XS250 cafe burner

DBLshotcafe

DBLshotcafe

New Member
well after ALOT of inspiration from these forums and a huge amount of procrastination i finally went out and bought this little beauty! ;D
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And what an adventure to drive this thing home! it had been sitting for a while and seemed in running condition. the clock shows 70,000km but all parts look almost new! soon to find out when i tear her apart, im hoping that it might be a replacement speedo?? fingers crossed! anyway, she fired up with some fresh fuel and some assistance with a car battery! but it would stall as soon as i let go of the throttle. hoping i could keep it going for the 35km (22miles) trip home, off i went and boy it was a struggle to get it there, after the 4th stall it wouldnt start and after trying to start it for a while the battery started to drain!! ahhhhhh. i was getting rather frustrated by this point. lucky i was in the city by this point so i hopped off and parked it on the curb and went for a longggg walk looking for a workshop. and finaly found someone with a few spanners and bits i checked her over. took out the spark plugs to find the right cylinder what built up with alot of black soot, while the left was clean and had evidence of not firing! lucky i didnt make it home with only one cylinder firing! HAH. so chucked in some new spark plugs and she ran like a dream! (although the throttle stop needs adjusting, along with a full service and tune) and i made it home with no problems (almost 4 hours later!)
and that is where i stand now, eagerly waiting for the weekend to get stuck into it! :eek:
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

Very nice. Looks like a nice base for a bitchin cafe.

I think the mods need to make an Aussie board in the Regional section for all you guys down there.
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

dig up an XS750 tank, won't look quite so massive on your small framed bike.
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

yeah, i prefer a streamlined tank rather than the boxy look. ill keep an eye out. getting a few new parts today, a narva falsher unit, some new globes and removing the rear fender with a new stop light and indicators all round.

as much as i would love to start tearing it apart, i just dont have the room at the moment :( im house sharing and would be very hard to keep track of where im at. so im just doing small cosmetic changes (electrics/seat etc) until i find my own place with a rockn garage 8) finger crossed its soon!
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

well spend the good part of the weekend on the bike. with numourous trips to the auto shop and hardware store.
got a set of new small LED indicators and tail/stop light.

fitted the front! check out the differnece :eek:
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chopped of this bugger........
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fitted the new tail/stop unit with the number plate bracket
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so heres a overvew with the changes....
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in other news, spent a great deal of time making minor adjustments to the fuel system. FINALLY she runs like a bought one! dialled in the remote throttle stop, checked slack in the throttle cable, played with the air screw and it idles like a dream. also the final drive chain was MEGA loose so a quick tighten was in order. replaced the oil etc etc starts with one kick! closer inspection to the engine shows evidence of a rebuild! definatky put a smile on my face. 8)

things on the horizon................ waiting eagerly at my letterbox for my clubman bars and manx style seat!!!
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

recieved good news, my clubman bars and hand grips are now in transit, they were on back order :( but now im excited because ill have some more work to do on the weekend! i was playing with photoshop to give me some ideas about the seat. what do you think?

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slowing looking for a place to live so i have my own space and start ripping it down to the frame and start painting and rewiring.
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

Loving that seat and light setup. Keep those pics coming

Jay
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

here they are!
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after alot of persuasion with some dirty words, and sore hands i finally got the new grips on. had to modify the throttle assembly, with some cutters which cracked a bit off the end, at this point i thought it was the end of the world but the new grips went on and covered it up fine with no rubbing issues on the bars. check out the improvement!
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things to do this weekend: buy new battery, and flasher relay for the LED turn signals. after the new battery has charged ill check the power to the coils to see if its nessesary to do the $50 dollar mod with a automotive relay. also going to crack open the head and check out internals as well as timing etc.
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner project in Aus

DBLshotcafe said:
going to crack open the head and check out internals as well as timing etc.
Click to expand...

Just do a compression / leakdown test before you rush into pulling the engine apart. If that checks out OK, I wouldn't bother going any further.
You'll need a head and base gasket at the very minimum if you start to strip the motor and that will probably set you back a couple of hundred $$$ (this is Australian $$$, everyone :eek:).

Nice looking XS, BTW - Keep the mods coming ;)
 
Re: 1980 XS250 cafe burner in pieces

OK! a lot has happened since the last post. wired in the new narva LED flasher unit, as part of doing this i had to remove the auto cancel unit and run new lines straight to the flasher as exsisting voltage was too low for the LEDs and then followed by me scratching my head as to why, no matter which way i flick the switch all 4 blink???? so i consulted the wiring diagram and found that both the left and right circuit go to the idiot light, creating a short creating a leak the either sides, what did i do? removed the bulb and hey presto! both left and right indicatiors work like a dream, but with out the idiot light. ;D

Was having a major idol issue, i think was mainly caused by me not knowing which was the sync screw or throttle stop was. strange things happened with the idle sitting nicely at start, then after a 30min ride it would sit at 3000rpm. so after some fiddling i got it happilly sitting around 1200rpm. also got some pod filters that really opened up the rev range! i remember when i first picked up the bike it only revved to about 6500rpm, now it goes up to 9-10000rpm with no problems!

on to greater news, i finally got my own place!! with a garage and all 8) so what did i do?? started to tear the bloody thing down, also made a little video of the last time it was started as a original XS.

