I have been riding motorcycles for the past 7 years; however, I had never built a motorcycle before. I am a welder by trade, and have had years of mechanical experience…so I decided to start the search for a XS650 to build off of. After over a year of searching, I found the perfect donor bike. I bought it for $500 with approx 7,000 km’s on the original bike.
I started by taking apart the entire bike, right down to the frame. I had a picture in my head of what I wanted the bike to look like….I wanted a classic looking hard tail build. I wanted mid controls and drag bars.
I welded up a TC Bros hard tail kit on it because I didn’t have the time to make my own tail section. After painting the frame and motor in my parents garage, I laced up the wheels with new spokes, and put on new tires. I lowered the forks by 2 inches and shaved the forks completely and installed new All Balls bearings.I assembled the front of the bike with TC Bros Drag Bars and a mini speedo with odometer and one bar end mirror. I then custom painted the sportster tank and fender (rear fender is the stock front fender).
I installed a mini Shorai battery in the custom battery box that I made my hand and had a friend run all new wires for me…taking out everything that I did not need. A new headlight was installed, along with new mini LED signals- front and rear.
It has a Hughs PMA to keep the battery charged too. The leather seat is custom made by my dad and turned out incredible. If you know your way around tools, I highly suggest taking on this challenge! It took a total of about 8 months off and on to build and I am very happy with the final product…thanks for looking!
