xf200 By zugzug (Read 5,133 times)

[zugzug]

Well I finally decided on what to get this year. I got up nice and early and took a road trip from Philly to Pittsburg to pay Cookies a visit and pick up a xf200. Heres a stock pic of the one I got:



It was a bit of a rough ride over to Pittsburg due to the wind and snow that picked up a bit in the mountains between Harrisburg and Somerset. Pretty much uneventful except for me Googling Liberty ave instead of Liberty rd. With a few good directions from Cookies and 15 mins later I was whre I needed to be. (sorry no pics of trip to this point) I did briefly look over some of the qlink/cfmoto scoots and you can tell a big difference between them and the mainstream china scoots. Im not sayin there like hondas, but definately a big step above the rest.

So we get the xf200 loaded and strapped down and I start heading back east. I managed to miss the tunnel again as this crazy lady in a SUV decided to pass me on the left as I was trying to take the ramp on the left. What really got me angry is she was goin straight. I followed her for a bit just to give her a lil scare but then I had to figure my way back to the big road. After a few stops for bad directions I finally said the heck with it and picked a direction and went with it. I finally came to I279, went south, crossed some bridge and got on I376. YAY! finally heading back in the right direction (which is east lol).

Cookies did a good strap down job and the bike didnt budge a bit on the trip home. Heres a few pics of the bike in the back of my truck and of the roadtrip back home.











Heres a couple of a lil windmill farm (is that what ya call them)





The bike ridin good in the back:


So I finally arrive back home a bit after 7pm. I decided to wait until morning to unload the bike since I was tired from being on the road all day. My day went from being pretty darn good to in just a short minute. My son and friend came out to look at the bike. Knowing it was "prepped" and seeing it started before I left the shop in Pittsburg I figured it wouldnt hurt to start it up for a minute so they can here her purr. Bad, BAD idea! I started it up and it ran for maybe a minute and smoke and a bad smell started coming from it. I shut it off as fast as I could. I havent gone back out yet to look at it but it sure smelled a lot like the gooey stuff I drained out of the china scoot last year. So everyone cross thier fingers and toes as I go out this morning to take a look at it.

[zugzug]

Just as I thought, no oil in it. Just a few oz of gooey china crap. The good news is it appears that there might not be any engine damage or atleast not too much. I put a qt of 5/30 in it and it fired up. It seems to run ok. Andy has one of these on his face again

I was planning on doing a good PDI on it anyway so its not a setback. No one to blame but myself since I broke my own #1 rule which is to always check the fluids before starting.

This is actually a pretty nice bike. There are a few cheap/cheesy parts on it but overall its a good build. Welds look good on the frame (which have been issues on other china bikes), mikuni carb with manual choke (gotta give a big thumbs up on it) metal tank (ya definately dont want your fuel in a china-plastic tank) wheel assemblies look good and wider than expected. The handlebar switches are better than both the china scoots I had. The plastic parts are made of a decent grade and are flexible. None of that cheap brittle stuff.

I looked on thier site and the stator is a 18 pole and appears to be a mageto type so it should start with the kicker even if the battery goes dead.

The suns starting to finally show itself so its almost time to go do a PDI.

Oh and I just decided on its name. Since its valentines day (well almost- I will be reg it on valentines day) I named it Cupid but its spelled Qpid... get it? since its from Qlink. ;D

[zugzug]

There were a few issues but it looked like most of the bike had been gone over or they did a good job at the factory. Either way Im happy with it. It was cold and windy so I didnt spend much time taking pictures other than a couple at the start. The first couple are with the shadow so you can get an idea of the size of the bike. Its not a kids toy. Its a full size dirt bike with street wheels.




Heres the rest I took. I like the design. Most of the electrics are in one spot, all the connectors were protected with lil covers. Other than a few loose bolts/nuts the only real issue was the airbox boot wasnt seated on the carb. It was much easier getting it seated than trying to do all 4 at one time on a nighthawk.















These last 2 are just showing the area to get to the valves. The valves are fine for now but eventually they will need adjustment. Just a half dozen bolts and the side panels, seat, tank and bracket are out of the way for easy adjustment.

[kz1000st]

So is this in lieu of another scooter? How do you decide if you take the Honda or this?

