Ms. Braaaaaap - my XT500 is being resurrected and gets new clothes

Ms. Braaaaaaap is one of the most long-term members in my stable. It's my trusty XT500, which I bought almost a decade ago.

The first two pics are the actual pictures off ebay, which were coupled with a really terrible description of the bike and truth be told the old girl was in a mighty sorry state.

 

This picture was taken at least two years later as it already shows Ms. Braaaaaap with the XT600 frontend and panniers. At about this time I did a lot of miles on a by then already very, very tired stock XT500 engine with an absolutely unknown amount of miles on the piston. 

 

 About two years ago I gave the old girl a quite extensive makeover, polished the fuel tank and was very close to selling her. Luckily nobody bought her back then. Unfortunately she also developed some nasty backfiring issues (more on that a little later) and due to an overwhelming amount of other projects I put her aside for a while. In fact until about pretty much on the day two weeks ago.

What you see here is a manual ignition advancer. Nifty piece of kit, rather hassle free if lubed regularly there's not much to go wrong, right? Well, don't cheat and only look at the first picture to spot the missing part...

 Correct, one of the flywheel-weight-springs has snapped and disappeared. But...

 ... blessed is he who hoards. Nicked the advancer off my spare engine and now the old girl is gifted with a rock solid idle that could be used as a heart-pace-maker... for  hyperactive squirrels.

 Now that wiring and the rusty white mudguards are a bit of an eye-sore to be honest...

 ... but there's a way to sort that one out. 

 The other thing was all the wiring was... rather functional, but not exactly aesthetically pleasing. And the battery box was a tad rusty as well, so that required more than "just" a lick of rust-remover and paint.

The last thing on the list was a very, very stiff throttle. It turned out, that with the TM36 installed, you have to use the correct combination of holes on the throttle-butterfly or the closer will tighten up before the opener cable. Ultimately a DR600 throttle grip and new cables will solve this issue. 













 And... ain't she pretty? Well, yes that exhaust's gotta go rather sooner than later. As I have a way more elegant replacement waithing for its turn.