A stream of abuse poured forth like I have never uttered before. I swore at the bike, I screamed insanely at the previous owner (who was luckily not present) and finally started blasting myself for being such a fool as to think I could handle a bike as butch as a modified XT500.
The engine featured such delights as a reworked cylinder head with huge valves and high lift camshaft, high compression ratio piston and an open mouthed Amal carb that threatened to suck in any passing dogs. I had only owned the bike for 15 minutes. It had stalled at a set of traffic lights when I had foolishly assumed that there was an idle circuit in the carb and stopped blipping the throttle in deference to the cringing pedestrians who were blasted with the full glory of a big single engine on a straight through exhaust system.
Actually, that's a lie, I'd really backed off because my right wrist was tiring of holding open a heftily sprung carb cable whilst holding on the front brake to stop the bike surging forward under the influence of clutch drag, it being impossible to engage neutral from a standstill.
Try as I might, leap as hard as I could, the motor refused to respond to my kickstarting. I am not a light man, nor an unfit one, but that engine had me reduced to a sweating wreck in less than ten minutes. Pedestrians and bored car drivers alike looked on with concern and interest at my mounting fury, wondering if they were suddenly to witness a John Cleese type rage at an inanimate mechanical object.
I went to sit at a nearby bench, sulking for ten minutes hoping a cooled motor and temper might combine to produce a running motor. No hope, not even a hint of a misfire. I looked the engine over. Jesus Christ! The routing of the HT lead was such that it had pulled off when I'd first flicked up my leg to reach the kickstart. Lead reinstated on the end of the spark plug, I tried again.
I still have the limp! The hundreds of kicks expended fruitlessly had filled the combustion chamber full of fuel ready to ignite at the merest hint of a spark. My somewhat weakened from exhaustion kick meant that I received the full blast of the motor's kickback. I was thrown into the air with a force so violent it could not even match the time a taxi driver whacked me in the head with a perfect right hook. At first I thought my leg was broken, but I eventually reassured myself that the bone was merely bruised.
I left the bike in the gutter where it had fallen over and limped home full of disgust for both myself and motorcycling. The wife showed little pity for my sorry state and irritated me further by mentioning that I was surely getting too old for motorcycling! Two hours later I had recovered sufficiently, both mentally and physically, to return to the scene of the crime. The bike was propped up against someone's wall and there was no sign of damage - the key was even still in the ignition! Thieves had obviously shown a wisdom way beyond their profession by leaving the XT well alone.
I took a deep breath, set myself up for the great lunge, telling myself to get my leg off the end of the kickstart just before the end of its travel to avoid any chance of further injury. Much to my surprise, the motor roared into life like a good 'un. The ride home was sheer exhilaration, the modified motor had an excess of low end grunt and then came on cam at 5000rpm with arm wrenching, grin inducing force. The wife looked disappointed when I appeared in the living room with a wide grin splitting my face. Too old? Pah!
I don't know how many miles the bike had done, the speedo not being standard issue. but it didn't really matter because the whole machine had been stripped down, modified and then lovingly put back together. It was set up for road use, lowered on far from standard suspension with the oirginal hubs laced to neat 18" alloy rims shod with Dunlop's finest.
Apart from the idle problem, the motor ran cleanly and was capable of propelling the XT at over the ton. I never weighed the bike, from my past experience of pushing bikes around I would guess at 325lbs. With so little mass and raw power it was quite a goer.
The owner told me to watch out for the front SLS brake, which featured both harder linings and shoes, thus was a bit fierce, tending to grab on in the wet. In fact I found it a delight and much more sensitive than many a disc brake equipped machine.
Admittedly, you had to be careful in the wet, but I was more worried about the way the back tyre let loose on damp roads when the grunt was suddenly applied than the front wheel locking up. There was also a tendency for the engine to cut out when subjected to a deluge, a terrible fate on a single cylinder machine because all you're left with is a dead motor. Don't know how many cans of WD40 I bought in the two years I had the machine, but it solved the problem.
Another problem was the front light. The electrics were the original 6 volt rubbish, which meant night riding was a waste of time out of town. I got caught a few times, having to potter along at moped speeds and still not being sure where I was going.
Such niceties as indicators and idiot lamps had been dumped somewhere along the line. Batteries only lasted six months, probably down to the vibes that were fierce above 5000 revs - I mean this is your basic, tough single without any balance shafts, so what do you expect?
The bike was a ball in town and down country lanes, where its gutsy power and agility could really be exploited. Pouring on the power in top between 70 and 90mph was a real eye popping experience, so much so that it left many a multi fanatic with egg on his face. I've ridden around both the inside and outside of people on much faster bikes who just couldn't believe the way the XT500 motored.
