Yet another Bobber Project: 82 Xj650

I bought this bike in peices off a roomate of mine for $50 dollars. It had $130 dollars worth of misc engine parts and stuff in a bag that I dont think he knew he had but oh well. This is what I started with.





I got the motor all put back together, which with the haynes book turned out to be alot easier then I thought it would.



This is how the bike currently sits. Youll have to excuse the bad angle of the picture, Im working in my basement and I also have my Dirtbike (1991 Yamaha RT180) down there for some work also.





The tank needs some more sanding so that I can paint it. Ill be going with a semi-gloss black most likely. I like flat black but alot of people do it so Im gonna see how the semi turns out.

For bars Im trying to order these: (87-0513)



Parts that are on the way:
Pod Filters
Tach cable

Parts I need:
Rear swing arm (mine is rusting pretty bad where the axle goes through it, so if anyone has a spare let me know.)
Axle spacer that goes in between right side fork and wheel
Rubber boots that attach carbs to the motor

 

nice!, you should polish that engine up and since its all apart, make it likenew, unless you just want a cheap bobber that you can beat the snot out of

 

Yea Im not real worried about the looks persay, I want to bike as a whole to look a certain way, but as far as "pretty" this wont be that kind of bike.

 

bobs arent supposed to be pretty!lol

nice start keep the pics coming

 

My pod filters came in today. I also pulled the harness off the bike. Im just waiting on my haynes manual so I can start sorting through the harness. Anyone know exactly the bare minimum I need for this bike to run? Im looking to simplify it as much as possible. I bought the fuse kit from chacal because the owner before me has some ghetto rigged fuse setup.

 

see you made it to the forum, there is a guy on here that can make you custom bare minimun harnesses. and i think there are some threads on cutom wiring just search a bit.

should be a fun project mine is so far just needs to get warm out again so i can get it started

 

I dragged my bike into the basement so I could work on it. We actually just brought down my buddies 72 XS650 bobber project to join my bike.

Another small update. I scored a free New rear tire today. A guy from another site changed wheels and had a new tire on the stock rear wheel that he is giving me. This week Im hoping to get through the wiring harness and I hope my fuse box from chacal comes so I can get that put back in.

 

hey, how did you cut your rear fender mount off, from what i can see it looks realyl clean, can you also take a close up of it?, i want to do the EXACT same thing to mine, thanks, Lance

 

Well there is a pile of wires that is starting to build up as I thin out the harness.


Ill grab a photo of the cuts I did tomorrow. I used a regular old hacksaw when I did them because I was at my apartment and I didnt have any of my regular tools that I have here at home.

 

mine are chopped about the same way. i wasnt ready to go hardtail yet so i left the springs

 

Heres those pictures.





My growing pile of wires, the harness is getting close to done. Im still waiting on my fuse box from Chacal.

 

doesnt it feel good getting rid of those extra wires? For a real clean look, check into getting rid of the bulky speedo/tach cluster. A bicycle speedo is legal, and there are some good, small digital tach/speedo for about 80 bucks. Good luck.

 

Im going even simpler, no tach, no speedo.

 

That's what I'm talking about!!!

 

I started cleaning up the frame, removing all the stuff I don't need. The relay mounts are all gone. The side panel mounts are gone along with the reflector mounts on the head tube.

Since Im only using the headlight dimmer and start switches, I removed the guts of the other stuff, and Im going to fill in and smooth the controls.

 

sweet, should be nice and clean when done. My next project bike will be a bare bones i think.

 

Well the frame is all painted, Im just waiting for it to dry. Ill grab some pictures tomorrow as it looks alot better with new paint. My fuse box came today, but I forgot to pick up connectors for it when I went to the hardware store today so Ill have to go back tomorrow and grab some. I should be able to get the harness done either tomorrow or the next day. Then I can start reassembling the bike.

 

A couple updated pictures nothing huge.

Found some old Dirtbike bars laying around that will be similar to the bars that will be going on the bike so I threw them on just to get rid of the stock ugly ones. I will also be cutting the coils on the rear shocks about an inch which is said to give about 2" of drop in the back.

 

did you sand and prime the fram, or just throw some paint on?

 

I cut off all the mounts I didnt need, then flapped disked them smooth. Then I used a scotch pad to "clean" the frame. It roughed up the surface a little to make the paint stick better. Then I painted using a rust inhibitor gloss black.

