Despite an excess of warnings, I went to look at a non-running 1980 XS500E back in March '90. It had been garaged for much of its life with only 12000 miles on the clock and was owned by someone whose knowledge of mechanics was non-existent and had failed to keep it running. My mate and I went to see the machine and were pleased to find that it had been kept very well and would nearly start (ie it backfired a lot). I decided that it probably needed only a damn good service and made the vendor a silly offer, 120 notes. This worked and DSL 301 was mine.
Back at my mate George's garage, new oil, cleaned carbs, charged battery and all the other goodies were offered to the XS in an attempt to get her to start. A real nightmare, however, was revealed on removing the plugs, one of the threads was stripped. Oh Shit! Anyway, off with the cylinder head; an engine out job requiring the splitting of the camchain. It's a split link thingie (the chain itself is very tough, a double run type and therefore very long-lived, which makes me very surprised to read some magazines quoting it as having an underdeveloped belt drive to the cams!).
As the head was out I took the opportunity to regrind the eight valves and change the valve guide seals, although this was not entirely necessary. After the plug thread was sorted the engine was reassembled. When new plugs and point were fitted the beast started up quite easily using the electric boot (a kickstart is also present, but due to its gearing and subsequent effort required, I managed to snap two levers in the past four years).
The general impression of the bike at this stage was of a sturdy though slightly sluggish feel to the handling and of a smooth engine which was sufficiently powerful to give a 110mph top whack (although an indicated 117mph was once witnessed). No oil leaked or burnt and economy was around 60mpg. The tyres at this time were Bridgestones, the suspension was standard, therefore the grip was not perfect but the stability was quite good. The red sector began at 9000 revs and the engine could burble along at three grand in top gear if necessary.
After about 500 miles the one and only teething problem was met, a snapped balance chain! Probably occurring because it had never been adjusted. With some foresight I could have avoided this but no damage happened and a new chain had me back on the road. From this stage on, many trouble free miles were to be realised.
At some stage I decided to vamp up the steering and riding style by fitting lower bars, Avon AM21 & 22 tyres, nice engine oil in the forks (it doesn't wreck the seals) and R and R shocks (protected with washing up liquid bottle gaiters). The useless original sealed headlight was replaced using a 7.5'' unit available from car shops, allowing fitment of halogen bulbs. I now had a good handling machine which could be scratched around bends and produced no wobbles, weaves or other steering anomalies. The bike was used daily for college (in Leicester) and for travelling to see friends and relatives all over the country, which gave it an easy life of about 1000 miles every two months.
At this point I would like to mention some features of the engine. It has eight valves which usually needed no attention. I did the Slick 50 trick on the motor shortly after purchase and changed the oil every 1500 miles, the filter changes being done every other oil change. Points were checked every 6000 miles when the plugs were changed and the balance chain tensioned. Balance chain adjustments required the removal of the alternator cover on all XS500 models, and sometimes the removal of the flywheel (which requires a clockwise threaded bolt of the same diameter and pitch but slightly longer than a Halfords car tow-bar bolt).
Cam tensioning is semi-automatic and required the loosening and retightening of a nut every 2000 miles - it only takes a minute. Despite the huge amount of criticism thrown at the XS500's engine I found it to be very reliable and exceedingly easy to work on as every fastener (internal and external) was an allen bolt. Every now and again I tuned the two CV carb mixture screws but never bothered balancing them. Throughout my 30,000 miles of ownership the cam surfaces never seemed to wear, which I put down to the Slick 50 and regular oil changes.
At the 26000 mile point of the XS's life my demands on it dramatically changed, as I became a motorcycle courier (not on an XS, I hear you all shout) clocking between 1000 and 1500 miles every week. This involved London, A-road and motorway work, the latter with the XS holding between 85 and 95mph most of the time. Nothing really changed except that I was found spending most of the weekend changing oil, soaking chains and doing most of the little service jobs. It was whilst I was a courier that I found out the average life of things and how far service intervals could be pushed from Hayne's recommendations.
