1982 Yamaha XS400LJ Heritage Special
I wish I had taken a few before pictures of this bike before I started to work on her. The previous owner had the bike for 20 years and put about 4k miles on it during that time (less than 13k total miles when I got it).
Here's a picture of a very nicely restored 1982 XS400 LJ (from the XS11.Com group I'm a member of).
The bike I inherited, while in very good shape, was nowhere near as pristine as this one. But rather than bring her back to original condition, I decided to do some customization, basically 'rat' the bike out.
First, I removed the air filters from the air boxes and reconnected them without the enclosures. This will allow for better air flow.
Second, I 'de-badged' the bike, removing the Yamaha tank emblems and the Heritage Special side emblems. The 'holes' in the tank were covered with a stainless steel flaming eagle.
Then I wrapped the handlebars and rear seat grab bar with black friction tape.
To stay on track with the de-badging I filled the Yamaha imprint on the cases with liquid steel. Both cases were then sanded, primed and painted flat black.
The previous owner has had starting and fuel problems for the past several years and was tiring of putting money into it. I knew that changing the intake and exhuast would require larger jets, but the carb needed a good going over anyway. When sping finally showed up, I pulled the seat, tank, and carbs.
The carbs were running really lean. It was so bad that the bike wouldn't run once it was warmed up. Larger jets, a rebuilt kit, and a careful adjustment of the float heights did the trick. She starts easily and runs beautifully. No more fuel leaking out the airboxes.
The bike sounded like a sewing machine so I knocked out the baffles and was going to wrap and paint the chrime pipes black.
I acquired a set of shorter shocks which lowered the bike about 2".
They came off easy enough, but putting the exhaust back on was a bear and I badly scratched up my new paint job. Suddenly I thought about how much easier the pipes would be to install if they were . . .
. . . cut off!
What a difference in the sound! And letting off the throttle at speed results in a super decel note.
The lowered rear-end resulted in the case saver bars scraping at tight turns. I was going to raise them, but then decided to remove them and mount my fabricated highway bars, consisting of 1" black pipe, in their place
I've added a cup holder and some blue dots to the tail light.
Here are a few final pics.
Some bikes I've owned in the past
I'll have to look for some original photos, but for how here's a picture of the same bike I bought in High School (my very first motorcycle): 1975 Honda CB 750 F (super sport). My bike was the same color.
I only had that bike for a year or two. Sometime in the mid-1990s I bought a very nice 1975 Kawasaki KE100 two-stroke enduro. The bike was really too small for me, but the price was right and I did get some off road desert riding in. I basically gave it away to a needy son of a friend. He painted the entire motorcycle black and trashed it. :-(
In 1998 a friend offered to sell me his 1981 Yamaha XS1000 Midnight Special. It had 7k original miles and was bone stock down to the black chrome pipes. This bike was near showroom condition (this scan doesn't do the bike justice). We lived in Chandler, AZ at the time and had a condo with outside covered parking (no garage). I kept the bike covered, but the heat and dust did remove some of that new bike shine. At the time I had a 1970 Ford Maverick (302 V8) and then acquired a 1966 Impala. Sold the Maverick and the Yamaha shortly before we moved to Rochester, NY in the Fall of 2002. A guy from CA bought the XS sight-unseen and sent a freight truck out to pick it up. He had a LH when he was younger and wanted to revisit that experience. They are hard to find in the shape that mine was in. I wonder if he still has the bike?