[youtube=425,350]<object width="445" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NNfnyqn36-s&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NNfnyqn36-s&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="445" height="364"></embed></object>[/youtube]​

i know it took a while to start it was a cold day and i ehhh forgot the choke..... and its loud cause i couldnt wait to tear it apart and started with the mufflers!

so the tear down begins!
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nice amount of 30 odd years of muck!
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PLANS:
my inspirations:
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  • hammer tank with knee/bar dents
  • re-wire harness removing electric starter circuit (kick start only)
  • mould headlight bucket with dual tacho/speedo (or just speedo)
  • find a xs400 motor, if not clean and paint original
  • clipons
  • rearsets
  • new MC front and rear
  • upgrade rotors or drill exsisting
  • clean up frame, removing unwanted tabs and PC or paint
  • electronic ignition

thats enough to list for now, went for walk in the cold rain yesterday and found a milk crate behind the milk bar around the corner..... ::) so last pic is where it stands until this arvo when its propped up onto the milk crate, wheels off, enigine out and the clean up begins!
 
Looking good mate, making my own XS 250 cafe racer. Haven't heard one running before so nice to know it doesn't sound half bad ;) Looking forward to this.

Edit: Have also kept out the electric starter, have looked around for an XS 400 engine but no luck, I'm in Perth so if you're over east maybe you'll have some luck.
 
hey bushie, yeah i just moved to melbourne from perth! been here 2 months now, bloody cold! on ebay there is a guy selling NOS xs360 pistons 1mm oversize, but only one with a set of rings, still keeping my eye out! :eek:

PROGRESS!!
i found a very very nice motorcycle wreckers, convieniently close to work.... that gets sr400 parts straight from the land of happy japs. check out what i picked up for a measly sum of 200 bucks! (100 bucks for seat, which on peyton place for around $570AUD) clipons are for 34mm forks, i think xs's are 33mm, so i have to figure out a way to fit these.. either packem out (not sure how secure that will be) or cut them down.....
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will need to work on a mounting system for the seat, will cut off the old indicator mounts and maybe reduce the hoop in the frame. im planning on mouthing the battery directly under the hoop.
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OK! so last night i got it down to frame minus engine! man what FRIKKEN battle :mad: i was humming and harring, and me being me didnt consult my manual for the proper procedure. before i tore everything apart it DID cross my mind to drain the engine oil..... but i thought to my self "she'll be right". no no no no when i got the the engine removal, the two front small engine bolts (yes bushie i also thought some silly bugger had put these on backwards....) hit the oil filter cover! shit what do i do now? with just the engine in the frame like this... how do i drain the oil?? i tried heaps of things ::) i ended up balancing the front of the frame on the crate and two bricks proping up the rear of the frame, just enough clearance for my oil pan. but this didnt work! the bricks gave way and the whole thing came crashing down missing my hand and wrench under it by this much >-< squashing my oil pan shattering it everywhere.
so i bit the bullet and just removed the filter cover as quick as i could spilling the oil on the floor just to get these bolts out. BUT theres more! hahaha..... you also need it removed when taking the engine out of the frame! more mess..... all in all i got it out! hurrah!
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now im ready to mark up all the frame tabs and bits that are to be removed and start prepping for paint! here is a sneak preview to my frame colour.... i know it looks shit cause i just sprayed in onto a dirty frame but you get the idea....
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and for a hint of what im getting at.....
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hope you guys like...... ;D
 
Looking good mate, I concentrated on the engine first, putting that back together then gonna tackle the frame. Not looking forward to the wiring :( I've had my own problems with draining oil, bought a second engine to scavange parts from and ended up draining about a litre onto my jeans, socks and slippers :-[ That was a bad day.

Seat looks good though! And for a good price, you'd be laughin.

Edit: Also, where'd you get your clubmans from? MikesXS?
 
i got them from www.zpower.com.au here in aus. i think about 90bucks + postage. but hey mine need a new home, and i only bought them about a month ago, hah! i thought about clipons first, then just bit the bullet and got clubmans, and ended up getting clipons after all, as i see alot on guys here do that too! so a word of warning for anyone trying to weight up clipons vs clubmans, you could be 80% sure that you will want clipons in the end. if you want my clubbies, there up for grabs, was gonna put them on ebay on the weekend but if you want them for 50 bucks, free postage. you can have em ;D
 
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