Back brake pads were consistently down to the metal after 8000 miles, front tyres lasted 14000 miles, chains when despatched only 6000 miles (normally twice that as I religiously soaked it in oil every 1000 miles). After 42000 miles the front pads, back sprocket and battery were still the same as were on the bike when I bought it. I can’t explain their longevity.
Petrol consumption varied between 48 and 60mpg, depending on how hard it was used and on the state of the engine tune. After 35000 miles the oil would have to be topped up every 800 miles or so (due to a leaky gearchange shaft and camchain tensioner bolt, which I never seriously tried to fix).
Surprisingly enough, 2000 miles into my DR career I had my one and only XS crash. Down to doing 85mph on a B-road which I didn't know. Luckily I managed to get the speed down a bit before the corner, but the XS and I still ended up in the ditch. I was just a bit shaken and grazed (not wearing the best of protective clothing) but just about everything on the XS500's left-hand side was cracked, scratched or bent.
With the help of a passing farmer, I extracted the XS and kicked it straight enough to use. I felt a little bit timid about riding it after the incident. A spare bike with a blown crank was purchased for sixty notes, its bits used to restore order. Unfortunately, this bike didn’t have good pipes and the crashed exhaust was pulled back into shape, leaving it cracked, creased and rusty. I wasn't too surprised when, a month later, it fell apart. The exhaust fell in half whilst I was roaring down the M1. No XS pipes in the breakers, so a newish set of Superdream silencers were persuaded on. Just a bit of hacksawing of the downpipe's flanges was needed and the motor ran fine with no carburation nastiness.
Despatching came to an end with 40,000 miles on the clock, due to a return to college. It was a good laugh and definitely more stressful on me than the bike. Unfortunately, when the bike had 42000 miles on the clock it was stolen and when recovered its crankshaft was seized, which must've taken some incredibly ham-fisted riding (for example, about 16000 revs). The theft had depressed me and I was in the middle of my final exams so I left it at the recovery garage.
The eight valve twin was a good bike which always started and gave me many hours of pleasure and use. As long as oil, balance and camchain are checked properly, most of the other things can be neglected until they cry out for attention. It's always amazed me that the bike has received such a slagging off in secondhand reviews, as for its age it was pretty quick and economical. Compared to a new GS500E it has the same economy and, if anything, is slightly quicker. Furthermore, the build quality of the bike, I feel, is a lot better than that of certain modern bikes I could mention. When the XS was nicked it was 13 years old and much of the frame paint was in perfect condition, the tank paint was just starting to go off and the forks did not have a single pit.
If you're after a cheap middleweight, a low mileage or well maintained Yamaha XS500, for between 150 and 400 notes would be a very good choice. Presently, I am considering an XS750 triple but that will be another story.
Mathew Gardiner
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The good, the bad and the ugly sprung to mind when I first saw the XS500 twin. I'd read a bit about them but never come across one in the flesh before. The good was a nice chassis, newish consumables and upgraded suspension. The bad was the gaping hole where one of the spark plugs used to be. And the ugly was the impression the owner gave off when I mentioned that fifty quid sounded about right.
I quickly amended that to £150, which almost went down as badly. The way I figured it, even if the motor was a complete write-off, I could haunt the local breakers until some likely candidate of an engine turned up for a transplant session. The chassis had a good reputation and despite being 20 years old was still more than useable.
I wouldn't offer any more than £150, though, because for all I knew the suspension internals were shagged, the frame was bent and the brakes didn't work. I kept kicking and pushing the cycle parts, peering down the spark plug hole and generally trying to look as if I had a handle on the deal. Probably just to get me out of his hair, he agreed. It was then I realised I'd have to push the bugger a mile and a half home.
As it turned out, the effort was worthwhile as a mere helicoil fixed the cylinder head and what I could see of the motor looked just fine. This must rate the bike as a bargain buy, the luck of the brave winning out. Starting took a while and included two flat batteries. When I looked closely, I found much bodged electrics with a bloody great regulator off some ancient old car and spaghetti wiring wound together with black insulation tape.
I should've left it alone, but a brief blast revealed that the engine went rather well and the steering was taut, and I didn't relish the electrics going down in the middle of nowhere - I'd owned too many MZ's in the past to contemplate that! Nothing for it but to tear the whole rotten mess out. Rather than buy a wiring loom I decided to rewire it myself. Ignition and charging circuit first, with a hidden switch as the ignition module had fallen apart when I tore at its wires.
