I was a mechanic when these bikes were current at a Yamaha dealer. They only had two issues. you needed to replace the brushes in the alternator about every 10 to 15,000 miles you needed to clean where the battery ground strap attached to the frame. That was not always a good connection because of the paint on the frame. The result A few times that I saw, was every time you hit the start button and you don’t have a good ground on that heavy ground strap from the battery to the frame, you have a lot of little grounds in the wire harness on those small 14 gauge wires that end up being the ground of the electrical system. Those little wires cannot handle the amperage of that starter Cranking the engine over, especially if the bike is not a quick starter. The result was melted, wire harnesses… those small grounding wires in the wire harness under the gas tank had to carry the load and they would get very hot to the point they would burn the insulation off and melt into other wires near them. I replaced three complete wire harnesses on the excess 650s because of that issue. They were not cheap, and it was not a quick job to replace the wire harness. Other than that, these motors were the best engines Yamaha was cranking out in the 70s up until around 1984.. The XS650 in one single year here in the United States, sold more than 120,000 units in a single year of this one model of motorcycle. after the Harley Davidson inspired tariff on imported motorcycles, which crashed the motorcycle market in the United States to which it has never recovered now, 40 years later still has not recovered. Looking back, over the past 40 years, Yamaha has not sold 120,000 of every size motorcycle they make combined in the United States in a single year. That is how impressive sales of the XS 650 Yamaha twin was. they were good motorcycles. Capable of more than 100,000 miles with routine maintenance… I actually had 4 of these motorcycles, I bought one from a customer because it had a melted wire harness, I bought a second one that I spotted while working my regular job, which took me all through the city every day, I spotted it sitting behind a house, and it sat there for a couple years until I knocked on the door.. I spotted another one sitting in front of a house leaking oil all over the sidewalk. I could see it needed a head gasket. I got that bike for $100. I went through it changing the oil cleaning the carbs, new battery just going over the whole bike and getting it running correctly. The first person to show up to buy it after I advertised it for sale, he took it up and down the street and the head gasket blew. He came back with white smoke pouring out one of the exhaust pipes… The funny thing is, he bought it anyway, because he only needed the chassis and body parts, because he had crashed his XS650 and had a perfect engine. I spotted another one sitting in front of an apartment building, it had not been running for a while. I knocked on the door and the woman that owned the apartment building said she has been trying to get that motorcycle out of there for a long time. One of her young tenants owns it, and got tickets for it being parked on the sidewalk and having expired registration, and not being inspected… I left my number with the old lady that owned the building. I soon got a call a couple days later from the chief of police in that town. He told me I could come and just take the motorcycle for free. He told the kid that owned it that if he would give me the motorcycle, they would forgive all of the fines it had accumulated… so I took it. I ended up, trading it to a friend who turned it into a flat tracker in South Carolina. He said he never had an XS 650 that ran better. I think it was a 1975 or 76… so, although I have had four of them, go through my hands, I never ended up, actually having one that I rode daily. They were just a hot commodity that I was always able to sell at a profit or trade them away for something else. i’m sure there are still thousands of them out there sitting in the back of peoples garages, or in peoples basements, just sitting.. simply because there were so many thousands of them sold. I don’t know the exact number, but that may be the one model of Yamaha that they sold the most of.. Good solid machines
Great bike. I bought one new when I was in the army. Drove it from El Paso to Los Angeles and back when I went on leave. The only problem I had was the kill switch shorted. Easy fix. My top speed was 105 mph. That year was the best paint job ever. It was my only transportation for a long while.Thanks for the memories.
You did a great job explaining why the XS 650 is so popular with DIY mechanics that want something they can maintain at home. I have one but I can't get the clutch to work right. When the bike is cold the clutch slips, when then engine is hot it has clutch drag and the shifting is hard. Have Fun Bro
That really is a nice clean example. I think Yamaha is kinda off underrated personally. I'm a little biased probably because my daily rider is an XS Eleven Special, but I'd love to have one of the smaller models sometime like the 650 or even the 400. I think a lot of the idle and partial throttle issues will work themselves out to a point just by riding it more often. These old Japanese bikes are always best enjoyed by riding them, not by gawking at them. When they sit they inevitably develop issues. And yeah, Yamaha starters! They sound like they're on death's door.
