Wheels and wiring

Not much blogging, not much action. I fitted the front wheel then found it was off-centre by 5 to 8mm which caused much head-scratching. Eventually I slackened off all the spokes on the off-side and tightened all the spokes on the nearside and it all pulled up OK (though it was easier said than done!)

I've now started on the wiring, made much easier by a spanking new loom from Andrew Mason at Xt500parts. Sadly he's giving up his business which involved the remanufacture of hard-to-find XT parts, but the guys at Kedo are taking over some of the work. Andrew was always very good to deal with and unfailingly polite.

Removing the 16-year-old Pirelli from the rear was the cause of much straining at a rock-hard carcass (and no I don't mean my bod) owing to the extreme cold in the unheated garage, but it gave up the struggle last night. Once I have fitted a replacement rear and got the rear wheel in place I'll be able to lower the bike off the bench and sit astride it for the first time.

Next jobs are:- finish wiring, paint tank and rear mudguard, find an exhaust (!) and attempt a startup...!

The engine is in the frame! I also re-covered the seat, fitted the yokes, forks and handlebar.

Well, the XT is still in pieces, but at least they're now all clean, shiny pieces. The engine is back together, the fork stanchions are back from the hard chromers and re-assembled and the carb has been re-furbed with a new set of jets, needle, seals and gaskets. I had the levers and fittings zinc plated with the last batch of stuff, so it looks A1 now.

The frame is back from powder coating - well worth the effort and looking good. Just need to start putting it all together now!

I don't have an airbox (it was missing from my box 'o' bits) or a crankcase breather, so the bike will have a couple of K&N filters for now.

Time for an update!

The XT has been receiving some attention (unlike this blog!) in the form of mucho cleaning, scraping, sanding and painting of sundry parts.

The engine is now totally disassembled and all bearings have been removed and replacements obtained.

The cylinder has been rebored and I have a new Wiseco standing by to go in. I have a good used crank to go in with a decent rod (the conrod in my motor had an elongated small end eye which could only have got worse).

Once the paint has dried on the cases I'll be heating them up, dropping in the new bearings and starting the bottom-end rebuild.

The tank is away at the painters (not a skill I possess!) and the frame is at the powder coaters - it wasn't THAT bad, but while the bike was completely apart I thought I might as well do it properly, then I can ride the bike for the next 10 years without having to do any further major work.

I picked up the fasteners, clips and brackets from the platers, who did a nice job, but I'm sure there are a couple of bits missing - clutch arm spring, cylinder head nut, engine mounting bolt - which is annoying, to say the least!

With the engine split and the old gasket scraped away I ran a diamond hone round the mating surfaces to get them clean and sharp, ready for fresh gasket material.

I bought some Renthal bars with pretty much the same dimensions as the XT bars, but in ally rather than chrome or black steel. They look great set against the satin black of the newly-painted top yoke and freshly-plated fittings.

The forks have also come in for some attention - I bought a "Good set of forks, nice and straight" off eBay but as you can probably guess they were nothing like the description....one was badly bent with a crease under where the bottom yoke would mount, the other had a broken stud and both lowers had been cleaned up with a wire brush in the past then laquered over badly. I have sent off my existing stanchions for re-chroming and will try to clean up these lowers (mine have been butchered in the long and distant past in order to fit a non-XT front wheel).

Inspiration

I now have something to aim for - a good photo of a restored 1978 XT500.

My XT will have to remain a work-in-progress for now as I can't afford the time and money for a full nut 'n' bolt restoration (and who would feel comfortable using such a pristine machine day-to-day?) but at least I know what it ought to look like.

Since mine will never be 100% original I'm also tempted to reproduce the über-cool "76-look" of the first production XTs, or even the stripped down TT model with plastic rear 'guard and no lights.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to finish cleaning up the parts I have, work out what's required in order to make it run and get out on it.

P.S. If these images belong to you and you either a. object to them appearing here or b. want a copyright credit please let me know.

"When I'm cleaning windows"

The late, great George Formby was also a bike-mad Lancastrian, though whether he spent much time cleaning them is uknown. With song titles to his credit as "The Window Cleaner" and "Chinese laundry Blues" one might suppose he was not averse to a bit of spit 'n' polish.
I have been using slightly more aggressive solvents than saliva during the last few days to remove the layers of grime coating the parts of my XT500 - carb cleaner on...err...the carburettor, brake cleaner on the drums (drum brakes - yikes!) and good ol' Gunk on the oily bits.
Now, the 30-year-old carb looks almost as good as the day it left the Mikuni factory, the brake linings have been revealed to be in great shape as are the brake shoes and the ally wheelrims (which have been re-laced with aftermarket stainless steel spokes) look OK, too.

Oh-my-god-what-have-I-done?

You know how it is with eBay auctions. Sometimes that little "Place Bid" button looks so inviting, especially when you think you've spotted a desirable item and no-one else seems to have noticed? Well maybe that's because you're bidding on a worthless pile of junk, at least that's my wife's verdict on the XT500 I bought as a basket case a couple of weeks ago.

I, however, feel like a teenager with his first bike all over again. This XT500, a 1978 model, was a showroom model when I was just thirteen years old and me and my mates had motorcycle brochures pasted to our walls. There were Laverda triples, black 'n' gold Ducati 900's and of course an XT500. Other lads had posters of the Clash, Sex Pistols and Blondie but for us it was always bikes.

In the intervening years I've had plenty of bikes but never an XT "Thumper"...never, that is, until now.