Sunday 30 August 2015

Midnight Thoughts

What we have here is a Yamaha XS1100 'Midnight Special'.  It looks like it needs some love and is for sale for $500 along with some extra parts.  The flash from the phone makes this '70s bike look pretty disco!

The XS1100 is a late '70s/early '80s 'super' bike.  From what I've read it's Yamaha's Vincent Black Shadow.  You're spoiled for choice as far as customization goes with the XS1100.  It's a big, air cooled engine with the old fashioned dual rear shocks.  It begs to be cafĂ© racered a bit.

As a tear down/rebuild, this makes a pretty good basis for a winter project.  It would be my first air cooled bike, as well as my first tear down/rebuild.

The Clymer manual is readily available (I'm finding Haynes manuals lacking in covering many motorcycles).  This could be a winter sanity thing.