XS650 Special becomes a Vermont Backroader

[MODNROD]

Back in the 80s I had a friend who used to love these things, he used to rant and rave about their good qualities.
I was spinning around on old Zeds and CB4s, so the idea of a "slow" twin didn't appeal back then. Now I'm a bit older and somewhat more relaxed, and also riding around on a mix of gravel, bumpy single-lane bitumen, and twisty backroads, I can really appreciate the benefits of a lighter twin with wide bars, upright seating and all-terrains.

Have fun man.

[bpeckm]

Originally Posted by Drilldogger

snipped

As part of the project, do yourself a favor and replace the clutch pullrod seal and the bushing as well as replace the 2 piece pushrod with a 1 piece from Mikes XS. It sucks to put all this work into a bike and have it start leaking incessantly.
I can't wait to see what you do with it. These are great old bikes because there is so much you can do with them.

I am putting the thread together in Jan 2013, which is a year later than the posts so far... and YES, I will be doing the pushrod improvement..... didn't do the Pamco and didn't do the re-phase, but.....

[bpeckm]

This may be a little out-in-left-field, but when it comes to doing some rather odd tasks, it is very hard to beat an air impact wrench....

Assuming that you have some sort of air compressor, an impact wrench can be a really cheap and useful addition to the tool-treasure-trove.... this tool was used to make really easy work of loosening the wet-clutch bolts on the XS650... a job that is otherwise hard to do without blocking the clutch plates with special clutch-retianing tools, etc.

Voici the impact Phillips:



Works a treat, as they say in jolly ole inglaterre....

[bpeckm]

The frame, after removing the extraneous tabs and stuff we didn't want, was wet-sanded, primed, and readied for a two part color coat...










...luckily for me, smugmug has a very hand "I" (information") on the photos, which shows me that the above photos were taken last April, 2012. I knew it was spring, but..... memory.... what memory?



Yes, it WAS a mild winter in Rhode Island... I was riding Ole Red, the BMW R60/6 in April......

[bpeckm]

Found some nice take-off shocks, cheap, on eBay.... we were trying to make up for the 16" stock wheel/tire with some longer shocks, and found these....



Wondered whether it might possibly be too tall, but in the end they were perfect!

Trying them on.....



...cabin fever...... what do you mean, cabin fever.....???

[bpeckm]

Bits and pieces started showing up in the brown van....

[bpeckm]

Somewhere along in the timeline, the photographer went missing....

While the engine was out, I opened the two drainplugs, and felt around inside and found..... gasp.... a couple of large pieces of metal....


Ruh Roh........

The oil "filter" is a pretty crude contraption in the sump, meant to pick up and "strain" the big pieces.... the XS sump filter is a known weak point, and indeed....







Yes, those are slivers of metal...

....and these were the pieces I retrieved from the sump:


So the engine was set upside down, on it's head (by the way, a very stable position!), and the case was split.

[bpeckm]

So far, opening the side covers had revealed a pretty nice, quite clean interior...



But the truth would be outted when the case was split.....

[bpeckm]

It was with a little more than "slight" trepidation that I read up on the drama involved with "Splitting The Case"......

[bpeckm]

...so I went ahead....

[MightyChosen1]

Great thread.

I just seperated my XS from its sidecar this weekend to give it a well deserved makeover. I dont know where its headed but I want to make it a more capable dual sport setup.

What were those rear shocks from? I used a extra set from my Scrambler which have a height of about 14" but now I want to add some more travel and better brakes to the front. I am thinking of something along the lines of a YZ or XT front end.

[bpeckm]

I just looked on eBay and PayPal to see what I bought... I found that I spent $37.00, but don't know much more than that.... will sort through my receipts to see if there is something a little more descriptive...

The nice thing about the shocks is that they are eye/eye, so there are a myriad of options. If I remember, I went for shocks from a bike that would have been of similar weight/engine (as opposed to shocks from a 175 or such!)...

Sorry can't be of more help than that for now....

[bpeckm]

One thing that really impressed me, once I opened it up, was the size/massiveness of the bearings... HUGE ball bearings for the crank mains, and generally just really strong stuff...

'course shoulda know that from the heft of the engine/gear... that sucker is seriously heavy, they packed a lot of gravity into those cases!!

If you look at the middle, towards the bottom of the row of gears, you will see some dark grey and broken... that was the problem:





The beauty of this design is that, once the cases are split, all of the bearings/gears are just laying there, easy to pick up and take out...... no shimming and all the precision stuff (NOT my strong suit!)....

These are the busted/broken/nfg parts:




So I did a search of eBay, and again, one of the blessings of XS is that they made a bootload of them, and parts are available for very reasonable prices. I found a full set of gears for about $50, shipped... hard to beat THAT!



Nice, eh? They fit and work perfectly!

[bpeckm]

I VERY carefully pulled the shaft/gears apart, in sequence, and laid them out so that I could put them back together in the SAME sequence..... (we learn these tricks as we get "wiser" with age....)






I just lifted out the entire gearshaft, did not disturb the shifting forks and other magical pieces....






...while I admired the camshaft drive system from its underside, as well as the MASSIVE main roller bearings for the crank (without disturbing them, lest I annoy the gods of engine-roar magic....)

[bpeckm]

so, gears removed....








PS: did I say that I found a barely-readable photocopied download of the original shop manual for these puppies... very helpful, indeed!