This is my ’81 XS650. This is (believe it or not) my first ground up build. i have did the strutting, etc before but i wanted to do my own “nobody has one like it” dropseat custom. What you see before you is a year of planning, and drawing sketches of everything from the “ball” to the front seat mount design…then the actual build time of 4 months. I built it using the basic primitive tools, stick welder, drill press, angle grinder, vise, bench grinder, etc….i dont have the money for the expensive tools, nor do i have access to any. I made a basic jig table and sat the frame on it, tacked it down, checked and rechecked all my measurments and chopped away. The frame is all hand made and hand bent except the neck and two front down tubes. I cut out the top motor mount and welded in a clean looking neck gusset. The bike was stretched 4.5 inches and lowered approx. 3 inches. Just about everything on the bike is hand made….
The seat pan, exhaust pipes, forward controls, the “ball”,seat mounts, fender mounts, fender struts, battery box, etc. The rear fender is an old sporty fender that i cut the sides off, reworked and smoothed out . The fork lowers had the ugly tabs for the front brakes…I shaved those off with a side grinder and through hours of sanding had them smooth. The tank is an old sporty tank i traded my later year sporty tank for. the Look i was going for was a low, very sleek, clean looking bike. All of the wires were ran inside the frame and all of the electrical components are inside the “ball”. i get a lot of attention and questions about the “ball”. like i said i wanted something different, so i didnt want the usuall cyclinder or box to hide my wires, etc. in, so, i came up with the “ball”. i have looked and mine is the only one i have seen set up with the ball like that.
(so if you start seeing it done, you know who did it first) i made the battery box and mounted the ball on top. With the electrical stuff taken care of i came up with my own forward control design and fabbed them up (which i think was the hardest part of the whole build). i had to of course go to everybody’s friend EBAY for some stuff like the handle bars, new neck bearrings, clutch cable, and tail light. The tail light mounting plate was all handmade by myself also(they sell on EBAY for 90 buks, but heck i can make it myself for 5 buks). The fender struts i bent using an old Harley rear wheel belt sprocket… whatever works right?? the fender bungs i fabbed out of some round stock. For paint, the frame is gloss black and the fender and tank are Mazda Graphite Mica, with 5 coats of clear…all sprayed by myself also. It is a very fun bike to ride and gets SO MUCH attention. I’ve had many people ask if its for sale….i just tell them, “Yeah, if you want it more that me”. I have pics of the entire build start to finish on my facebook page…check ’em out. Its in the “XS650 project” albulm, leave me some comments and let me know what you think!!!! any questions just hit me up…. grasshoppermiked@yahoo.com
Michael Davenport
