Bobber or restore? XJ650RJ

So as the tittle says im torn between bobbing and restoring my 1982 650RJ.

I initially bought the big to bobber it as i picked it up for only $250. Ive had alot of issues as far as things wrong with the bike that needed replacing electrical wise.lots of rust. The airbox is cracked and missing the top. But for the most part i have everything for it that was original on the bike.

I read recently, restored rj's can fetch a pretty penny, but i assume that only if they are restored to mint/perfect condition. the side fairings and tank are original and in good shape but the tank was taken down to bare metal so that would have to be repainted.

Whats everyone's opinion? For what i paid should i just continue to bobber it out and then part out all the original lights/fairings/guages/ ect to make enough money to pay for my entire build?

or put the time and money into it to restore it.

 

My vote is restore, especially if you have all the parts. There are plenty of cheap bikes out there to bob, I like to see the rare ones fixed up. I've been keeping my eye out for a 650 Seca, I have never seen one much less one for sale.

In the end its your bike but you'll find many on this board would prefer not to see another one chopped up/parted.

 

You will put just as much money (probably more) customizing it as you will restoring it. You asked for personal opinions so here's mine. I'm a classified junkie, I love pouring over the classifieds looking at old motorcycles. When I see an old bike that someone has bobbed, I usually grin and laugh at the abomination, sometimes outright laugh at the money they expect to fetch. I would not buy any of these creations as I'd be embarrassed to ride almost all of them. For the same reason I won't consider buying a Honda Civic dragging on the ground with a whale tail spoiler and bazooka cannons sticking out the back. In your case, the XJ650RJ already has the look most of these guys are striving to achieve. Why would you eliminate that big 9" headlight and twin instruments and replace it with cheap Chinese junk from ebay? I'm 56 years old so maybe I'm just an old conservative fart anyway. As Jayrodoh says above, its your bike, you do what you want.

 

Post pics, lets see what your starting with. I love my xj650rjc just the way Yamaha intended. Only thing I would ever change would be the paint scheme.

 

I tripped into my RJ. I saw the bike on Craigslist and just really liked the look. I agree with Sammy; stock has the look so many are chasing. Plus, you get the benefit of it being so damn rideable. I had mine less than a week when I took it on a group ride for 220 miles. Comfortable all day long and a gas tank that didn't force me to stop every hour.

 

The big 8" headlight on this bike is one of the coolest things about it. It makes the entire bike look café/brat/military, like it's an industrial-sized, commercial-grade version of a standard bike.....

 

Agreed. I'm building a custom chopped XJ and I really love the headlight for some reason.. Will most likely be keeping it in the end.

 

There are only 3 bikes I'm aware of with that headlight.
The XJ650RJ, XV920 non-Virago (this thing had the Seca front end and chain final drive, later expanded to 1000 cc) and the 84 Suzuki GS1150. Everything is plastic today so every model gets it's own custom headlight.

 

Hes some pics of the bike. apparently ol girl made it all the way to Florida from Wisconsin over the years.

How i picked it up:









How it looks now:

 

Looking forward to seeing where this build takes you. Keep the photos coming.

 

naked XJ900's, too...........

And it's own "monopoly" price tag. I think custom headlight design was a way of removing one of the last DIY "commodity" products from the marketplace by making every one of them "custom" and proprietary to the manufacturer.........

 

Strip it to a bare frame and have a very, very close look. The rusted upper frame rails are not a good sign. She may be a parts bike.

 

i plane on taking it down to a bare metal frame and building it back up from there. The upper frame rails worried me and made me think it might have been wrecked or a sloppy weld job. or salvaged, but the tittle doesnt say anything about that, its clean. but you never know. i could fix it. but little stuff like that made me want to just make it a ride able bobber for cheap and thats what prompted this thread.

 

My 2 cents is that it's worth doing what you need to do to make it a bike that you actually enjoy riding. Yamaha did a great job designing the 650 Seca to be comfortable, versatile, and good looking. That's why I've kept mine for 30 years and put 120,000 km on it. You can jump on a stock 650 Seca and ride for 500 miles, no problem. With your favorite person on the back. Then get up the next morning and do the same thing again. You won't be doing that on a bobber.

 

My concern is that it's been near the salt, and the frame is 1. open, and 2. was not rustproofed on the interior of the tubes. If the only weak areas are the visible parts of the upper frame, then I'd cut out the bad, make a proper repair, and restore the bike. Look very carefully for any signs of rust along the leg lower tube, near the kickstand lug. If you find more than a little there, given the conditions that the bike has been in (and the rust on the upper frame) I would consider the whole frame to be suspect and irreperable. That is of course a judgment call, and yours to make. If the rust was just in one location than I'd consider it safe to save. It seems fairly clear to me that it was ridden on the beach, or kept within a few blocks of the ocean, as there are many plated parts that have extensive surface rust on them. She was not treated well.

It may be worthwhile to have a tradesman have a look.

 

Or was the bike underwater during big storms in Florida and left with salt all over it

 

Honestly living in florida my whole life, we dont really have to worry about rust as much as you think. i highly doubt someone would ride this on the beach. there are few beaches that you can actually drive on and it would be stupid to take a motorcycle on it, people get stuck with 4 wheel drives all the time. with all the cars ive bought over the years the ones that are from up north where it snows and they salt the roads usually have substantially more rust than any southern vehicle( atleast from my experience). its a possibility that it could have been underwater for a little bit but its so flat here that when it floods its usually is just a couple inches, or maybe a foot or two in the roads. and the water is like that for maybe 1 day. as for the rest of the frame it doesnt seem to have any wear on it like the top/ its all solid looking. once i strip it down to the bare frame ill take more pictures.

 

All I know is that I grew up in Oregon, and spent half of that time on the coast. The rusted clutch throwout arm (which is a nickel plated part) is indicative of rust caused by salt exposure.
Never, ever, underestimate the stupidity of that PO (prior owner) guy.
I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm just saying be thorough.