That was the easy bit, as it just meant connecting up a used rectifier/regulator, battery, coils and points. Couldn't go wrong - well you could, but I didn't. It was getting the lights, horn and indicators to work that got to me, not helped by finding out that the handlebar switches only worked when there was a full moon. Eventually I won out and the highway beckoned. The total cost so far was a touch less than two hundred notes!
What I had for my money was a 48hp, 400lb twin with eight valves and DOHC's plus a chain driven balancer and, er, a bloody great big oil leak from around the gearchange shaft. I think you were supposed to fit the replacement seal by splitting the cases but chisel in one hand and Plastic Metal in the other sufficed.
I don't know if it was my bodging or a stock characteristic, but the gearchange wasn't brilliant, needing a tender foot and placid mind to avoid false neutrals. That aside, the bike battled down the road in valiant mode, happily putting 110mph on the clock and out-accelerating my mate's GS450 twin. How I laughed!
Not so funny was the 30mpg economy and the way the pegs shook at a steady 70mph. The acceleration was good enough to obscure the vibration! Mind warping and nasty was the only way to describe how the balancer tensioner had to be adjusted. Other bikes with similar layouts used gear rather than chain drive, although the ubiquitous Superdream's also burdened with a stupid chain tensioner system. Allow a whole weekend for the job. The vibes were slightly diminished after all that effort and weren't to get any worse over the next 8000 miles.
Handling, braking and general feel were way ahead of the usual £200 hack and even up to the moderate standards of modern bikes like the GS500E and GPz305, to name but two much overlooked and underestimated twins. Poor old MZ's, and the like, didn't stand a chance.
I particularly liked the energetic way the XS performed between 75 and 95mph, a real blast of acceleration, and a nice growl from the exhaust when the motor came on cam. The mill only complained by emptying the sump of oil in about 200 miles and burning through spark plugs every 600 to 750 miles. A combination of this and cheap alloy resulting in the previous need for an helicoil. It's pathetically easy to strip threads in the engine and it didn't really come as a surprise when the other plug went the same way as the first. Had to take it all apart again for a second helicoil.
Lucky in its way as I found the camchain tensioner was cracking up. The nearest Yamaha dealer just gave me a silly grin when I went in to order a new one. But if I wanted a shiny new bike he'd be only too happy to help. I said no thanks, spent the next two weeks straining my eyes reading the classified's in MCN. Someone was breaking an XS500 and I could have their seized engine for £75.
I took a chance on the tensioner being intact. It was, but the crankshaft bearings had gone, the pistons had ruined the bores and most of the hardening on the camshaft lobes was eaten through - in short, not that much that could be salvaged. But I got fifty quid for a complete gearbox, a tenner for a pair of carbs and another tenner for the top crankcase... eventually I'll get ahead of the deal. XS500 spares are rare but cheap enough when they do turn up in private sales - for every one bike still on the road, ten or twenty have been broken or dumped.
I haven't done any long runs on the Yam, as I don't really trust it that much. Nor have I had any accidents, as it's a safe bike to ride and an easy one to haul out of trouble. Its main role's as a winter hack, my immaculate VT500 kept for serious riding - funnily enough, both bikes have similar performance and handling, though the VT is smoother with better carburation, as it damn well should be given its relative newness and lack of miles. As I get 60mpg out of the Honda it makes no sense whatsoever to think about taking the Yamaha on long journeys.
In its role as a winter hack the XS gobbles up the salt off the road, spits it out as furry white corrosion on all the alloy. The rest of the finish, paint and chrome both, is fine, just needs a weekly polish. Some kind soul had already fitted stainless steel silencers, mudguards and handlebars, though tarnished they do polish up nicely.
So there you go. A low miler wouldn't be lost on modern roads and give many newish bikes a shock. Most are now old rats, though, with an engine that can break down or seize up at any moment. Worth paying a couple of hundred quid for but not the kind of bike of which love affairs are made. Too much potential heartbreak for that.
S.Middleton