Philbeys Yamaha Xs650 Custom Motorbike

[philbey]

Some more progress being made.... I finally scored a rear wheel as well, just arrived in the mail. Basically the last major part I needed before it can all start being bolted up.

 

One of the boys at work put me onto his mate, a pro welder. We did some tacking and measuring to check dimensions. I've left it with him to finish the rest of the welding.

 

Frame set up on the bench to check measurements:

 

First pass, tacking up the hardtail:

 

And more welding. Note the casual, upside down torch technique:

 

This guy makes it look simple!

[philbey]

Frame's all welded and back in my possesion. I'll get some pics and post em up tonight....

[philbey]

Collected a bunch more bits, but I'm struggling to get motivated..... Rear wheel sorted, need a tyre though. Just a few brake bits and pieces needed here and there as well, but It's basically ready to start assembling....

 

I've been reading this thread to get inspired, the guy is pretty dedicated. This is a good read even if your not that interested in bikes, just to see how he's tackled/fabbed various bits and pieces.

 

This is his final product - very clean.

 

[Old fella]

That's it scotty, old school Bobbers are tough. Everyones into the 30 inch wide, massively chopped OC Choppers shit covered in polished billet these days that cost 80k to build.

 

I'll get the first engine running in stock format, then I reckon I'll go to town on the second motor I've got - you can get 840cc big bore kits for them, run that with a monster cam, that'd be unreal!!!@#! Set of 34mm mikunis with big ass trumpets and it'll be a real menace....

 

As for uncomfortable, there's lots of guys that ride em, but I reckon the old back would take a beating. All good fun.

 

Scored these puppies on Ebay tonight, pick em up next week I hope. Run them upside down, like on the goldy greeny metalflaked bike....

 

 

Got a few bits and pieces lined up to buy so I can hopefully get her rolling real soon....

 

 

G`day mate, nice work so far. Being as old as I am I thought that your comparrison of Triumph to Yamaha was a bit tough. Yes the japs saw a market and, as usual developed an already popular design and vastly improved it. I`v had both brands over the years, along with a lot of others and I personally would have an XS before any of the Brit oil leakers anyday.

Anyway, having said that, I used to use an xs650b motor in my compact speedcar back in the early eighties. Because there was no such thing as a big bore kit available then, a mate of mine and myself started searching the parts books and discovered that, with a bit of modification we could use 500cc speedway Jawa/Eso pistons and liners. The gudgeon pin and deck height are the same and it takes the sedate little 650 out to an impressive 903cc. It didn`t need a huge cam and the stock valves are big enough to handle the job. There should still be stocks of these pistons/liners available because people are still riding the old speedway bikes at vintage meetings etc.

Anyway, good luck with the build and I hope that my info is of some use to you.

[philbey]

Oldfella, that's awesome info. I'm going to look into that, I've got nearly 3 complete motors, so I'll get her running with a stocker, then I'll drop the second motor at the engine builders to turn it into a real fire breathing bastard of a thing - big overlap, high comp, overbored to hell. Something that'll really scare grannies as I go down the street!

 

As for triumphs vs yam's I'll just say, I'm not really biased either way. The XS is renowned for many reasons, I just don't like what most people do with them (overly stretched with a dodgy sportster tank on them.... yawn).

 

Incidentally, the guy I bought this bike (in boxes) from ended getting himself another project - He's building 2 pre unit Speed Twin triumphs in factory rigid frames! That's exactly what my next plan was to build! I reckon preunits are the nicest looking triumph and he's building them just like I had in mind.

 

Anyway some more progress...

 

The Green metalflake seat is growing on me to the point that I decided to get some matching vintage girl-bike handgrips. Also picked up an Amal throttle off an early brit bike, got 2 cheap on ebay, I'll probably clean one up and flog it off.

 

 

Behold the awesomeness. I also picked up another Tank, this is off a BSA bantam, a much smaller bike. The tank is a great size without the need to slice it up. These are some mockup pics in the shed:

 

 

And this time in the sun. Got a new tyre for the rear as well, a nice Avon. Note the Milo tin taped into the frame to mock up a dummy oil tank/toolbox.

 

 

 

Hope to get the front end on this weekend so it'll start looking like a motorbike.

[smeetsy1]

How much will this set you back compared to buying one second hand?

 

They look as though they'd be quite nice :jamie:

 

I want one!

[philbey]

Not sure smeesty, I haven't done the numbers for a bit. I'm probably coming in at about 2.5-3k total at the moment but I've got most of the bits I need now(famous last words), with the exception of a rear fender.

 

Ordered a box of parts from the US, that was about 400 bucks worth, lots of rebuild items, bearings, seals, sprockets, axles etc. Dollar is much better since I bought the bike!

 

You see a few hardtailed XS's come up on ebay, but I'll be honest; most of them look shit, and price wise they usually want about 5-6k. Even in the US they don't get these bikes right very often, and there's a lot less people building them over here.

[philbey]

my mate just sent me links to this bugged out chopper website.

 

http://www.choppersaustralia.com/Chopper-G...rmine/index.php

 

After this bobber project maybe I should build a crazy scooter like this dude:

 

[KEI069]

For a bit more motivation you could check out an old movie called

'Fixing the shadow' starring Charlie Sheen. cool flick with plenty of

old school harleys.

Nice progress your making the project too.

[Felix]

This thing is cool.

 

You need a suicide shifter. :worship:

[philbey]

Funny you should mention a suicide shifter, I was just thinking about it the other day!

 

For the moment, it's a fair bit of hard work to put into something that will make riding the bike as a whole hard work! If I were running forward controls I'd probably do it, but I'm sticking with mids.

 

Although it does have the benefit of making the handlebars a lot cleaner, that along with an internal throttle.

[philbey]

A bit more progress. I've slapped the front forks on so it's a roller now. I had issues with the bloody fork tubes, I'll need to spend more money as I'm missing just enough fiddly little bits on these ones to make it painful. Easier to buy a good complete secondhand set.

 

I left the spacers out of the forks, so it's about 3 inches lower at the front than stock. Very Drag bike looking. I will probably lower the bike a bit, but I'll get proper springs for it.

 

I've borrowed a TIG welder off my mate so I'll get around to tacking on the seat bracket and other bits on shortly.

 

Dumped:

 

 

 

[madmax7]

looks good man what colour you going to paint it

[TOM]

Looks nice and long and low in that last photo...don't lower it till you put it back together properly and see it first, it might be spot on!

[philbey]

Color - not sure yet but possibly a dark grey with a platinum/gold lace panel on it....! crazy. I reckon that'll go with the metalflake green!

 

as for the height Tom, the problem is that it's well below legal. and pretty dangerous too, the spacer I removed is the preload spacer on the spring, so it's reasonably important!

Edited September 29, 2009 by philbey