By 
A recent discussion with my Wife one evening went like this…….
Me: “I’ve got myself another Cannondale MX bike, and it needs a full restoration as well! How cool is that?”
My Wife: “Why do you need another one?”
Me: “Because, because, because etc etc etc etc……”
The conversation ends here with my Wife not being either convinced or impressed, and my mind disappearing into the exciting world of Cannondale Motorama.
This post is a long-ish one, but that’s because it’s a long-ish story, and can’t be made any shortisher (new word), so here’s how it happened…..Through a connection from a fellow UK Cannondale owner, Russ, I heard about an 2002 X440s. The owner of the bike, Terry, is a friend of Russ, and is also very well respected collector of vintage dirt bikes in the UK. Terry acquires special bikes, mostly 2-strokes, restores them, and puts them in with the rest of his collection. It’s a collection that definitely scores highly on the ‘envy-ometer’. Terry doesn’t (usually) sell the bikes he’s bought. His plan for the Cannondale ‘was’ to restore it cosmetically and park it up because it’s a great conversation piece within the collection, even if it was the youngest bike in his collection by 20 years and also a 4-stroker. Fortunately for me, Terry decided after a couple of conversations, that I should have it (buy it), so here’s the point in the paragraph that I say “MANY THANKS!” to both Terry and Russ.
A bit of research into this bike’s background reveals a couple of things. Firstly, there is a second serial and model number label on the headstock, which was added in 2008 by ATK, the company who bought the Cannondale motorcycle business when it went bust in 2003. The ATK date of 2008 and the fact it is called a 450 is a bit of a curve ball, because the original VIN shows that this bike is an X440s, of which they only made 386, and it was manufactured in 2002. The X440s was basically an MX400 with a couple of updates and some different bodywork. The engine in the bike is also not original either apparently, so it has been swapped at some point. So, ‘hot-diggity-dawg’, it’s a right blend of stuff, and just like most used, surviving Cannondales around today! Oh yeah, I forgot to add that whilst the engine didn’t have some updates like the new water pump cover, the frame had at least received the recall headstock modification. More on the engine later, and even more on this last headstock modification in the next post.
I wonder what music the first owner of this bike in 2002 was listening to when he/she bought it? Could it have been Eminem, Beyonce, 50 Cent, Christine Aguilera, some thrash metal or something a bit earlier and from the previous century? Who knows and actually, who cares, cos’ this bike was definitely going to sing again, and ‘fucking loudly’, as my wife keeps commenting about the noise of my other Cannondale every time I start it up at home.
Back to the plot…..As I mentioned, this 2002 X440s is nearly identical to my 2001 MX400. The only difference is the bodywork and a couple of other minor things. Since I bought my red MX400 3 years ago, I’ve been building up a spares kit for it, which could go a long way to building another bike, and specifically one with the black bodywork. When the MX400 was launched, it came in two body colours, red and black. See where I’m going with this one?…….
After a great day out at ‘Chateau Terry’, where I also met Russ for the first time, I collect the bike and drive it home in the van. Back at base camp, and the first job was to photograph it exactly as it was, and you’ll see that it was in need of some lovin’. Check out these two pictures below with the bike ‘sans bodywork and several other key parts’.
I had the bike stripped down the following day, such was my enthusiasm, determination, and some might say, impatience. Like all great project planning, I knew exactly what the expected end result would look and sound like, so all that remained was to work out what parts the bike needed, what parts I had ‘in stock’, and then what I needed to procure from somewhere/someone else. The only specialist work required to get the bike finished was to get the Ohlins forks and shock to the suspension grown-ups at Shocktech (link in sidebar) for a full service. Oh yeah, and that engine.
