New member, been reading a long time though :D 80 XJ650 Bobber

This is my baby, I bought her pretty much the way she looks but lord did it have issues LOL. I guess around September of last year I started reading this site, which I am glad it is here, and did everything that was said to be done on this thing. The bike would start but only if I sprayed the pods with ether. So I started with a compression check, then made sure all the valves were in spec, 6 weren't even close. I did all the work myself EXCEPT the carb clean and rebuild. Had it professionally done by a former motorcycle racer/mechanic. I was afraid it might be more than i wanted to handle being a newb.

So here is a list of what I have done to the bike.

Valves adjusted in spec now
Carb rebuild and clean, yes, by church of clean standards LOL
New front and rear brakes.
MC rebuild
Front caliper rebuild
New wheel bearings and seals front and rear
Serviced the diff/shaft drive thingy
New clutch, throttle and choke cable
New front brake line
New fork seals
new front and rear tires /Shinko 712 series, killer tires if ya havent tried them. 113 bucks for a front and rear total, not pictured

I am actually in the process of changing the bike up as I dont like the red with whitewall thing going on but here are some pics of it as I bought it and a small vid of her running, if the youtube vid works LOL She aint nothing special but I love er and its a blast to ride

 

Welcome.
Glad to see I am not the only one who uses the word "thingy" to describe something. Lol

Maybe try painting the wheels black, the white walls might actually look good afterwards.

Good luck with your project and keep us posted with plenty of pics.

 

Those are the old wheels and tires, the new look will be all black rims, bike staying black and then using Burnt copper color on Tank and rear fender and front fender, gonna try and test my hand at spray bombing and using Spraymax 2K clearcoat with lots of wet sanding between each coat. I have also done away with the hardtail, pain in my rear, pun intended, and added shocks since all these pics were taken, still trying to find some 10 1/2 inch eye to eye rear shocks at a good price and a set of drag bars.

Here is a pic of the front frnder sprayed with burnt cooper and clear with zero sanding LOL, just a test run so to speak, if ya see scratches its because I had the fender just laying on the tire and it feel right before I snapped the pic LOL

 

That's all wekk and good, but have you....

Replaced the blinker fluid?
Refilled the electrical smoke?
Changed to summer air for the tires?
Are you still using the original muffler bearings?



I happen to like the whitewalls on red wheels. It is a classic look.

 

Its too hard to find good electrical smoke these days!

 

I heard you can substitute magic in a pinch, but as soon as you find more smoke you should change it with the next service. You'll want to use the left-handed smoke shifter when you do this. It's usually in the same aisle as the metric crescent wrenches.

 

Let's not stray too far from science here; there's just no substitute for the powers of moon dust!

 

I am so confused right now LOL

 

paint the wheels black. I love how this bike looks

 

The reason I got rid of the white walls was because they were going on 8 years old. They had some life left but I wanted new rubber, didn't trust them so I figured just redo everything LOL. This is just a mock up before take it apart.