The guy dragged this ‘82 XJ650 out from the back of his garage. I could see he was struggling with its 430lbs mass and I could guess why. Gummed up calipers and flat tyres did not help. There wasn't much rust, the engine cases had been blasted, polished and covered in clear lacquer; even the 4-1 exhaust was more chrome than corrosion. Shaft drive meant no seized chain worries. The battery was dead, no way it could be started. We pumped the tyres up with a foot pump and took the calipers off... enabling us to push the hulk the three miles to my home. I handed over the stack of used tenners. £280 may not be much to some but it was my life's savings. Hard work indeed pushing the XJ all that way, stopped twice by cops looking for an easy booking but we had the logbook to hand. By the time we reached my house the tyres were flat again.
Next day, a neighbour’s car was wired up to the XJ with jump leads. A lot of backfiring, after five minutes she finally burst into life. Oh, that exhaust was loud! You couldn’t approach the bike without helmet and earplugs! There was some camchain rattle but the gentle rustle of the valvegear was reassuring. I pumped an old can of Finelec into the tyres. The owner had been vague about why the machine had been stored for the past three years. I found out why during the first ride.
Into first gear, lovely growl, brief burst of acceleration. Felt right brilliant. Up into second with a gentle tap of the boot. Nothing. Tried again with more force. Same result. The bloody box was locked into first. Fine if you wanted to do 40mph at 10000 revs all day. With enough noise to unhinge a saint. Buzzed back to my garage, trying to look innocent of all the noise reverberating off our back lane walls. The old crone next door poked her head out, screaming that she wasn’t going to put up with that kind of din. She‘d have the police on to me.
Once the engine cooled it was possible to engage neutral but not work your way up the box. I have owned many bikes and never had to touch their gearboxes so I knew shit all about how they worked. I had nothing better to do, so I yanked the engine out of the frame, pulled off the cases and split the crankcases... took about three days to achieve this, at times, seemingly impossible feat. Corroded in screws and bolts were mostly to blame for this lengthy exercise in tedium. One small allen bolt had come adrift, I bunged in a bit of studding I had to hand with Araldite ensuring a permanent repair.
Araldite was also employed to repair stripped threads and as a gasket seal on the more dubious surfaces where my screwdriver had removed large chunks of alloy. Seemed to work okay, no large oil leaks in the rebuilt engine and most of the gears worked most of the time. The bike would occasionally slip out of third and fourth, blasting the revs way into the red but it didn’t seem to damage the valves.
First proper ride showed up the handling as decrepit. The tyres wouldn’t hold more than 25psi and needed pumping up every day. The suspension sagged on what looked like the original components. The shaft drive was so worn that terrible lurches rattled through the machine. The back wheel hopping about unless you were very precise in matching revs to gears. Acceleration was fantastic in the lower gears but after the ton the urge forward slackened off.
Only plunging down the steepest of hills would allow more than 120mph on the clock. The brakes were mush, totally lacking in feel and liable to take the day off or lock up suddenly without any warning. The well worn Metz's screamed in protest when that happened, throwing the bike into a massive skid until the brakes reluctantly released their grip. This despite much work with emery cloth on the caliper pistons! There was about a millimetre of pad material left all round, which would have to last for at least a year.
I tried whenever possible to avoid hitting the brakes. Which often meant rolling through red lights and not stopping at junctions. I figured the huge exhaust roar was sufficient warning of my coming to save the day. I ended up with just a single front disc working, using the spare pads from the others to keep it going.
Shoving back the throttle helped slow things down, as the four cylinder motor had loads of engine braking. The series of clanking noises and lurches from the shaft should have dissuaded me from such activity but I just turned the Walkman up and pretended they were all like that. Long rides were always interesting. Rather fierce secondary vibes often resulted in bits falling off, the most spectacular being the silencer. The fearsome din became absolutely incredible after that... I had to ride 22 miles home on an open pipe as the silencer had been flattened by a following cager.
When I fitted a can off a GPZ600 the engine sounded very subdued and made riding all the more interesting with a 4000 to 6750rpm flat spot. Things improved a bit after I degutted the 'silencer. Mileage in the first year was just over 7000. Nothing too serious went wrong and I spent naff all on consumables. Only oil and petrol depleted my wallet, even then she did a credible 55 to 65mpg unless mercilessly caned on long motorway trips at 110mph plus. Rare, as the wobbles tended to concentrate the mind on its body’s imminent demise. I couldn’t be bothered cleaning the beast much, appearance degenerated to match its owner’s... I'm not called Rat for nothing.
With something like 67000 miles on the clock the camchain started rattling and huge clouds of smoke escaped the exhaust. I had yet to tear off the cylinder head and barrel and was not too surprised to have to supplement my toolkit with a tyre iron and big hammer. The only way to prise the cylinder off. Rings were smashed, valves bent, tensioner reduced to scrap, among other things, all down to blocked oilways. I spent a week cursing, repaired what bits I could and started doing dawn raids on local breakers.
Anything that looked like it might fit was acquired and bunged in regardless of which model XJ it was supposedly meant for. The cost of new gaskets was impossibly high so a couple of tubes of Araldite were nicked from the local DIY Superstore, my pony sized dog dropping a load creating the necessary diversion. The mutt was famous for the trick in the lowly circles in which I was forced to move. The recreated motor was forced back into the frame, connected up and fired into life. After about an hour, that is.
Performance was not exactly brilliant, put she would still push the ton under favourable conditions and cruise along at 80mph for as long as I felt I could take the vibration. Usually about ten minutes. The seat fell apart under me and then the front guard fell off. I think the rolling wreck was trying to tell me something. I ignored such protestations and did another 2800 miles before deciding that it would be a good idea to sell the XJ before it was too late and I'd only be able to get scrap value.
I cleaned her up as best I could. Put her in MCN for £500 as a good runner, which was still true if you stretched the truth like it was a bungee cord. I was deluged with desperate punters demanding that I reserve the machine until their arrival on my doorstep. I was having none of that nonsense and off-loaded it on the first caller who bunged me a nice pile of fifty notes. He didn’t bother to haggle, informing me that he’d make the money back within the week by taking the poor old XJ despatching in Central London. A rather unfair fate for such an old plodder, I thought, but there you go.
I worked out I'd had nearly 10000 miles for next to nothing. I was impressed with the basic design but not too enamoured with the plastic screws and cheap alloy. Still, for that kind of money you can’'t expect too much. I bought a 400 SuperDream for £200 and spent the rest of the dosh taking the machine over to France for a holiday. The 400 wrecked itself when the engine seized. I walked away in disgust and hitch-hiked home.
L. N. B.