Motorways and wide, fast A roads were not much fun. At constant speeds you're far too aware of the vibration from the motor and the raucous exhaust noise. Anyone who has owned a big Triumph or Norton will know what I mean. On the Yam vibes seem to creep through everything, the pegs, rests, seat and tank. The one time the wife allowed herself to be carted across town she gave me a very funny look indeed when she dismounted! I did a few 80mph motorway runs but was rather put off when things like mudguards started fracturing.
I guess I did around 20,000 miles in two years on the big Yamaha. The clutch went down twice and the valve clearances seemed to need weekly attention to keep them in line, but other than that it was surprisingly reliable given its tuned state and my inclination to thrash it around town and down the back roads. There was no sign of piston or bore wear, a common XT malaise, and no falling off of the power output. As it was so far from stock there's not much point giving consumable information but I would be surprised if you got more than 5000 miles from a chain or less than 10,000 miles from a set of tyres.
Fuel economy was, er, interesting - I never achieved better than 50mpg, more often than not doing around 35mpg, which more than anything else is an indication of how much I enjoyed twisting the throttle open. Similarly, oil consumption was heavy, so heavy that I often didn't bother with an oil change the frequent fill-ups more than replacing the oil in less than a 1000 miles. I could live with that as the bike had only cost £600 and I was subsequently able to flog it for £800!
As an around town street racer it couldn't be beaten, its only real fault the lack of an electric starter, an item very necessary to avoid loss or injury of limb. By the time I had sold it I had more or less got the hang of starting, but was still very wary of the beast. It left me with fond memories and a bit of a limp!
John Phillips
****************************************************
'I've put a hot cam and high compression piston in her. You can tell that when you try to start her.' That was the understatement of the f..king century! When I stopped the howling, I limped back to the malevolent beast. My first tentative attempt had produced a massive kickback. I felt lucky my leg was still in one piece. Even the Dobberman seemed to be grinning at me, let alone the owner's whole family and what looked like half the immediate neighbourhood. Second kick, fuelled by a mixture of rage and fear, she burped into life. I received a round of applause for my troubles!
I blipped the throttle, giving the engine a bit of time to clear out the oil. Made a jolly nice noise, anyway, I felt the hairs on my back stand up. 'Take it easy on the throttle, boy,' were his last words as I departed on the test ride. Sod that, thought I. Letting the clutch out and jerking the throttle right the way around. The bike went vertical, waved about and then slammed down sideways as my reactions failed to keep pace.
Bloody hell, I'm too young to die, kicked myself clear of the heap. It bounced into a Metro, flipped over, barely missing my legs. By the time I was upright, half a dozen people were shouting abuse at me. The vendor picked up the XT, red in the face with anger, whilst the Metro owner was shaking me by the lapels of my shining new leather.
Money stopped me being lynched. Five hundred notes for the scratched and dented XT. A hundred quid to the Metro owner to fix the ruined car door. I got the Yamaha running with a bump start and played gently with the throttle all the way back. I was greeted with another crowd of irate civilians on arrival home. One old chap brandished his walking stick in a threatening manner, causing me to lose my footing and fall into a heap on my parents driveway.
The cause of all the bad feeling was the rusted through tail-pipe falling off about a quarter of a mile away. It was so loud that all along the final part of the route people had rushed out of their houses. I dodged the bricks and ignored their protestations. Luckily, I wasn't booked for disturbing the peace because I had yet to buy any insurance - the hundred quid to the Metro owner had got rid of the last of my loose change. The parents were quickly convinced of the need to stump up the cash for insurance on the promise of fitting a new exhaust.
The guy had said it had a valid MOT but in the fracas that followed my test ride I failed to check the certificate.....it was due to run out in two days! The local tester failed it on the exhaust (too loud even with a newish tailpipe), the brakes (shoes worn down to the rivets), swinging arm and steering head bearings (shot) and a rusted chain. I was so pissed off by then I gave him the go ahead to fix it with used parts.
I soon got the hang of the wheelies. The XT wasn't front heavy, would come up with a bit of throttle or a hard pull on the bars. There was a balance point that allowed the wheelie to be maintained the length of the High Street but needed Zen-like relaxation as it'd veer off if you so much as sneezed a little.
So it was with two wheels on the tarmac. It'd go where I pointed it but small bumps or even cats-eyes would have the front end wandering around all over the place. This slack feel was easily accommodated by a little effort on the wide, trail inspired bars - it may just have been the knobbly front tyre which refused to wear at all - making it impossible for me to check out the handling on road tyres.
The starting was consistent. First kick if you had the muscle and, er, a fearless nature. About once a month I'd receive an almighty, wicked kickback which, even wearing proper motorcycle boots, tried to dislocate if not break my leg muscles. I doubt if any tea-leaf would ever manage to kick her into life without suffering permanent injury!
