1982 XJ550 Bobber Project

Hey guys, I decided to start posting my progress on my bobber.

A little background info; I've always owned crotch rockets but this winter 2 things happened. 1) I wanted to try something new, and 2) I wanted to pay back some of my student loans. So I sold my new Ninja and paid back a large chunk of my loans. This left me without a bike, which as you might know, is a horrible feeling.

After doing some research I decided to try and find a Maxim to bob. I've always loved Yamaha's and they seemed like a great foundation. I lined up a XJ750 in great shape for $700. The day I was to go get it a XJ550 popped up on the net. I called the guy and asked him if he would take $500 cash, he said sure. I decided to go for the 550 over the 750 because of the chain drive and $200 price difference.

The same day we picked up a 78 CB400 Hawk for my buddy to work on. It's a junker and only cost him $80, but it's keeping him busy, you might see it in some of the pics.

Another note I would like to point out. This is my first time doing any real metalworking. I'm literally learning how to MIG weld with gas on this bike. So don't expect any sweet nickel roll welds or awesome fabrication. This is more of a learning project and something to keep me busy instead of sitting on my Xbox all winter.

Anyway, on with the pics.

 

Here is the bike when I brought it home. I started tearing it apart and forgot to take a before pic, so you might notice some of the exhaust is missing and such. I kind of just hung everything back on real quick.




12k miles, not too bad for $500 in my opinion.




The PO tried a little airbrushing on the tank, I'm not a fan of it.

 

Starting the tear down to see what I have to work with.




Spare parts!




Shocks removed.

 

I found some goodies by the front sprocket!




Airbox, carbs, battery, etc etc removed.




Frame hacked off.

 

Welded in the new tubing and applied some kitty hair to smooth things out.




Modified an Army ammo box to be the battery/electronics box. Had to notch it out to clear any chain sway.




It looked good and would of worked great except it's impossible to remove the lid while on the bike, which means getting the cables for the battery and bike in it would of looked horrible in my opinion.

 

I found that the tin my Gears of War 2 underwear came in fit the cables perfectly. It's a temporary solution, I plan on doing something different eventually. I also fabbed up some rear fender struts with some crap tubing we had laying around.




Test fitting the seat/fender cross tube.




Test fitting the seat.

 

At this point I'm not too pleased with the way the seat sits on the bike, nor am I happy with the rear fender. I do eventually plan on doing a full hardtail like this;



But for now I just want to get it on the road. I got black drag bars, uni pod filters, and some other parts coming in tomorrow. I'm hoping the bars and pods will help. I still have a ton left to do, so hopefully it will start looking more and more like what I have in mind.

 

I absolutely hated the way it was looking and couldn't take it anymore.



Got the main tubing in and tacked.



I got a lot more done than this, just havn't taken any more pics yet. More to follow.

 

Lookin good, new hard tail is much much better.

 

sooo much better!

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate the compliments. I'll get some more pics up tomorrow of it's current state.

 

the hadtail looks GREAT! I wish I had the skillz to do that. Did you bend the tubing yourself or buy a kit?

 

All of it is hand-made. I used a hydraulic tubing bender I got at Harbor Freight to bend all the tubing and notched it on my drill press with a tubing notcher. The only thing I don't like so far are my welds, I still need a lot more time with it to get decent looking beads.

 

How much did the HF tubing bender and notcher cost you? I thought they only had pipe benders. I LOVE HF

 

Tubing and pipe bender, same thing in my book. I bought a bunch of stuff at the same time so they gave me a deal. If I remember right the notcher was $35 and the bender was $100. I had a bunch of 20% off coupons from bobber and chopper magazines also. In the end I got a floor drill press, a 21 gallon compressor, the bender, the notcher, 3 air tools, and a bunch of misc stuff for $550 with 2 year extended warranties on everything.

 

Here is an updated pic for you guys. Still left to do: cut axle plate angles, fab oil tank wiring holder, mount license plate/taillight bracket, mount rear fender, CLEAN THE ENTIRE BIKE, prep/prime/paint it all. I'm sure I'm forgetting more I have left to do, there's always one more thing.

P.S. It's a 5 inch stretch and roughly 3 inch drop.

 

I was told if I used a pipe bender on tubing it would kink and look like shit, but your stuff looks great. Send me a pic of your bender or shoot me the model #. Yeah, I get the 20% off coupons in all my motorcycle and Jeep magazines and use them all the time as well.

 

WOW.....that looks great.

 

Thanks koolaid, here is a link to the bender, looks like it's on sale right now too.

Bender

 

good deal....thanks. I'll have to wait a month or two before another HF trip though

 

I forgot to mention, I don't go by what the dies say, size wise. The 1" die seems a little big for 1" tubing, I usually use one size smaller die to decrease the amount of flaring. I've never had a tube kink on me, but if you use too large of a die the sides will flare a little.

 

thanks for the info.