I have owned three Yamaha XS650s. All of them were the Special models. '79, '80, and '83. The '83 Heritage Special was bought new. Great bikes. I wish I still had one.
The Yahama 650 was a great bike. As many, I had one that a friend bought new and with in 90 days he sold it to me. As ya know these bikes were refined better than the British stuff. Less issues, even though I loved the British bikes. My 650 twin got a new seat and a better exhaust system, which gave the sound of the twin British bikes. Mine never gave me issues, never leaked oil. I pulled all my maintenance. Couldn’t trust the dealers being honest. Wished I kept that one for my collection. Great bikes, control and handling was great., no vibrations once I got it tuned correctly.
You can't judge a carburetor or accurately adjust it until the bikes reaches operating temperature. Some bikes require a lot of warmup time. There might be a half choke setting that might be useful. I had a 1976 XS650 which is mostly the same as this one. The "choke" is really an enricher, adding fuel rather than subtracting air.
My best friend had an early kick start only Yamaha 650. I had a Norton Atlas at the time. The Atlas was modded with Combat Commando cams higher Commando compression. It could tear the lungs out of the overhead cam bike. The Yamaha was super durable though. The Yamaha's handling wasn't wonderful either. Bob thought it need a motor rebuild. It jest had spme aged out rubber in the carbs and intake system. Very durable.
Them Yamaha xs 650. Are bloody good bikes the engines where used for sidecar Motocross . If the engines stand up to that battering . They are bulletproof
Love bikes like this, Kawasaki also had their own British bike with the W1 which was restored with the W650/W800. I wish Yamaha would go a bit more UJM with their XSR series bikes, they add "sporty" design elements that are just unnecessary IMO when you have the MT bikes.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
I was a mechanic when these bikes were current at a Yamaha dealer. They only had two issues.
you needed to replace the brushes in the alternator about every 10 to 15,000 miles
you needed to clean where the battery ground strap attached to the frame. That was not always a good connection because of the paint on the frame. The result A few times that I saw, was every time you hit the start button and you don’t have a good ground on that heavy ground strap from the battery to the frame, you have a lot of little grounds in the wire harness on those small 14 gauge wires that end up being the ground of the electrical system. Those little wires cannot handle the amperage of that starter Cranking the engine over, especially if the bike is not a quick starter. The result was melted, wire harnesses… those small grounding wires in the wire harness under the gas tank had to carry the load and they would get very hot to the point they would burn the insulation off and melt into other wires near them. I replaced three complete wire harnesses on the excess 650s because of that issue. They were not cheap, and it was not a quick job to replace the wire harness.
Other than that, these motors were the best engines Yamaha was cranking out in the 70s up until around 1984..
The XS650 in one single year here in the United States, sold more than 120,000 units in a single year of this one model of motorcycle.
after the Harley Davidson inspired tariff on imported motorcycles, which crashed the motorcycle market in the United States to which it has never recovered now, 40 years later still has not recovered. Looking back, over the past 40 years, Yamaha has not sold 120,000 of every size motorcycle they make combined in the United States in a single year. That is how impressive sales of the XS 650 Yamaha twin was. they were good motorcycles. Capable of more than 100,000 miles with routine maintenance…
I actually had 4 of these motorcycles, I bought one from a customer because it had a melted wire harness, I bought a second one that I spotted while working my regular job, which took me all through the city every day, I spotted it sitting behind a house, and it sat there for a couple years until I knocked on the door.. I spotted another one sitting in front of a house leaking oil all over the sidewalk. I could see it needed a head gasket. I got that bike for $100. I went through it changing the oil cleaning the carbs, new battery just going over the whole bike and getting it running correctly. The first person to show up to buy it after I advertised it for sale, he took it up and down the street and the head gasket blew. He came back with white smoke pouring out one of the exhaust pipes… The funny thing is, he bought it anyway, because he only needed the chassis and body parts, because he had crashed his XS650 and had a perfect engine.
