Prized XJ650 Bobber 82'

Because this site was so helpful during this build.. I am posting the Bobber that has become my prized possesion. I am going to post the whole build process here.

 

thats a mean lookin hardtail man. well done! please post more pics if you can... build pics are like porn to many of us here on this site!

 

Sure there are many of my ideas here that will be re-used by others, But to get to this point it was ideas by others that inspired me to create.

 

This bike is re-engineered, every part is still removable including the swingarm.

 

If you want to hear it running it's on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC3kdYNHDVU there are no baffles and I made the exhaust out of EMT conduit, It sounds straight mean and throaty, just like you would expect from the looks of the bike.

 

More pics! and the whole build process coming up!

 

very clean and simple. i would have to say the only thing i dont like is that you went with black... it seems to be a very popular choice amongst the xj bobber club though so i guess its just a matter of taste. im personally waiting on my tank to come back from the painter. i decided to go with satin white and some old school pin striping in black and red. good work though man. i look forward to seein more of the litttle details

 

Color was a very difficult choice, there were at least 20 different options I test drove with ms paint to get a rough idea of final product ... flat and satin white were choices I weighed heavily, especially a satin white stripe through the bike. ended up with a flat black frame and satin black tank, fenders and under seat pan, I guess the simplicity of it really makes it pop. When I post build pics you will see how the paint waited, and waited . ... and waited until very last. Besides It's not like I "murdered" it out or spray and prayed, every piece is individually painted and there is alot of bare metal and chrome that really needed to stand out here.

 

Really NICE!!!

skillet

 

With Up-sized jets, pod filters and free flow exhaust, This is the view most people get. Unless I stop and when I stop (especially at gas stations) the bike gets swarmed by people with questions. It's a real head turner.

 

Before I post the build pics it is only fair to show the $280.00 bike this thing started out as.

 

It had big dents in the tank, bent handle bars, a ripped off exhaust pipe on the right side, ran like total crap with horrible flat spots in acceleration, and every part was in poor shape. But the bike only had 14,500 miles and so the project was born.

 

More before pics (I wish the horrible gas tank dents showed better) Pic was deleted due to upload restrictions

 

I am a 16 year veteran Auto Mechanic but this was my very 1st bike. Tear-down begins in a humble 1 stall garage. every part is removed and bagged, I took tons of pics just in case I needed to refer to them during reassembly. I had already visited this site dozens of times and was planning to do only few small modifications over the long Minnesota winter here.

 

Here are those nasty carbs that give so many people trouble.. I hope to shed some light on perfecting these bad boys as I was able to make this bike run perfectly on the 1st try.

 

I was trying to remove those carb boots and SNAP! one of the bolts snapped off into the cylinder head So off to the shop the engine went to get that bolt drilled out and re-tapped.

 

And on second thought, why not just bring the whole bike down to the shop while I'm at it

 

Here I am using some wood blocks to determine stance and ride height with the suspension removed.

 

More pics and the whole build on the way !!!

 

I was just going to modify the original seat because seats out there are so spendy! Until I came across this bad boy on the web for $60 brand new! Here we go.... now that i have a springer seat I guess it's hard tail time

 

I took several of these photos measuring different angles and such before cutting in case I needed reference points later on.

 

And snipped the back frame. A sawzall works great at medium speed and pressure!

 

I guess the process of welding the rear frame together was to intense and I did not remember to take progress photos, also I ran down to northern tool and equipment and picked up a trailer fender that matched the rear tire dimensions.

 

The rear frame is made of 1" Drawn over mandrel 11 gauge steel tubing that I purchased from Discount Steel, There are no bends in the new steel, I did heat and slightly bend the two up facing cut tubes on the original frame to give them a more supportive angle. All the new steel tubing was fitted by first sawzall cutting, then grinding to perfect fit. A long and intense process of perfection. I custom made the mounts that allow the rear frame to be mounted by bolts to the swingarm and those mounts have internal bushings to absorb vibration. All was welded with a 110v MIG welder. (note: This pic the fender is just sitting there, there is a fab later that makes it mounted and removable)

 

The seat process: mocked up the seat, then custom made all of the seat mounting and a lower under seat diamond plate pan, also cut off the back of the gas tank right at the weld and re-welded my own tab on it to secure the tank and have it match the diamond plate section with minimal gap and good fitment. ( would not want a gap to pinch thighs or anything sharp to snag the bag on.

 

Here it is starting to look like a bike! I don't do body work but I have a friend who does, the tank has no more dents and he left it primer because I needed to take alot more time to figure out paint scheme and colors.

 

And you can see I switched out those bee hive seat springs for scissor springs (I like them better) They are 2" springs.

 

Also the rear fender is mounted by welding it to thick eyelets that fit right over the two seat mount studs, Simply unbolting the scissor springs for the seat allows for fender removal.

 

Welded on some brackets to bolt the new side covers to (aluminum diamond plate)

 

And made a set of covers for the front to box it in. (These covers also help hold the battery down with extra fabricating that was done)

 

Back end together

 

Eyeball Bullet Projection Headlight. need I say more? .... Actually I do, The fact that all the wiring runs through the headlight on the XJ is terrible, In my opinion the original headlight is dating the bike and if the goal is to update the bike then it needs to get replaced with something else. To do this requires some guts to go thru and reduce the bulk of the wires and tuck them into the frame.
Also the headlight is mounted to that steel bar that goes across the forks, welded steel to the back of that and attached it there.