[zugzug]

Yeah I decided to try a china bike instead of a scooter. The decision of which to ride is easy. Ill ride the honda until I get this one tagged and then the honda goes byby. The Shadow reminds me of my exwife too much. Every time I see it I remember the fun times we had riding together. So as soon as I get this one on the road Im craigslist/ebaying the shadow. You wanna buy it? Im selling it cheap, got the title right here ready to sign over.

[kz1000st]

You won't be disappointed in buying a China bike. I've said it before about my Cub Clones. They just keep chugging along, nothing falls off and they get great mileage. I wouldn't hesitate to take them on a really long run if the situation arose and I mean hundreds of miles long.
No, I don't need another bike. Sorry. It's a 600, right? I'm up to my neck in rolling stock now as you can see in the pictorial.

[cookees]

Boy, my mistake on this one.
Short story longer... originally I told my partner that Zug was going to take the black xf we had on the floor. He got in early Saturday morning and was just finishing up prepping it when I got in and told him that the buyer had decided on the SILVER one instead. So I rolled the silver one into the shop and thought I'd better help out since Zug was due any minute. I dropped the shipping/oem oil, and went to fill it up with the oil we use in our shop, Maxmum 10-40 motorcycle oil. The XF does not have a dip stick, but rather utilizes a site glass. So I dump in a bunch of oil, check that the site glass is covered, see that its up to the upper mark.......then answer a phone call and get completely distracted. Mike asks me if I changed the oil and I says 'Yep"!
What I forgot in my haste was that this baby takes over a quart and that the site glass needs time to "settle".
So apologies to Zug..and especially my partner Mike( who is one hell of a mechanic). I don't want to disparage Mike, and I'm certainly glad Zug caught the mistake.
So excuse me while I take myself out to the woodshed...

P.S. And its easy to confuse Liberty Ave with Library Rd. The names are similar. That, and the fact they're both in the same general vicinity. Truckers delivering to us do it sometimes.

[mthomas]

Zug,
Congrats on the new bike, looks great. That drive looks so familiar as I had to go to Phiily a few weeks ago for business. Hope you had your doors locked when you were on Liberty Ave.

[zugzug]

Feb 13, 2011 20:15:48 GMT -6 mthomas said:

Zug,
Congrats on the new bike, looks great. That drive looks so familiar as I had to go to Phiily a few weeks ago for business. Hope you had your doors locked when you were on Liberty Ave.

lol yeah I was thinking it was a rough area to be trying to sell scooters. I gave him a call and was looking at the streetsigns to tell him where I was at and realized I was on the ave instead of st. I didnt bother to bring my gps since it looked easy enough when I looked it up on Google.

Hey Cookies, no worries. I dont think there was any damage. Heck I shoulda looked before I started it up anyway. Plus it was a spur of the moment decision to ride out there and you didnt have much time to get things together. Oh, and thanks for the mug-o-coffee.

[zugzug]

Well i got it tagged and insured after work today I only took it around the block since the weather turned bad again. After tomarrow it looks like riding weather for about 4 days. I been hearing rumors of lots of folks gettin sick on friday...

[chris97]

Zug,
Nice bike, I bought the Lifan version last spring, and glad I did, you're going to enjoy it!

[zugzug]

yeah i can see having lots of fun on it. Shes running pretty good but I gotta do some fine tuning on it this weekend. Its also a few inches taller than the specs list it. I dont mind it being so tall but anyone else looking to get one might wanna know. Instead of the spec listing of 31" its close to 35" tall. I think they just added more foam to the seat starting with the 09 model.

[zugzug]

I decided not to do any adjusting until I get it broke in. Now that I put on a few miles its starting to pur like a kitten. I took it to get inspected saturday but it was so windy I came right back home. I was out riding most of the day today though. Heres where shes at.

[kz1000st]

Which begs the question is that kilometers or miles? If it's miles when did you get time to sleep?
Seriously though. You see now I wasn't kidding that Chinese bikes are put together quite well.

[mcalli]

nice. I recognised the pics of the PA turnpike. It looks the same as it did 50 years ago (it needed repair and overhaul way back then and its still the same now. ;D Are the Howard Johnsons resturants still scattered along the pike?