Picked the bike up for $400 at the beginning of the summer. Had every intention of chopping the hell out of the bike though so i never rode it all summer.
The guy was going cafe style with it, and had an absolutely mint xs650 in his garage. The bike didn’t run when I picked it up, but the kick start moved freely so I had faith. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him my plans for the bike, even when he questioned why i loaded it on the trailer before even sitting on it.
So the project began…
Stripped it all down and hacked the soft tail off, threw some drag bars I had laying around on too…
Hard tail came in the mail about a week later, very nice piece. So I sprayed the stock wheels black and mocked it up just to get an idea of what it would look like.
I rebuilt the dual carbs, sprayed them black, started polishing the float bowl covers and used pod filters.
Sprayed the motor all black, polished the fins on the heads, and mounted up the carbs.
Finally got around to slugging/welding the frame.
I put the motor in, rigged up a funnel for a gas tank, and fired her up…it was only running on one cylinder mainly because one carb was still sticking.
Mocked it up with the stock gas tank…didn’t fit for shit with the new hardtail section.
Shortly after I got a sweet deal on an old Harley Superglide tank, zero rust and a brand new petcock, so I threw that on there to see what it looked like.
Then on went the solo seat…
As it sits now, it runs great. I’ve done a few burnouts with it parked up against the house lol. Still needs some finishing touches like welding some brackets on. I need to head down to the owego area and pick up a front brake master cylinder and caliper. After that it’s just powdercoat and paint and it’s ready to go.
