1981 XJ650 Alaskan Bobber Project

I had the other thread started for some advice, wasn't planing on putting up the progress photos there so i'm starting a new thread to post progress photos as i go along. Here's a before:





Started Teardown:



Almost completely stripped and ready for motor R&I and hardtail chop:



Removed front fender mounts and smoothed out:



Welded holes on the neck and removed stock tank mounts:



Motors out and ready to start choppin:



I work at a bodyshop, came in over the weekend and made up a 3 stage color for the tins; a gold metallic and kandy green for the top coat:



Welded/patched the EFI hole on a sportster tank i picked up for cheap. installed the new bung for the petcock that will eventually fit between the double frame section of the backbone:



So here we are as of 12:30 last night; cut the rear section, fabed the rest of the hardtail pieces and tacked them in place. I have to give some major love to Crath for the photos of his hardtail job, going to be using that post for quite a few ideas. The designs he had in his bike looks great and thank him alot for the inspiration. So its all in place, welding is fairly new to me so a buddy of mine who used to weld for a living is going to come by to final weld all the joints that i have tacked down ( don't need the ass end falling out on me going down the highway) :







Still need to do the cross joints for the seat mounts front and rear, weldup the spacers that go down on the lower swing arm where they attach to the frame like Crath did for the extra support, couple of rear fender mounts, battery tray and do a few gussets here and there and this thing should be ready to black out.

Thanks for looking, more to come soon!

 

Oh, man this is sweet.. great work so far, keep 'em comin'!!

 

Thanks man! Its hard work but i'm having a blast learning and working my way through this project.

 

are you using the front fender for the rear?

 

No I was going to originally but I was able to find a trailer fender at local truck and trailer shop that was perfect. A guy at a custom bike shop up here recommended me to go check it out. Paid $25 for it, thick steel and the shape curves perfectly to my rear tire.

 

Just a minor suggestion. Replace the stud in the final drive with a bolt. It will make removal of the final drive assembly much easier when necessary.

Ghost

 

Roguesaint,

Nice build so far.

Gary

 

that fender looks good though and for 25 bucks cant beat that!

 

Yeah the fender was definitely a good find.

Thanks rocs82650.

So I finally got my buddy to come by and weld that stuff up.....and then i ran out of f***ing wire in the welder.....at 9 pm on a saturday night, when no hardware store is possibly open. Oh well it is what it is, we had plenty of beer so i guess the night wasn't a total wash

We finished the piece that mounts to the final drive. Going to smooth it out and mud the welds once everyting is said and done. Took a few close up shots of the mounting bracket.





I'm probably going to leave the back how it is, want as much material on it as possible, the front will eventually be smoothed out and mud the welds to make it look a little nicer.



So with the right side at least completely welded she holds on her own



The kick stand is still at its stock length, sits a little to straight up and down. I plan on shortening the stand and probably going to move it far enough forward that it doesn't stick out past the frame and look funny. I pulled the original exhaust brackets and removed the rear brake lever. Eventually going to b installing the tcbros forward control kit. The roadside stand is extremely handy as a temporary bike stand but it will also go away once it is no longer needed. will most liklybe he last thing to go when i am ready to paint the frame.

 

Looking good so far!

 

So my buddy and i finished welding the frame pieces after a few murphy's law moments. He finally showed up to weld the last pieces of the back bone and the welder ran out of wire...at 9:00 pm when no hardware store was open. So two days ago he came by with wire and a new tip/cone and tried again, no more than ten minutes later the weldshield gas ran out. luckily a buddy had a tank sitting in his garage since the stores were closed that could fill a tank. Nothing much has changed on it short of the welds being complete so i fugured i didn't need a photo. I'm going to use Crath's idea and find some metal to weld up the gaps in between the pivot points on the swing arm and place the new crossmembers in once the new seat and the solo shock come in, will get some photos up once thats done.

 

Seat is on the way and solo shock is in. waiting for the seat to start fabing up the cross members.

 

pics!!

 

there's nothing to really show past the last photo. will throw some up once the seat/shock come in a some progress is made.

 

The bike is looking good, but one thing I noticed on the drive shaft....how far is it from the "stock" position?
This may not be the best description, but, if the stock position was say 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock and the new position is now 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock you could get accelerated wear on the drive components.
See the difference between the shaft on the top picture and the bottom picture. I've seen this issue mentioned before about the angle of the drive shaft.


Just a thought.

 

From what i've read on prior threads they shaved off part of the outside of the driveshaft housing to alleviate this issue. i know where it sits now is with in the area of travel that the stock suspension allowed so i'm hoping it won't be an issue, if not at least the u-joints aren't that expensive

 

So its been about 10F for the past month and haven't done much besides work and play video games. I finally got some time to do a little more on the bike. The seat and the shock are in and started on the brackets to do the cross members; didn't get to far on those though. Mainly focused on the sleeve support pieces borrowed from Crath's build. I removed the support section that was immediately behind the motor, still need to modify and reweld the rear brake switch back on the swing arm.



Here is a close up of (the ones borrowed from Craths thread) the new supports between the swing arm and the outside section of the frame. Welds aren't very pretty but it'll do the trick.





bought some spacer tubing to throw under the rear fender to start mounting it in place. cut a piece out of the fender to accommodate the drive shaft section of the swing arm.





In the process of making the mounting tabs for the solo shock and the solo seat to mount off of the cross members. after the first one i'm seriously thinking about paying someone to do the rest with a CNC machine, that sucked...

So here are a few photos of tonights progress. Ill be getting some more work and photos up here soon.

 

Rogue, just curious...What do you need a solo shock for? Unless you are going to change it, you have hard tailed your frame, and the shock will be nothing more than cosmetic.

 

Alaskan roads arn't exactly the smoothest. i've ridden a hard tail with one of these shocks on the seat and it rides pretty nice. has the look you get from the hardtail lines, the semi-suspension of the spring seat, but the shock is a way nicer ride without the risk of bottoming out like with the springs. heres an example:

 

Just grab one off of a full suspension mountain bike or something. Small and the older ones would be very reasonably priced. Lots of options as far as rebound and spring weight goes! I'd recommend mounting them in an angle to get a progressive effect. I've got a Specialized Bighit and the way they designed the progressive system works amazingly well compaired to my kona stinky delux.