Exhaust Ed - Pipes Rework Pt. 1

Yesterday before leaving the shop, I pulled the exhaust to take home as homework. The stock exhaust is a two part bolt on unit with a shared muffler about halfway down. The stock pipes have a bit of surface rust and some dings/scrapes, but luckily no holes.

My plan for the pipes is to paint them a jet black color, and wrap them up with either a black wrap or an off-white wrap. I thought about going all out on some custom fabricated pipes, but I think I'll stick with stock for now. Some folks like running a 3-1 down the right side of the machine. I happen to like the 2-1 + 1.

To prepare the pipes for the paint, I bought a Makita angle grinder with a wire brush cup. I also bought a flat sanding disk for some of the flat sections along the exhaust.

I'm new to grinders, so I spent some time reading the manual before firing up the new toy...

Motoshop SF

I needed a place to start working on the XS850, but I don't really have the space to do much at home. After bringing the bike back to the Bay Area, there was nowhere to put it, and it wasn't registered to keep on the street - so I put it the next best place... The Employee Parking Lot.

Corporate Parking Lots are black holes for abandoned vehicles - with the high vehicle turnover, crazy night shift workers, and plenty of vacant space, they are ideal places to stash project motorcycles. I found a great spot behind one of the buildings, next to another squatter's boat trailer.

For a few days, I would go visit it during lunch - turning it over, listening to it cough and sputter - adjusting things, brainstorming. There were a few other motorcycles in the work parking lot, but mostly recent sport bikes - my least favorite category. My plan at that point was the leave the bike out back, and work on it after hours - bringing tools in, and counting on the 260 sunny days per year in Mountain View to keep the bike dry.

One day, one of my coworkers caught me with the bike, and struck up a conversation. He said that he had an older bike (well, from the early 2000s...), and did a lot of work on it himself. He told me about a shop up in San Francisco that is a sort of community motorcycle garage - a place that has all of the tools that you need, mechanic stations to do the work, and classes to teach you things along the way. Like many things in San Francisco, it sounded like some sort of Utopian place - and it is.

Motoshop SF has been the temporary home of the XS850 ever since, and it's been great. All it takes is an online reservation, and the bike's up on a lift getting rehabbed. Specialized tools and specialized mechanics are all over the shop, helping folks achieve their two-wheeled dreams. I highly recommend checking them out if you're working on a bike in the Bay Area. The XS850 is there, and will be, until the next build...

The XS850 at Motoshop SF - December 2014

The Backstory

After not having a bike to work on for a good 7 or 8 months, and having relocated to an area where you can ride year-round (from the cold snows of Vermont via the frigid streets of the District), it was time to rectify the situation. I started cruising craiglist in the Bay Area looking for my next project. For one reason or another, I have always been partial to Yamaha machines - my first bike was a 1982 XV750 Virago - I can't explain my attraction to them, but there it is.

After cruising the listings for a few days, I narrowed in on a bike I'd not heard of before, the XS850 Special. From 1976 to 1981, Yamaha produced two sizes of Triples (Three cylinder engine motorcycles) - a 750cc called the XS750, and the 850cc XS850. The XS750 and XS850 were an interesting attempt by Yamaha to differentiate - unlike the other Japanese and European brands, they were three-cylinder, shaft-driven, aluminum-cast wheeled beasts. Many of the features that appeared on these machines would later become standard bother for Yamaha, and the rest of the Japanese motorcycle segment.

I bought this XS850 Special for $850 from a young man in Santa Cruz, California. He had bought the bike off a guy in San José, and was planning for it to be his first street bike after riding dirt bikes for several years. After getting it home and riding it around, however, he decided that it had a little bit too much power for him. It also didn't run properly, bucking wildly and demanding the rider run it with full choke.

The XS850 at its former owner's house

Before landing in Santa Cruz, the bike had been modified quite a bit - the stock headlight, tail light, and directionals had all been removed, the back end chopped off, and a shoddy custom seat added. Clearly someone's bobber project gone awry, there was a lot of potential.

I forked out the cash, rented a UHaul trailer, and dragged the little beast back to the Bay.

XS850 getting ready for the move

Lurking inconspicuously in my Employee Parking

Bike Parking Only