Prized XJ650 Bobber 82'

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!

 

Start by taking pics of the whole disassembly process, make sure every jet is removed, even the ones you don't think matter up by the diaphragm. also remove every piece of rubber. Now go to the parts store and get a can of carb dip, it looks like a gallon of paint and costs about $25 and you CAN NOT REBUILD THEM CORRECTLY WITHOUT IT!!, now take every single metal piece and clean it with carb dip and a nylon brush (or tooth brush) let everything soak at least 10 minutes, use compressed air to blow everything off afterwards (This is a must! borrow or rent a small compressor if needed) without blowing them out crap can be stuck in small passages and if you dry stuff with rags you get lint contamination. I personally left the carbs on the brackets that keep them together and cleaned the body of all of them by soaking one half at a time in the dip. I used #41 PILOT JETS AND #118 MAIN JETS, also BUY REPAIR KITS FOR THE CARBS you need new gaskets and needles/ seats. This was the proven formula for pods and open pipes and it WORKS! here are the new looking post rebuild photos

 

Also before install there is an article and I believe it is here on xjbikes.com about bench syncing the carbs, I followed this method exactly and have had no reason to "fine tune" anything because it runs so sweet. so to whoever posted that thank you. the only difference in how i synced them and how he did it was I used a flashlight on the other side of the carb to look at exactly how far each throttle plate was open and made them all match, i think he used paper clips or something. Also I run non oxy premium gas only in my bike, a few rare gas stations still have this stuff and it's worth every penny.

 

Use urethane fuel hose and no substitute, rubber hose breaks down over short periods of time and sends gummy residue to the carbs, it's available at the hardware store or any small engine shop will have it, also get a small clear in line filter to protect the investment a bit more.

 

Ok so I bought this sweet little speedometer that has mini led indicators for neutral, high beam, turn and oil. pretty sweet huh? well i guess that a full rewire of the bike is in order anyways so here we go rip it all apart and only keep what I need toss the useless and add the new stuff

 

Got all the body parts back and decided the ignition lock needed to be a little more bad a to match the bike. So I went easy rider style and put it on th right upper frame rail.
And as the only part of the bike I consider to be not done I am currently fabricating a mini knife handle to put on the key as kind of the final detail ( and mostly because the key is so frickin small)

 

There you have it, here is a pic of the first time she was ran after the build. If you want to hear it running there is a link to a youtube vid in the first couple of posts that has sound and was taken on this very same night this pic was taken. I hope to soon post another vid of it really getting revved up so everyone can hear that too. it sounds sooo amazing.

 

The whole project start to finish took about 6 1/2 Months and a couple bucks less than $2000 that includes buying the motorcycle, paint, parts... everything. through that 6 1/2 months countless hours were invested, it is truly amazing how much time each detail can consume especially when you don't have access to some of the nicer fabricating equipment. But I suppose an auto shop has more fab equipment than an average garage too

Thanks for checking out the bike and thanks for this site and it's excellent community of bikers who inspired me to keep going and finish this bike.

 

Your bike is sweet Tech50! You did a very fine job!

 

Nice job man!

 

Nicely done, looks good.