Looking at the very dried up residue and general crap in the fuel tank, this bike hadn’t been run for a loooooooooong time. Secondly, there was evidence of a very red dust and dirt on the frame and wheels. The UK is not known geologically for red dirt like this, so my assumption is that this bike has been imported from the US where there is a lot of red dirt spread across several States. Anyway, it cleaned off easily. The engine turned over, had all of its gears, and the clutch worked, but it needed a full strip’n’service and update, so after cleaning the frame, I sent the engine to global Cannondale engine specialist, Ken Deal at Black Widow ATV in the US (link in sidebar). As you may have read in a previous post, all rebuilt engines sent out by Ken, travel around the world in a giant beer cooler box. So, I removed the engine from this ‘new-to-me-Cannondale’ and it flew back to Black Widow ATV in the same cooler box that my other engines had travelled in. When that cooler box returned with the rebuilt engine, it had done 5 Transatlantic crossings and totalling up 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometres). How’s that for sustainable packaging, and wouldn’t it be good if I got the air miles as well!
You (might) be pleased to hear that the engine arrived back in the U.K. just over 2 weeks after it flew out, so big thanks to Ken for building another great engine for me. However, UPS managed to keep it in a distribution centre for nearly two weeks until I hassled them several times, provided them with extra information for the import duty and then paid up. The engine was in quite good shape according to Ken, and it is a very early one from the first 100 engines ever made. This means that it had some really great CNC machined parts in it, which were made in-house just before Cannondale went out for full cast production units. Ken also confirmed that this engine is 432cc and not a 450cc as on the ATK frame label. Ken has fully overhauled and updated it, and he has made sure that the engine covers colour match my other two engines, so it’s good-to-go! Below is the journey of the engine within a 4 week-ish period.
I mentioned earlier about the bodywork that differentiates the X440s and the MX400. Below, you can see the well used X440s bodywork that came with the bike, and next to it, the black MX400 bodykit that will go on it. Also, thanks to Gil at Retrodecals (link below) for creating the special number boards, the full Cannondale MX400 decal set, and my race numbers. The black body kit panels that I had collected over time were all new-old-stock items apart from the radiator shrouds, which were well scratched as they’re usually the first thing to hit the ground in the event of ‘an off’. I did sand them down and polish them a bit, but I’m no expert on plastics renovation, even though the YouTube videos on the subject make it look oh-so-easy, so I’ll keep an eye out for a good set in the future, and these will do for now.
Here’s another pictorial break for your eyes. Cannondale has always been known for its amazing, quality frame building and specifically, aluminium welding. This welding was done by skilled humans, and not programmed robots. I noticed a difference straight away between the welding on my early MX400 (left below) and that of this second bike, which was made a year later. Whilst both are good, the welding on the MX400 is like a well iced wedding cake, whereas the new bike has a completely different style, and more similar to the welding on the mountain bikes.
It turns out that I didn’t (intitially) need many parts for the transformation, but they would all come from the US, which were supplied as usual from Dave Muller and Ken at Black Widow ATV, and for the first time for me, ATK USA. I wasn’t aware that ATK actually still sold parts as they don’t advertise, or have a high profile on the Cannondale or web social media, and they don’t have a list of available stock. This means that parts have to be requested from the parts manual, and then they tell you whether they have it or not, and then you get a quote, accept/decline the quote, pay the invoice etc etc. This isn’t a quick system, but it works. All of the other parts like tyres’n’stuff came from eBay UK.
Anyway, getting back to the build, I made a really, really stupid schoolboy error. I built the bike up whilst waiting for the suspension and got the engine fitted, the cooling system and the wiring loom fitted, then I realised that I had a plug left over on the loom. I couldn’t find anything to plug into it, so “I asked a friend” and the answer I got back sharpish was, “the stator cable goes into it”. I dash out to find the black cable in amongst all of the black pipework, and I traced it back to find that the big plastic plug on the end had got caught up between the frame and the engine, and was stuck! This must have happened when I hinged the whole frame back to fit the front air box and it slipped in without me noticing. There was no way it was going to come out without surgery as well. My choices were to cut the special plug off or dis-assemble everything I’d just done FFS! Fortunately, I hadn’t added the coolant so it just meant a dry dis-assembly. If the coolant had been in, I would’ve cut the wires. Not good!
