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1978 XS400 CAFE Build

132K views 521 replies 39 participants last post by  AKyammy 
#1 ·
What's up bros, I'M BACK!!! Sold my GSXR project a while ago, I was sure it would be a long while till I had a bike again. I was wrong. Recently I had a cool dream about riding a little CAFE bike, the next day I watched the trailer for "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" in it she was riding some sweet little 2 cylinder CAFE bike and I thought to myself, I've always wanted a Small CC, 70's Japanese bike to CAFE out, but where can I get one that isn't burnt out or expensive. I remembered my good friend Brian said he would sell me his since he bought an RX7 and he doesn't have time to do both. So here she is, a 1978 Yamaha XS400. Beautiful condition, sat in a shed for 15 years. 17,xxx original miles bone stock, new tires, battery, and fuel lines and he already cleaned the carbs. I pick it up Friday, here's some pics of it I snapped tonight in his garage:






Bike starts right up and runs with the occasional pop, I checked the carb boots and sure enough they're cracked, replacing those will most likely fix that. Other than that it needs a good cleaning and then I can start the build. Here's my plan:
Clip ons
rearsets
leather cafe seat
2 into 1 exhaust
rear gas shocks
LED Blinkers/taillight/headlight
Hidden mini cell battery
custom gauge cluster
strip it down to the bare essentials
a little re-painting
possibly switch to disc brakes if I can find them on spoked wheels
Let me know your thoughts and ideas.
 
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#420 ·
Bars in general throw off the look, I'm going to check out clip-ons with a 2" or so raise. Like sport touring clip ons, I know WoodCraft makes em with a 2-2.5" raise. I think Tarozzi does too.
 
#421 ·
Here's the tarozzi's $130:
Low rise 40mm rise

High rise 70mm rise


Woodcraft $160:
2" rise but they make em up to 3" I think is the max:


Or I can search EBAY for a set off some other bike but I doubt I'll find 33mm for my forks.
 
#423 ·
I know what you mean. I guess it's like why women wear high heels, they say they're uncomfortable, but they look hot as shit :)


Sent from my Motorcycle iPhone app
 
#425 ·
I change my mind so much, I'll probably end up throwing the clippers back on...
 
#428 ·
I think they make fully adjustable clip ons too!
 
#430 ·
They do, Tarozzi makes those too. I think If I cut the kick start and bend a toe peg to it, that would solve that clearance issue, Then the 2-1 exhaust will give me more space for the shifter linkage.
 
#431 ·
Well, came out today to work on the bike since my friend is in town with cb500 cafe racer. Took out the plugs and was checking the timing and as I kick it fuel puked out of the right spark plug hole. I left the gas on for 2 days and it flooded. I adjust ed the timing, it was way off, I think that was why it was popping at 4k from the right. Now, I have no spark. Tried different plugs, stock size battery. What the fuck.
 
#434 ·
Did both. I think I need to pull the harness, something is touching something it shouldn't.
Just caught this, I'm not one for cafe's, but I can Dig it!
Thanks dude, you know I live in the next town over from you in Milford. We should meet up
 
#433 ·
Just caught this, I'm not one for cafe's, but I can Dig it!
 
#436 ·
Definitely, I'll give you a call soon.
 
#437 ·
Welp, I'm all back up and running. You'll never guess what was wrong. Before I bought this bike someone tried to steal it and they popped the cylinder out of the ignition so now it can come out with the key. At some point I took the key out with the cylinder and put it in upside down. So it wasn't making a complete circuit for the ignition system. While I was ripping everything apart me and my friend set the gaps for the points, they were way off. Once I realized the key cylinder was wrong I switched it and put everything back together and now it runs better than ever now that the points and timing are adjusted properly. Fuck, me.
 
#439 ·
Started up my bike to meet up with my buddy to go for a ride and my bike would shut off and I would have no power. Did this a few times before I realized it was the battery dying, I put a multimeter on the battery and figured out that the bike was cold idling too low to activate the charging system. Turned up the idle just a hair and never had the problem again. We went for a nice rip before he headed back to RI, great ride. It was cool to ride with another Cafe bike, I don't know why, it just was. Here's a few pics I snapped when we stopped for a smoke. That's him next to his cb550.




He did the pin striping on his tank and covers, I'll get him to do mine when I re-paint my shit.


Got home and my new clock was waiting for me!

Here it is next to my stocker for comparison. Only thing is the shaft inside my cable is too small for the fitting, maybe I can swap it out from my stock speedo? I'll wire it up tonight.
Also thinking bout trying out clubmans for my bike...
 
#443 ·
Ordered a matching tach today, can't wait to get them both on. Also mounted an ignition I bought for the Honda under the tank, bolted it up to the frame, looks sweet. I got everything wired for the idiot lights except the blinkers. There is one indicator for the blinkers and i can't figure out how to wire them both up, there is a positive and negative line off the clock, but obviously there are 2 positive and negative lines off the blinkers. If I tie the two blinker lines together with the pos indicator line, all 4 blinkers flash at once, I tried running the positive to one blinker and the negative to the other but then only the blinker tied into the positive indicates. What do I do you fuckers???
 
#445 ·
When I do that all four blink at once. Where did you tie in?
 
#446 ·
Have you tried tying the indicator light to the wires coming off the switch?

You also might need to get something like a feedback eliminator to keep the signals from crossing over and making all the turn signals blink.
 
#447 ·
No, I'll try that.
 
#449 ·
I'll try what Matt mentioned, it sounds like it would work as long as there's only one positive wire for the blinkers at the switch. Which there should be. I'll let you know how it goes, next I need LED blinkers, mine aren't bright enough.
 
#450 ·
OK, got the indicator to work with both sides, I just soldered in 2 rectifier diodes. Here's a vid of how I did it.
 
#453 ·
I put the clippers back on when I had my front-end apart for wiring the speedo, I went around the block, took the clip ons right back off. I'm starting to dig the look of the bars, I'd like to get some anodized gold pro tapers and fancy risers. I like the Tracker look on modern bikes, can't wait to see some pics.

good idea! FTW!
Yeah it works great, I can't take credit though, I read it on another forum. Now I need to change my flasher AGAIN to work with the LED blinkers I picked up. What's another $12 right?
 
#454 ·
Thinking about selling this bike and buying an xs650...
 
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