 

As a side note the turn signal bulbs are also bullets, and they are regular light bulbs in there. LED's might be inexpensive and tempting, but there is a reason why the grand majority of all manufacturers in the world keep bulbs. They are visible, safe and reliable. also they offer resistance! my turn signals work fine I just took some advice from here and used an automotive flasher (2prong) and it's good to go.

 

pic removed for file upload restrictions

 

This is better and the engine in for a mock up. P.S. NONE OF THOSE GUYS ARE ME! if you wanna see me go to my youtube www.youtube.com/xxtech50xx

 

So the rear light is just a trailer tail/brake light and has a clear window under it which shines light right on the license plate! perfect and simple. mounting the plate and rear light was looking like a nightmare until I was at Fleet Farm and found this $6 solution

 

Remember How I said this bike was re-engineered, here is the frame .. all by itself with the swingarm removed! how many hardtail conversions out there can claim this?!
This is just after getting the frame back from having it dipped in phosphoric acid to remove 100% of all the paint and rust before painting, that's the same ingredient as Coke a cola ... kinda scary right?

 

Aaand a NEW reason I don't drink Coke. Ick. Nice job on the bike! Keep the photos comin'!

 

Thanks! And here is the base coat of bare metal primer, normally it is best to use self etching primer but because of the acid dip the metal is already etched
Oh I guess this site has an upload quota More pics as soon as I can upload then ....

 

I found a way around the upload quota!!! just had to reduce every single pic and re upload them, PICS AND STORY CONTINUES!!!

 

wish i could help with the photo quota but im pretty new here myself. man you do great work. i sure wish i had your welding/ fabrication skills! hope you can get the picture situation solved so we can see the rest. its builds like yours that keep me trolling around here all day. ps. about the whole paint thing, i hope i didnt offend you. what i meant by it was that if a total stranger likes everything about your bike aside from the color then youve done a great job, considering color is such a personal preference. plus the majority of xj bobbers on this site share your color scheme so i suppose that makes me the oddball! that being said, if my bike looked like yours i would ride it proudly. excellent work. four thumbs up! (counting my lil bros as well cuz he loves the bike, especially the color!)

 

No your point is excellent and it was one of the toughest choices I had to make on the bike, also the colors you suggested were right on the money for what kinds of options I was considering, it literally came down to the final day and I still had not decided until all the stuff was in the painters hands and just told him to paint it all flat black. When I got it all back it was satin not flat and actually looked better than I had hoped for, It just worked out and the painter must of knew it would look sick like that.

 

the frame primed, pics are going to be reduced quality to stay out of the quota, also had to delete a bunch so new could be added

 

The frame was painted totally flat black with many many thin coats, if you look close you can see the frame ends where they go on the swingarm are small hollow tubes, there are bushings and metal collars that go inside there to reduce vibration, works quite nicely.

 

Because my pictures are limited now I am skipping the fork tube rebuild and painting pics, they are air forks and got new seals, boots and oil. Also skipping the painting of the wheels, rear end and swingarm, the rear end got new gear oil and bearings greased etc.. all maint was done while the bike was apart so no need for any of that for a long time. The wheels were carefully taped so only the outer ring is still aluminum which was polished up with #00 steel wool afterwards. and any part being assembled was to be put together with new button head stainless steel allen head bolts.
Here is a nice pic of the rolling chassis with paint on everything.

 

The exhaust was alot trickier than it looks, getting those pipes perfect is no easy task, I bought EMT conduit from Menards and it's worked perfect considering it was like $8 for 10 feet of it I made sure the bike was level, then cut the mufflers off the exhaust a few inches past the H pipe, then bolted the exhaust headers on totally and used wood stacked up on both sides to get the pipes just right, tack welded them on the bike, then removed them to finish the welds and cut some final end angles .. first a 45deg that faces down (to pound the earth with thunder!) then a 90deg cut to make the point non sharp or dangerous.

 

Here is a pic of the rolling chassis with engine, parts are out to paint and the carbs are going to be next! She is out in the sun as much as possible even though I had it baked after painting After the exhaust was done I painted it all with PJ1 black exhaust paint, After 1 whole riding season it still looks new! I wire brushed the crap out of the header and H pipes before painting then oven baked all the header pipes before installing them on the bike. Of course new exhaust gaskets were installed...

 

I really wanted to make my own forward controls for this bike but the TC bros choppers forwards were so sweet looking and my time was running short, so I ordered their forwards but did not buy their linkage kit because it looked crappy. Instead I built my own linkages and ordered the tie rod ends for the linkages off ebay ... they were called spherical rod ends on there, then got some plain rod and threaded it to fit with some jam nuts and cut the old controls using some geometry I found on the web from other people who have done this mod with success and I got myself some really nice forwards!

 

Those forwards feel like they were factory, really awesome.

 

Ok POD FILTERS, JETS AND CARBS!!! As you know the exhaust is wide open.. The pod filters were the cheap ones off ebay, I researched like crazy before touching these things because I read all the horror stories and wanted this to be perfect. Well I can tell you that they ended up perfect! rode a whole season already and my engine starts perfect, runs perfect and rips and roars perfect. If you want your bike to run sweet use this formula exactly and substitute nothing. the exact process is NEXT!