I tried to remove the brackets on the underside of the XT500 seat. I had applied WD40 the night before, but I still managed to break the first bolt, and the second, and well, all of them. They had to be drilled out as the “nuts” are actually small plates moulded into the plastic. After removing the seat cover and the foam, it was obvious that they could never have been unscrewed. They were completely fused to the plates by […]
First off, I had the incorrect forks for my 1980 XT500 G. They were from an earlier model that had the axle mounted ‘inline’ on the underside of the of the legs (1976-1979). They were also a different length, the earlier type should protrude above the top clamp by 35mm to 55mm. There is not enough space to do this on later models. The 1980 and later had leading axles, i.e. mounted to the front of the leg. The triple […]
I used the OEM rear shock absorbers and springs from the 1U6 doner bike as the ones I had were Hagon. They were rusty as hell but serviceable so the first thing was to dismantle them. One of the tools I don’t have and didn’t buy is a spring compressor. So I used a home made option. First you need to make sure the shocks are adjusted to the lower position. It was much easier dismantling them this way than […]
One rear mudguard that I took for blasting and powder coating only got as far as chemical cleaning (tank dipped). Once the paint and filler came away it revealed extensive corrosion which may have holed if blasted. The other one was blasted, filled slightly and powder coated. I took along the new front mudguard, that I’d recently bought, and asked them to match the colour on the rear mudguard. I believe this is always the best option against providing paint […]
Cylinder head, valves and rockers got scrutinised before moving on to the cylinder and piston. Removing the rocker cover, inspection of the rockers and tappets and cam shaft revealed some wear but I’ve seen rockers and tappets a lot worse than this but they still showed enough wear to warrant replacement. The cam shaft shows more wear than I’d hoped and even some flaking on the edge of one of the cams. This is an expensive part to replace new […]
The position of the carburettor confused me at first. The choke lever touched the frame when it was up (OFF) and even seemed to prevent it from reaching the OFF position completely. I tried turning the carburettor so that the top turned to the left. But then it was pushed against the cable tie/bracket on the frame and the choke lever was still touching the frame. It also needed a better connection to the airbox (as mentioned in this post). […]
12 June 2020 After using WD40 and an impact driver I was able to remove the battery box and air box, and discovered perhaps why there was an idle problem, as the above photo shows. This is a common problem with the XT500, the connection from the box to carb cracks and brakes off, sometimes because the owner tries to squeeze in the carb without loosening all the mounting points of the air box. But maybe also due to the […]