Whilst these are complicated bikes, I really love the assembly (and sometimes dis-assembly…) of them, and I still need to refer to all of the photos that I’ve taken previously. This ‘black bike’ can now be referenced easily with the ‘red bike’. Notice how both bikes have now been referenced by colour in this post?……and will be forever more.
Once the black bike was full of liquids, it was time to press that ‘GO! Button’ and fire the bike up. I’d like to say that the motor fired up straight away just like the red bike did, but it didn’t. Long-ish story short. There were a few issues that needed fixing, so with a few more emergency parcels from the US, some regular counselling via video call, as well as some help from friends, it did truly fire into life. This delay in starting the bike meant that my project timeline and work planning was waaaaaaaay over its projected completion date, but never mind! These bikes can create a small cloud of frustration that hangs around in the shed, so I just persevered with each small challenge and resolved them logically-ish.
On this bike, I made sure that I included all of the learnings that I’ve had from other people as well as from my own 3 years Cannondale experience and ownership in the build, and here are some specific examples:
- The airbox and rubber bellmouth have been replaced with new items to ensure great, clean starting and running. I mentioned this in a recent post about my red MX400. The airbox is a right Bastard to fit, so go carefully if you’re going to do it.
- Wrap the exhaust header pipe where it passes underneath the plastic battery tray to avoid it melting it.
- Fit a later model kill switch as the sexy looking Cannondale MX400/X440s one fails a lot and can stall the bike regularly.
- I fitted the diode modification to the starter plug as these MX400/X440s bikes can kick back some charge from the starter motor and damage the ECU.
- On/Off switch. To save the battery running flat, I’ve added the same waterproof on/off switch to this new bike that I fitted to the red bike.
- I’ve added a trickle charger cable to the battery so I can keep it healthy and always ready for use.
- I’ve noticed that the high octane fuel that I use goes off after a month and the bike won’t run properly, or at all. You can tell when it’s gone off as it changes colour from clear to yellow, which is visible in the fuel filter. I assume it is something to do with the plastic tank as I can leave my 1975 Yamaha with a full tank of fuel in the steel tank all winter and it runs fine after. On these two Cannondales, I now undo the outlet pipe from the fuel tank, add another pipe to it, and just syphon it out when I’ve finished riding it.
- When fault finding on these bikes, knowing that the injectors are firing correctly is key, and they’re bloody well difficult to see as they live below the throttle body and well down it’s throat, so I got an endoscope to shove down there. It plugs into my iPad and allows me to video the injectors working (or not). It was quite cheap off eBay and works really well.
- Having a compression tester is a good addition to any Cannondale toolkit as compression, like fuel getting through, injectors working, good spark, good compression etc, are all primary indicators to check off first in the event of the bike not starting.
As it’s November, damp and with short, dull days here in the UK, I jumped at the chance to take both bikes for some photos when the sun (amazingly) came out to play. I also did this BEFORE I took the black bike out to run the engine in, and get it subsequently dirty.
I’m really pleased how the black bike has turned out, and if I were to change anything, I would get some gold wheel rims that match the colour of the Ohlins suspension, because that would really enhance the looks of it. As both bikes looked sooooooooooo amazing together, I just had to create a video (link below) to illustrate them fully in a big field, which is easy to find around here as our small village is surrounded by them. Chris, a friend from our village brought his drone, big camera and the whole video process was a lot of fun, so thanks to him. Check it out on my Instagram feed through the link in the sidebar.
And finally, the next post will be a bit of an update about riding and running in the ‘black bike’, as well as some updating of the ‘red bike’, specifically, that headstock modification.
Here’s the link to the video edit we did: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCWb2XRu6G1/?igsh=MTNndWpvMDNmeGF6Nw==
BIG THANKS to Chris Lowther for the photoshoot, and you can find his other amazing pics here: https://www.instagram.com/high_lions?igsh=MXFtdGtiMzczZDF2dg==
Link to RetroDecals: https://www.facebook.com/retrodecals
By 
