear. If not then. It's internal.
Hopefully though the if the issue isn't in the shift mechanism, it's in the middle drive.

[mack]

Sound

Well your into it now so if you haven't already, disconnect the u joint from the middle drive and inspect the splines on the u joint. If they're good start the motor, put it in any gear and see if the middle drive rotates. I take it that you don't have a center stand so someone to watch and listen is an asset.
Try to locate if the sound is coming from under the shifter cover. If not Drain the oil from the middle drive, then remove it. Remember you'll need to hook up a master ground for the motor. Once the middle drive is off, start the motor again and see if the middle driven gear is rotating when in gear. If not then. It's internal.
Hopefully though the the issue is in the shift mechanism, or it's in the middle drive.

[beastcoastxs]

Mack is there already a thread on this or possibly some pics of what and where I need to start disassembling? I don't know where the middle drive gear is or the u-joint. I could guess but my knowledge on these bikes is about as accurate as a Clymers manual. I don't have a center stand but I do have it on a bike/atv lift at the moment so I'm all good on that. And what if the sound is coming from under the shifter cover? My household duties are holding me back from the garage on New Years Day(Happy New Years btw) so I will be going into that tomorrow.

Thanks,
Matt

[mack]

check

Out the utube thread i provided. If the noise is coming from the shifter cover it likely an easy fix at the end of the sfift drum. The best thing for u though is if the middle drive failed. But watch the utube thread.

[XS1100_OEM4ME]

Clutch?

Hi Beast and welcome. I read your first post and if I got it right you road 3+ miles, no trany or shaft noises or grinding of any kind and then all of a sudden, no pull from a running motor. I would suspect the clutch. Now if you did have grinding, clunking or slop sounds before the disengagement, then trans or shaft make sense. Checking nothing is loose in the clutch is easy thing to do JIMHO

[XS1100_OEM4ME]

Exhaust

Also, your tunable exhaust is a much better choice for this bike then strait pipes, it needs a little back pressure to run right. Once you have it running right with that seat, "HOLD ON" or it will throw you off And front brakes are a must on this beast IMHO, good luck with your bike, looks nice so far

[crazy steve]

Harley caliper for standard forks

If you have standard forks on your bike (I can't tell from your pics), here's a how-to for 4-piston calipers...

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...y+caliper+swap

[motoman]

If you have standard forks on your bike (I can't tell from your pics), here's a how-to for 4-piston calipers...

http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...y+caliper+swap

looks to be Standard forks on a Special.............and that could get interesting at speed and 'twisties.