A cold, rainy Saturday had me break down the carburetor on the Yamaha XS1100. A Triumph Spitfire and Mercury LN7 owned as a teen made me pretty handy with carburetors. In addition to multiple rebuilds I also got handy at jury rigging manual chokes thanks to the utterly crap Ford Escort carb set up.
The beautiful Mikuni unit on the Yamaha looks like a piece of industrial art in comparison to the pedestrian Triumph and Ford carbs, unfortunately it’s seized. After breaking down the top end I soaked it and freed up the seized throttle body.
The next to-do with the Yamaha is to clean up the gas tank and then reassemble the fuel system. The engine isn’t seized and spins easily, so I think I’ll have an easy time firing it up for the first time in years (knock on wood).
Here are some pics of Mikuni’s Yamaha masterpiece:
 |
| The throttle cable wasn’t playing nice even after taking apart the handle bar – so into the carb I go… |
 |
| The Yamaha XS1100 engine block with the carbs off – it got the Warhol treatment…. |
 |
| Like everything else so far, the internals look to be in good shape on the old (35 year old!) Yamaha |
 |
| Cleaning up the fasteners using the caps from each carb to keep things organized. |
 |
| XS1100 is in for surgery |
 |
| Not many riding days left as the weather turns up here in Canada |