Chris chappell – This bike started as a roller, with parts in box’s, spiders in the engine and more corrosion than aluminum on the parts. It took hours of cleaning, blasting, polishing and painting to get it back to respectable condition. The final “polished, tuned, working” bike build time was around 2 months of straight work (literally every day). And a bit of tweaking here and there since.
I cut off what was already done to the rear of the frame by the PO and decided to weld on a hardtail instead. Engine appeared to be rebuilt as some point in its long past, but still it got torn down and received a new cam chain and guides, and new cam shaft. The cylinders were true so they got honed and new piston rings installed. Valve’s re-lapped, all filters gaskets and seals replaced, along with a new clutch, starter gear and various other parts I’m probably forgetting.
I fabricated a custom mono shock seat mount and fitted a super low Cole Foster tank to the frame (after re-making the stock tank and frame mounts) all trying to keep the lines flowing.
An aluminum ribbed fender hugs the rear tire and the springer front end gives the bike the appearance of over 3 inches of stretch in the front without any rake on the frame. 4″ risers and drag bars to hold onto, and the 2010 yamaha kill/start switch is the only hand control on the bike, no fancy speedo, signals, hi/lo etc… We also mounted a 60 spoke billet hub 21″ front wheel and 4 piston front brake setup to stop the beast. And for fun welded a bicycle pedal to the kicker.
The exhaust is a 2 into 1 system I made from an old collector pipe and a cheep dual exhaust system, the cocktail muffler tops it off and sounds killer. Mounted a chain slack roller to the oil can/electrical box only to stop any chain slap from hitting the nice oil can. The paint is 2 stage PPG and has several coats of clear. (also done in-house) 34mm carbs, all new charging system, high performance coil, a seat that actually works and a throaty exhaust make this thing a pleaser to ride, and far more comfortable than you may think.
Chappell Customs XS650 Café racer was recently featured on bikeexif.com “two brothers who build bikes out of their garages on evenings and weekends.” You can check out www.chappellcustoms.com for more pics of this ride and some other builds.
