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miss alliekat
Guest
i have now sold my CB500F and have bought another biike, i suppose i had got bored of the honda so i bought somthing a bit different......
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miss alliekat
Guest
rudy said:
lots of questions..... i paid £400 for it, dont know what that is in dollars !! its a 1974 xs500 with 18, ooo on the clock. It originated in the states and was shipped over in 79. I havnt made up my mind what way it will go. Think i will get rid of the indicators, maybe a two into one pipe or different silencers short dunstall type, decent rear shocks, braided hose for the front brake maybe xs 650 twin discs, k&n filters and jets, flat bars perhaps and rearsets, a british style scratcher for the lanes, keep the original paint though. ;D
oh yes i have found a place that can re profile cams any spec..... interesting huh. might be a bit beyond me though
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miss alliekat
Guest
Ease said:
Wahoo650
Coast to Coast
That's my first street bike! Same color and all. It's a 1974 TX500A. Not one of MamaYama's best efforts, but still a great little bike. Overhead cam 4... yes 4... valve per cylinder head. My brother in law bought it new in '74, I bought from him in '80 for the price of a new Kenmore washing machine! Many good memories bombing around Middle Georgia on it. I traded it in a truck :'(
There is one of these for sale locally, are they good scoots? I have heard stories of them not being as reliable as one would expect. But does anyone have any first hand experience with them detonating on them? I wouldn't mind picking it up to ride for a bit while the CB gets finished....
Steve
Steve
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miss alliekat
Guest
sclay115 said:
Well the way i saw it was that the bike had been about for 33yrs or so and was still going ok.... so must be fairly reliable !!!!
Fear My Twin
Chicks hate my bike.
All I know is that ofr the 11 miles I have put on my bike I will always have a 2 wheeled monster in my garage for the rest of my life.
brian weir
Been Around the Block
My buddy Tamara had one. it was underpowered and asthmatic and carb probs and started hard but she rode it , then she asked me if i, as just a friend , would help her to buy and teach her how to rebuild and tune a 750 commando. i did over the course of a winter, and when she and her german boyfriend rode to Nashville with his brother, both die-hard Harley dudes, the Commando did the whole trip without a blip and the HD's cost them time and money,, yeaaaaa.sclay115 said:
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Scarcat
Guest
brian weir said:My buddy Tamara had one. it was underpowered and asthmatic and carb probs and started hard but she rode it , then she asked me if i, as just a friend , would help her to buy and teach her how to rebuild and tune a 750 commando. i did over the course of a winter, and when she and her german boyfriend rode to Nashville with his brother, both die-hard Harley dudes, the Commando did the whole trip without a blip and the HD's cost them time and money,, yeaaaaa.
Please tell me she didn't ride all the way down in those shorts.
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miss alliekat
Guest
Wahoo650 said:
I was told it was an xs500 !! i wonder if any one can tell me the difference between an xs500 and a tx500, so that i know what model i have. it would be nice to know as Tx sounds better than XS and older ...
Actually the TX500 line was only made in 1972-3. There was also a TX750 the same years that replaced the original XS650. The whole TX line was considered a disaster and Yam went back to the XS line and completely redid the engines. Allie, the bike you have is far better then the TX500 in reliability, performance and looks. The XS500 changed its looks completely in 1976. Pretty hideous in comparison to yours. You did well.
Wahoo650
Coast to Coast
Actually the TX nomenclature came in between XS series. The 500 and and 750 started life as TX the 750 twin died after 2-3 years and was replaced by the XS triples(the 750 twin never replaced the 650, as it was built continuously from 1969-1984). The 500 became an XS when yamaha went back to that name and continued making it until I think 77-78, other then the mentioned restyling, it is mechanically the same bike. The "X" has always stood for the 4 in 4 stroke the "S" presumably for Stroke. When they started making multiple multi-cylinder 4-strokes they tried a new alpha-numeric naming system, where the T was for Twin or Two cyl, the X for 4-stroke hence TX (the four cylinders were XS-X for 4 cyl., S 4-stroke). It didn't take as a couple of the models (500&750 twins in particular) had some teething issues. While they were ahead of their time technically, 500 had 4 valves per cyl, and the 750 used a complicated crank counter balancer system to smooth the vibes. The TX 's all got a bad rap. The 650 twin, which started as an XS1, then XS2, the TX650 A & B, XS650c,d,e,f were all the same with only slight improvements made over the course of it's life(and the addition of the Special in '78-the standard dieing off in '79). For a 500cc twin, in it's day it was reasonably quick, especially on the high end, reving better than comparable Hondas at the time. I can personally attest that other than an oil leak from the head and the typical for the era bad charging system, mine had no problems, and never lost to any twin I challenged on the back roads of Georgia. Of course my experience was on a 6 year old version with very good care, TT pipes and jetting. It was a blast! If I didn't prefer the 650, I'd have one in my garage now just for old times sake. Most of the bikes like this got undeserved reputations simply because evrything was improving at such a rapid pace back then, and the real horsepower wars of the 4cyl. big bikes was kicking off, leaving good bikes like these to be viewed as slow, underpowered dogs.
But hey, that's just my .02. If it were mine I'd clean it up, tune it up, change what ever I didn't like about it, and ride it! As for whether it's an XS or TX, or a 73 or 74, a lot of times, especially back in this day, left overs simply got titled as what ever the current model/year was. There may be a source on the web that can show manufacturing dates for it from the vin#. I have them for the 650 and 750/850 tripples, but haven't seen them listed anywhere (yet) for the 500.
Matt
But hey, that's just my .02. If it were mine I'd clean it up, tune it up, change what ever I didn't like about it, and ride it! As for whether it's an XS or TX, or a 73 or 74, a lot of times, especially back in this day, left overs simply got titled as what ever the current model/year was. There may be a source on the web that can show manufacturing dates for it from the vin#. I have them for the 650 and 750/850 tripples, but haven't seen them listed anywhere (yet) for the 500.
Matt