I spotted another one sitting in front of an apartment building, it had not been running for a while. I knocked on the door and the woman that owned the apartment building said she has been trying to get that motorcycle out of there for a long time. One of her young tenants owns it, and got tickets for it being parked on the sidewalk and having expired registration, and not being inspected… I left my number with the old lady that owned the building. I soon got a call a couple days later from the chief of police in that town. He told me I could come and just take the motorcycle for free. He told the kid that owned it that if he would give me the motorcycle, they would forgive all of the fines it had accumulated…
so I took it. I ended up, trading it to a friend who turned it into a flat tracker in South Carolina. He said he never had an XS 650 that ran better. I think it was a 1975 or 76…
so, although I have had four of them, go through my hands, I never ended up, actually having one that I rode daily. They were just a hot commodity that I was always able to sell at a profit or trade them away for something else.
i’m sure there are still thousands of them out there sitting in the back of peoples garages, or in peoples basements, just sitting.. simply because there were so many thousands of them sold. I don’t know the exact number, but that may be the one model of Yamaha that they sold the most of.. Good solid machines
Great bike. I bought one new when I was in the army. Drove it from El Paso to Los Angeles and back when I went on leave. The only problem I had was the kill switch shorted. Easy fix. My top speed was 105 mph. That year was the best paint job ever. It was my only transportation for a long while.Thanks for the memories.
You did a great job explaining why the XS 650 is so popular with DIY mechanics that want something they can maintain at home. I have one but I can't get the clutch to work right. When the bike is cold the clutch slips, when then engine is hot it has clutch drag and the shifting is hard. Have Fun Bro
That really is a nice clean example. I think Yamaha is kinda off underrated personally. I'm a little biased probably because my daily rider is an XS Eleven Special, but I'd love to have one of the smaller models sometime like the 650 or even the 400.
I think a lot of the idle and partial throttle issues will work themselves out to a point just by riding it more often. These old Japanese bikes are always best enjoyed by riding them, not by gawking at them. When they sit they inevitably develop issues.
And yeah, Yamaha starters! They sound like they're on death's door.
my 1974 model in australia was called a txa...
I have owned three Yamaha XS650s. All of them were the Special models. '79, '80, and '83. The '83 Heritage Special was bought new. Great bikes. I wish I still had one.
The Yahama 650 was a great bike. As many, I had one that a friend bought new and with in 90 days he sold it to me. As ya know these bikes were refined better than the British stuff. Less issues, even though I loved the British bikes. My 650 twin got a new seat and a better exhaust system, which gave the sound of the twin British bikes. Mine never gave me issues, never leaked oil. I pulled all my maintenance. Couldn’t trust the dealers being honest. Wished I kept that one for my collection. Great bikes, control and handling was great., no vibrations once I got it tuned correctly.
You can't judge a carburetor or accurately adjust it until the bikes reaches operating temperature. Some bikes require a lot of warmup time. There might be a half choke setting that might be useful. I had a 1976 XS650 which is mostly the same as this one. The "choke" is really an enricher, adding fuel rather than subtracting air.
My best friend had an early kick start only Yamaha 650. I had a Norton Atlas at the time. The Atlas was modded with Combat Commando cams higher Commando compression. It could tear the lungs out of the overhead cam bike. The Yamaha was super durable though. The Yamaha's handling wasn't wonderful either. Bob thought it need a motor rebuild. It jest had spme aged out rubber in the carbs and intake system. Very durable.
Those bikes are awesome. Actually, a Germain design engine from a company that Yamaha purchased.
Design was German but it’s clearly made after the British twins of the day.
Them Yamaha xs 650. Are bloody good bikes the engines where used for sidecar Motocross . If the engines stand up to that battering . They are bulletproof
Love bikes like this, Kawasaki also had their own British bike with the W1 which was restored with the W650/W800. I wish Yamaha would go a bit more UJM with their XSR series bikes, they add "sporty" design elements that are just unnecessary IMO when you have the MT bikes.
The W1 came a fair amount earlier. I’ve have trouble finding a decent one. A Yamaha retro classic would be cool
Nice bike!
always seemed like great machines- how is getting parts or expertise in getting things figured out when problems occur?( besides the carb thing)
The Xs has lots of support, massive Facebook community ready to help and lots of form posts online as well and tons of parts available
Lectron cars will make it run.