The hot motor, that caused all the starting maliciousness, also gave a very strong top end, hurtling the bike up to the ton as fast as my mate's GS550 and finally breaking through 110mph if I was willing to get down in an unlikely and extremely uncomfortable position. After that the clocks were jumping about from the vibes so much that it was time to back off.
A stock XT has some poor running below 2000 revs, along with a chattering transmission and a penchant for cutting out completely. The tuned motor was similar up to 3000 revs, when power started to flow, going very hard from 5000 onwards. The engine's pretty old tech with no balancers and lots of primary vibes. That made town speeds difficult as the buzzing started coming in heavily from 3000 revs. Below that the naff delivery made life unpleasant, above it the vibes soon sent my hands and feet dead. Even my marital tackle was affected after half an hour, shrinking in dismay to hamster proportions.
The solution, of sorts, was to keep the bike under acceleration, when nothing mattered but the exhaust note and the way cars came streaming backwards at me. Under such abuse the XT was good, clean fun. Obviously, at a certain point there was no room for further acceleration. Dropping the throttle dead produced a deep exhaust note and an excess of engine braking. This was just as well because the half width drums, though wonderfully sensitive on the dirt or in the wet, judging by their lack of power and penchant for fade, were sourced from the bloody FS1E!
Luckily, the trail bike heritage made it relatively easy to swing the Yam around cars and go into some thoroughly outrageous manoeuvres as an alternative to extinction. Even with this ease of hustling, in the first month I scraped the sides of cars twice.
In one instance I continued bopping along, assured that the cager was stuck in the jam. I glanced over to the pavement to see some athletic type running along flat out - he must've been doing about 15mph! I grabbed some throttle, did a 400 yard wheelie to extinguish any chance he had of beating the shit out of me. The other time I pulled up as the cage had swerved into my path and had to deal with a woman driver going into an hysterical fit. She didn't have any insurance so I kept my no-claims bonus.
The XT was tough enough to shrug off such embarrassing incidents. Off-road it was a bit pig-like because of its mass, liking to bog down in mud whilst spray from river beds cut out the motor. It was okay for gentle trail work but trying to keep up with the mad nutters on strokers was a quick way of ending up making an undertaker's day!
Weak spots in the engine are the piston, valves, tensioner and gearbox - in that order. There was no way of knowing the mileage but I was surprised that the motor survived a year and 10,000 miles without exploding. It'd obviously had a good rebuild, there are lot of high quality tuning parts available.
Consumables were a mixed bag. Rear chains lasted 4000 to 5000 miles, shoes about 8000 miles and the knobby tyres only lost about 2mm. Fuel was excellent at 60mpg, probably because of the much modded exhaust and the valve work the bike had previously received. Oil was changed every 1000 miles but servicing wilfully neglected, although there wasn't much to do.
I traded in the XT for a XT600E (getting £800 off the price), a motorcycle that makes the 500 seem like a piece of vintage tackle. There are still lots of much modded XT500's on offer at reasonable prices. An interesting but not compulsive experience.
M.W.L.
****************************************************
'I've put a hot cam and high compression piston in her. You can tell that when you try to start her.' That was the understatement of the f..king century! When I stopped the howling, I limped back to the malevolent beast. My first tentative attempt had produced a massive kickback. I felt lucky my leg was still in one piece. Even the Dobberman seemed to be grinning at me, let alone the owner's whole family and what looked like half the immediate neighbourhood. Second kick, fuelled by a mixture of rage and fear, she burped into life. I received a round of applause for my troubles!
I blipped the throttle, giving the engine a bit of time to clear out the oil. Made a jolly nice noise, anyway, I felt the hairs on my back stand up. 'Take it easy on the throttle, boy,' were his last words as I departed on the test ride. Sod that, thought I. Letting the clutch out and jerking the throttle right the way around. The bike went vertical, waved about and then slammed down sideways as my reactions failed to keep pace.
Bloody hell, I'm too young to die, kicked myself clear of the heap. It bounced into a Metro, flipped over, barely missing my legs. By the time I was upright, half a dozen people were shouting abuse at me. The vendor picked up the XT, red in the face with anger, whilst the Metro owner was shaking me by the lapels of my shining new leather.
Money stopped me being lynched. Five hundred notes for the scratched and dented XT. A hundred quid to the Metro owner to fix the ruined car door. I got the Yamaha running with a bump start and played gently with the throttle all the way back. I was greeted with another crowd of irate civilians on arrival home. One old chap brandished his walking stick in a threatening manner, causing me to lose my footing and fall into a heap on my parents driveway.
