Plans are to Ride to the Living Hell Out of It. The bike is a 1977 XS650 I bought after realizing my involvement in the car scene was getting a little rich for my blood. Found the bike on craigs as a late 70’s bondo machine with a way-out front end and no motor.

Was just a roller and not pretty to boot…perfect!  Started stripping the bondo off while looking for a motor and front end and ended up finding the numbers matching motor laying in someones shed covered in weed wacker parts, stuffed it in while the wife and kids were sleepin.

Actually everything was more or less done when the wife and kids were sleeping come to think of it….patterned and sprayed the tank, made the sissy bar, taillight, lowered and polished the front end, made the batt box, modded the seat/fender to fit, wiring etc etc…..all in the ghetto garage with mostly primitive tools….been a long time coming but i’ve been riding the hell out of it and its been worth the wait…quick and loud as all hell…. cages

Front end I scored off a friend. Its a late 70s Yamaha dirtbike setup I shortened and polished with the factory 21″ and mini drum brake. Rear wheel is a 16″ off of a Honda CB550 that needed a solid night of scotchbrite and a set of new shoes.

I got lazy and used the stock front fender for the rear and am fairly pleased at how it turned out. Should make it nice and easy if I ever decide to change the look of the bike i.e tins, grips etc. I bent the sissy bar out of some 3/8 stock I got at the local orange box and fabbed on some cool looking turnbuckles I found.

Tail light is a glass doorknob out of an old beach house I scored off my brother that we candied red and stuffed full of 5mm LED’S.

Headlight is your run of the mill Bates. Bars I found at a local MX scrapper and fit the bike pretty well in my opinion. Was shooting for late 60’s bellflower custom and I think they help. Nothing outrageous just clean lines.

Candy died some Redline BMX grips to go with the HD kick pedal I scored off that auction site. Tank was a solid week of evenings in the garage with plenty of cigarettes and Zeppelin. Used the helmet as a tester and just went for some tripped out asymetrical 70’s madness type stuff.

Came out of pocket for good tape but the cans were cheapies. Pretty stoked on how it turned out but might give it another go when I get a compressor.

Haven’t done much to the motor aside from fluid / filter changes, new plugs and adjustment of the valve clearances. It more or less went from a kicked shed to getting kicked over hahaha.

Overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Starts first kick and goes like hell. It took me a solid year of nights to build (wife / two kids) and was all done in my halfass garage with not much resembling “proper” tools.

Plans are to ride to the living hell out of it while I look for a Digger project.

Thanks Glaus Haug