1981 XJ650 Alaskan Bobber Project

Funny you mention that, the first shock i stole off my old mountain bike that never gets ridden. as i was looking at where it sits on the frame and the load of the shock it self, i didn't think it was going to work. The one off of the bike was 6 in long my new one that is meant for choppers is only three, the other had a load rating of 700lbs and the shorter one is 300lbs; making for a much smoother ride since i only weigh about 190. Besides the new shock was only 28.00 off of ebay.

 

Man I am diggin this hardtail mod. What type of welder did you use?

 

Thanks for the comment, there are quite a few threads doing this hardtail mod. i'm borrowing a couple from a friend of mine. the first one was a cheap one from the hardware store, not sure the brand name but it was doing the trick. Another friend of mine wasn't using his Hobart so i'm using that now. plugs into the 110 wall socket, works pretty good for what i'm doing. I had a welder buddy come and do the frame pieces since i'm still learning to weld, i'm doing the mounting tabs and some of the support pieces.

 

Yea I was thinking if you had ordered some 300 springs for a 6inch shock then it'd work amazingly. I've got 450lb on my bike, specialized bighit, with the progressive design. but it's had it's days and getting a little too weak now so probably getting another 450 or 500. But one thing i'd totally do if I didn't have progressive system is find a shop that builds custom springs or order something like a 150lb spring off of another setup, cut 3 inches off the heavier spring, build an adaptor to line up the springs in place so you'd have 3 inches of say 400lb and 3 inches of 150lb, and then build a sleeve to protect it.

That would be a lot of work, but totally wicked!



OORRRRRR

look up pictures of the specialized bighit and how they angle the shock system to make it have a progressive effect.

and modify your bike's mounting points!

 

Thats a good point on the progresssive design. i've seen instead of mounting the shock with it compressing straight up and down, mounting the bottom of the shock farther up the frame having it angle forward slightly on the bottom, thought that would account for the progressive effect giving it some shock swivel before it starts to compress.

 

Looks great.....I know you asked about the shaft angle...no bites on that one huh? I'm going to do some solid rear struts and I was wondering how low you could go without compromising the shaft angle.

 

i haven't put the motor back in since i lowered it to where i did. i'll be putting up some photos of the shaft/ujoint angle when i do fo reference on other builds. i dropped the underside of the frame stand ( the roadside stand i guess its called) on to a 4x4 for my height. everything clears and the shaft should still be fine. i took that from another build and they didn't seem to have any issues down the road other than shaving the outer side of the shaft head where thy bolt together. like i said i'll have to cross that bridge when i get there.

 

sounds like a plan man. Ill likley be using bolt on solid rears until I get brave enought to pull the trigger like you did and weld it up. Ill be looking for those pics of the shaft angle.

 

not a problem. smokeater here is a link to the first page of Crath's build. this is where im taking a lot of my pointers. page through here and check out what he did. about half way down you'll see a pic of the flange/ujoint where he had to trim it. i'm hoping this is all i will have to deal with down the road.

http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=9 ... art=0.html

This guys build has been alot of help for when i'm stuck on something.

 

Ya I have been all over that thread.....pretty impressive build. Im seeing you guys build these bikes that push the limits of whats "acceptable" and then I also get a little foggy on wether or not the "purists" have good arguements as to why not to hardtail it or weld your swingarm or use bolt on rears....lada da dada

 

lol yeah i hear ya. personally before any kind of a mod to these bikes whether cafe or the swing arm hard tail you're seeing around these threads, the stock xj bike may be one of the ugliest things i have ever seen, but with anything, has potential to be something really cool ( well...anything besides our current president If the hard tail is what you want go for it, if you'd rather restore it to a really nice factory bike then that's your prerogative.

 

Hello All,
I'm bringing this build thread back to life……I recently took over this project from Rogue. I'll be making a few changes to suit my taste. I didn't really like the Sportster tank fitment, so I went with this beauty instead-



The tank is from Cole Foster and required converting to a single backbone, which was done in this thread-

http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/index.php?threads/single-backbone-conversion.47865/

And now looks like this-





Next up will be fitting the tank, I'm waiting on the new drag bars to show up before final lockdown of the tank. Also, I have a rear to front wheel conversion kit coming.

-Todd

 

Like that tank, will be watching this one.

 

Just for fun, I set a DT250 tank up on the backbone. I'm really digging the look! Doesn't really go with the bobber theme, but would look great for a cafe racer. Good news, is that I think it would take very little mods for it to fit the stock triple tube backbone.

 

Here are the new tabs I had to make for mounting the tank.

 

And here is the tank mounted. Next up will be the seat…just waiting on brackets and airbag from TC Bros.

 

That is a pretty tank.

 

I'm really liking that tank. The solo seat is going to look better with that tank than the original. The exposed large mount tab on the back of the original tank just kills the looks IMO.

 

Got the solo seat mounted up. It took me a lot longer than I wanted it to due to the air bag setup. I had to disassemble the seat pan and relocated the mounting studs. I mounted the seat as low and far back as possible and still have clearance for the fender. In retrospect, I probably should have just run springs or a shock/spring setup. The air bag is more of a novelty than a need, but definitely has that cool factor.










The seat definitely goes well with the tank.

 

looks great.