Mark Emr – This XS650 was the first bike I really dug into pretty hard. I have made a seat or swapped some bars on a few bikes but nothing like building this one. The bike started as a nice dark blue special II that I bought off a lady on craigslist. I rode it around until the charging system took a crap and then went ahead and put it under the knife.
The hardtail is from TC Bros, it was simple to install and is a pretty nice kit for the price. I swapped the old ignition setup with a PMA kit and a Pamco Pete ignition with a single capacitor from lowbrow. The bike idles and runs perfect, the lights are bright,and she’s also never been easier to start.
I swapped the 19″ front wheel to a 21″ drum from a DT400 with the appropriate bearings and spacers. The old enduro drum offers plenty of stopping power and looks cool to boot. The forks are stock for now and have a set of Zombie Performance riserless rabbits up top.
There are a lot of little bits I made for this bike like the rear brake linkage and upper motor mount to clear the narrow tunnel on the Pnut tank. But the one thing on the bike that I am most happy with and is probably the most unique is the seat. My father helped me a lot with the build but this is where we really put our efforts together and it really turned out great. The whole seat was framed out with thin wall Chromalloy tubing made to follow the lines of the frame and flow up the sissy bar. I was so unsure of what direction to go at first but am really happy with the outcome.
I really enjoyed building this bike, and I have a few ideas of things I’d like to do or change down the road,I am already itching to build another one, but In the mean time I plan to ride this one until the wheels fall off!