The cause of all the bad feeling was the rusted through tail-pipe falling off about a quarter of a mile away. It was so loud that all along the final part of the route people had rushed out of their houses. I dodged the bricks and ignored their protestations. Luckily, I wasn't booked for disturbing the peace because I had yet to buy any insurance - the hundred quid to the Metro owner had got rid of the last of my loose change. The parents were quickly convinced of the need to stump up the cash for insurance on the promise of fitting a new exhaust.
The guy had said it had a valid MOT but in the fracas that followed my test ride I failed to check the certificate.....it was due to run out in two days! The local tester failed it on the exhaust (too loud even with a newish tailpipe), the brakes (shoes worn down to the rivets), swinging arm and steering head bearings (shot) and a rusted chain. I was so pissed off by then I gave him the go ahead to fix it with used parts.
I soon got the hang of the wheelies. The XT wasn't front heavy, would come up with a bit of throttle or a hard pull on the bars. There was a balance point that allowed the wheelie to be maintained the length of the High Street but needed Zen-like relaxation as it'd veer off if you so much as sneezed a little.
So it was with two wheels on the tarmac. It'd go where I pointed it but small bumps or even cats-eyes would have the front end wandering around all over the place. This slack feel was easily accommodated by a little effort on the wide, trail inspired bars - it may just have been the knobbly front tyre which refused to wear at all - making it impossible for me to check out the handling on road tyres.
The starting was consistent. First kick if you had the muscle and, er, a fearless nature. About once a month I'd receive an almighty, wicked kickback which, even wearing proper motorcycle boots, tried to dislocate if not break my leg muscles. I doubt if any tea-leaf would ever manage to kick her into life without suffering permanent injury!
The hot motor, that caused all the starting maliciousness, also gave a very strong top end, hurtling the bike up to the ton as fast as my mate's GS550 and finally breaking through 110mph if I was willing to get down in an unlikely and extremely uncomfortable position. After that the clocks were jumping about from the vibes so much that it was time to back off.
A stock XT has some poor running below 2000 revs, along with a chattering transmission and a penchant for cutting out completely. The tuned motor was similar up to 3000 revs, when power started to flow, going very hard from 5000 onwards. The engine's pretty old tech with no balancers and lots of primary vibes. That made town speeds difficult as the buzzing started coming in heavily from 3000 revs. Below that the naff delivery made life unpleasant, above it the vibes soon sent my hands and feet dead. Even my marital tackle was affected after half an hour, shrinking in dismay to hamster proportions.
The solution, of sorts, was to keep the bike under acceleration, when nothing mattered but the exhaust note and the way cars came streaming backwards at me. Under such abuse the XT was good, clean fun. Obviously, at a certain point there was no room for further acceleration. Dropping the throttle dead produced a deep exhaust note and an excess of engine braking. This was just as well because the half width drums, though wonderfully sensitive on the dirt or in the wet, judging by their lack of power and penchant for fade, were sourced from the bloody FS1E!
Luckily, the trail bike heritage made it relatively easy to swing the Yam around cars and go into some thoroughly outrageous manoeuvres as an alternative to extinction. Even with this ease of hustling, in the first month I scraped the sides of cars twice.
In one instance I continued bopping along, assured that the cager was stuck in the jam. I glanced over to the pavement to see some athletic type running along flat out - he must've been doing about 15mph! I grabbed some throttle, did a 400 yard wheelie to extinguish any chance he had of beating the shit out of me. The other time I pulled up as the cage had swerved into my path and had to deal with a woman driver going into an hysterical fit. She didn't have any insurance so I kept my no-claims bonus.
The XT was tough enough to shrug off such embarrassing incidents. Off-road it was a bit pig-like because of its mass, liking to bog down in mud whilst spray from river beds cut out the motor. It was okay for gentle trail work but trying to keep up with the mad nutters on strokers was a quick way of ending up making an undertaker's day!
Weak spots in the engine are the piston, valves, tensioner and gearbox - in that order. There was no way of knowing the mileage but I was surprised that the motor survived a year and 10,000 miles without exploding. It'd obviously had a good rebuild, there are lot of high quality tuning parts available.
Consumables were a mixed bag. Rear chains lasted 4000 to 5000 miles, shoes about 8000 miles and the knobby tyres only lost about 2mm. Fuel was excellent at 60mpg, probably because of the much modded exhaust and the valve work the bike had previously received. Oil was changed every 1000 miles but servicing wilfully neglected, although there wasn't much to do.
I traded in the XT for a XT600E (getting £800 off the price), a motorcycle that makes the 500 seem like a piece of vintage tackle. There are still lots of much modded XT500's on offer at reasonable prices. An interesting but not compulsive experience.
M.W.L.