 

ok, i was considering taking the engine off my frame, but eh, ill just do touch up work

 

looks nice with the new paint for sure. those d-bike bars dont look half bad on there heh. I had to cut 2 full coils out of my shocks to get enough drop, but i also wanted my shocks on teh stiffest setting still. If you cut one out and move the shocks to the softest setting you'll get good drop, but its a tad spongie feel.

 

Yea its something Ill have to mess with. Ive also considered moving the top mount forward on the frame to get some drop that way also.

 

Well my coils are cut, its hard to tell that it is lower since there isnt anything in the frame as far as weight right now. I also started painting the wheels. The primer is drying on the rear wheel as we speak. Tomorrow I hope to finish it. My front tire came in today, (thanks eflat7) My rear tire is in the mail also that should be here in the next couple of days.

 

The motor is back in, I borrowed my friends seat to see what she will look like. The rear rim is painted as you can see. Im not using that tire hence not taping it off. The lights are just taped in there for now as I have to do some special wiring for them as they are only single filiment lights. They will most likely end up being mounted higher to keep them out of the tire.

 

is it possible to get a copy of your wire diagram when your finished. i would also like to only run a tach and what ever else California will allow.

shane

 

http://www.currentobservations.us/image ... Series.jpg

Thats the diagram I used to thin my harness. I will be doing some mods to it since Im running two tail lights and I picked up an old 70's yamaha speedo to use.

 

good looking progress. I recognize those tail lights, lol!!

 

I wont lie your bike is what made me even start this project. I ended up finding those tail lights on ebay for about 6 bucks for the set. You might recognize my basement as my friends bike is down there too (72 XS650), hes the one who sold you the maxim tank.

 

haha, that's great. Thanks for the comment. Small world for sure. You're basement is probably a great place to work in the winter, warm and dry. I'll watch after your thread too. Keep up the good work.

 

after some consideration, It looks like I need to find a tank with the stick on emblems. The Raw steel finish has really grown on me.

 

xj 700 ftw...

 

peanut/sportster tank?

 

No I want to stick with a maxim tank. I really like the look of them.

 

Great lookin ride there mate.

Im hopeing to get my fingers into this mess pretty quick here. I have a long way to go till I can start choping and painting but all in good time.

Hey what are you gonna use for your carb pods and set up? I like black outs set up, they look sweet.
And how do you like your wireing harness now? and was the strip down a head ache?

Crath, Blackout, Eflat7, and You have all got great forum posts. Its answering all my questions and keeping me frothing at the mouth to get started!!!

Keep it coming.

 

I bought a set of pods off of ebay that Im going to use. My harness wasnt that hard to go through. I just followed the diagram that I found. Im going to be modifing it because Im getting rid of all the handle bar controls for the electronics.

 

Today I rebuilt my forks and got my front tire mounted up. Ill grab some pictures tomorrow of my front rim all painted with my new tire. I also bought a seat today.



Its the same seat I mocked up just with a different design.

 

I'm glad to hear you are using the stock maxim tank. They look great. The sporty peanut tanks are way overused.

 

Yea, the tank is part of what drew me to this project. I really liked the look of the stock tank.

Heres some updated pictures.

New front tire and painted rim.





The front Forks rebuilt with new oil and dust seals.

Heres a couple pictures of my buddies XS650. The rear of the frame was moddified to allow the shocks to drop the bike. That is a Sportster drop shock on the back right now. We have to do a couple more frame mods to get them to fit in the back.

 

Not really much of an update. Waiting for parts sucks. Im pretty much waiting on a single valve stem to get it rolling again, then the seat and tank which should be here next week. I just have to finish my wiring and it should be ready to go.

 

New rear tire, looks ALOT better then the old tire that was on there. It turned out to be about a half inch wider then my old one.

 

Me and my buddy were shooting some skeet today when I had an idea.

 

I like it. Nice touch!

 

looks good love the black rims
Shaun

 

My new seat came in today. I dont have any mounts made for it yet. so its just sitting there on the frame.



sry for the blurry pic.

 

Nice Ride. Looking Good ! 8)

 

Looking real good, will have to keep an eye on this build.

 

I got my new gas tank. Its a XJ750 tank. Im going to strip the paint off of it and clear it bare metal.

 

Heres the new tank. first is a good comparison of the two tanks, new one is on the right.

 

You have me damn near drooling. I cant wait until its done. Great job.
By the way, PM me if you plan on selling the old tank.