*edit* oh, and what welder are you using? Are you doing all the welding or just tacking it and then taking it to a pro to finish?

I picked up the cheapo HF 90 amp welder a month or two ago, but haven't taught myself how to use it successfully yet.

 

Man....I can't stop looking at your bike. I love the profile. Sadly... I won't be able to stretch mine like that since it's a shafty. Are you going to go with forward controls or keep them stock? You need to snap a pic with you sitting on it, so I can get a better idea of riding position.

 

Man....I can't stop looking at your bike. I love the profile. Sadly... I won't be able to stretch mine like that since it's a shafty. Are you going to go with forward controls or keep them stock? You need to snap a pic with you sitting on it, so I can get a better idea of riding position.

 

I have a Clarke 130N, it's 120V, not sure on much more. It's a MIG and I use gas. I do all the welds, but they aren't pretty lol.

I'm trying to stay under a $800 budget including the price of the bike so I don't think I will do forward controls. I used the passenger pegs to make highway pegs, not sure if you can see it in the pic or not though.

I originally found a XJ750 to buy but then I found this 550 and got it instead for the reason of chain drive. I knew I would eventually want to stretch it and didn't want to go through the trouble of making a custom drive shaft for the 750.

I'll try to get a pic of me on it when my wife gets home from work tonight.

 

Sounds like a plan.... I might pick up a Honda cb750f for $250 that just has a carb issue to do the stretch.....not sure though, because that would make a kick ass cafe racer.

Yeah, my welder is just flux core with no option to use gas. I'm stupid for not just putting the $90 I spent on it towards a better one. Maybe I'll just throw it up on CL and upgrade some day.

 

Yea, we did some welds with mine using flux core on my buddies CB400 project bike and they were horrible, what we like to call gentlemen's welds, because they are so jagged and terrible you could hang your coat on them.

 

But would it be good enough to weld and then clean up with a grinder or are they just hopeless. Maybe good enough to tack and then take to a pro to finish up?

 

I'm no expert welder

Flux is hard to get good beads with, psatters alot and takes alot of practice. It'll blow through thinner metals eaily. Not cool when welding in jeep floor patches.

I have the same clarke 130 and when I finally put it on the bottle it looked like I had gone to welding school. The arc is much more stable and the heat control easier. Now if I could keep my hands more steady while running the bead I'd be golden.

 

Yeah, HF has a model that is about $100-$150 more than the one I got that has the option of hooking up gas. I should have just held off and gotten that one... hind sight

 

yeah I used mine for years without the gas for odd jobs. When I started my bike project I bought it a cylinder and regulator for the better welds.

Where are you located?

 

Hope Mills, NC. I'm originally from PA and have lived in MD twice. Frederick, MD for a bit and then we moved down here from Silver Spring, MD. The wife and kids are acutlly up in York, PA right now visiting her parents.

 

Haha I said the exact same thing when I got my bottle. I thought to myself maybe I'm not as hopeless with a welder as I thought.

 

Glad I'm not the only one to have that experiance. I knew it'd make some difference but I didn't think that much.

Koolaide, I'm oringally from AZ and now live just north of Baltimore. I'd leave quickly if I had the chance.

 

Koolaid my 82 xj 1100 is a driveshaft and I strectched it 5 1/2" just had the shaft work done by a machines friend it makes a big differance on the stance of the bike

 

pathebert... sending a pm, so I don't COMPLETELY hi-jack this thread

 

Some updated pics, still a lot left to do.

 

MAN that looks nice. Great job!

 

what a beauty of a bike

 

Yeah the bike looks good, but the thought of that tire being so close to the bum at 70 mph+ without any fender kinda kills it for me, but the bike does look cool now, i'll give you that.

But IMHO if you were to put a small fender on it with a sissybar to flow with the forks, that would be killer. :idea:

 

Yea it's getting a fender, the kitty hair is drying on it right now. Still a lot left to do as I said. Fender, paint, adjustments, ect ect. Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate it.

 

Can you get a pic posted of you sitting on it? I want to check out the riding position. It's hard for me to picture right now. I've seen a few bikes that I though "DAMN that's a kickass bike", but then I see someone riding it and I change to ...."WOW, that's an odd riding position" I'm trying to get ideas for my bike and that right there looks JUST about perfect. I'm not sure about the bars though. I'm torn between drag bars and apes.

 

can you post some pictures of how you connected those foot pegs to the engine mounts up front?

 

The hard tail is fab...only started pulling my 81 XJ550 apart on the weekend...thanks for the inspiration=)

 

Couple vids of me riding it. I'll try and get some pics of the highway pegs mounting system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR-UUcUdbrk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUajvKfokwU

 

da-yum

 

Looks real nice on the road... You leaving the stock cluster and headlight or going custom? Ride position looks good. How tall are you though?

 

If you can inbox me I have a couple of questions about the bike and some of the cost I have a 81 Xj550 im on my way to turning it into a bobber