This is my 1977 Yamaha XS 650 was a bike that got passed around and needed some love. Bought it not running and dove in. I had always wanted a stripped down bike.
Just the basics. Headlight and tail light and had been looking for some time for the right one. I had tried to buy this same bike several times with no’s success. But I finally got her and like with anything, you want to customize and make it your own. So I started pulling it apart and worked on what vision I had set out after.
Prior to buying the bike several years before I came across a hand tuffed custom seat and purchased it and thought I am going to build a bike around this seat one day. And got discouraged and sold the seat to a friend for his bike which he never installed the seat so I ended up buying it back. Now what to put it on?
Then I came across my XS and was like yup this is the one. So I pulled the tank and the fender. So I wanted the hard tail look so she has a lowbrow hard tail kit and a seat now a fender and gas tank so Harley tank and custom rear fender. And I love the look of a springer so now a lowbrow spinger. Nice spoke wheels risers bars grips and some dress up pieces.
Color of the frame is a Chevy color it’s green o’clock and the tank and fender are beaver brown from Roth rat rods. But I still wanted to tie the seat in somehow and a fellow co working was getting into hydro dipping so I found a pattern that I thought best suited to match the seat day of the dead.
So he dipped them over the brown and it turned out amazing it’s almost like a ghost pattern. I also had him do my helmet to match. But a lot of people told me green and brown was not going to go together, but that’s what I wanted. So how do I tie in the different colors?
I had a guy local that do pin stripping. Big deal pin stripping so I had him do green and off white and it turned out great mad everything flow like I wanted. Now putting all the pieces back together white wall rear tire to tie in the little white in the tank and the green to tie in the green on the frame.
It’s nice to see your vision come out the exact way you hoped that it would I have only got to take her to a few shows and I love riding it and love building it. I hope to get her out to some more shows. Wish she had a little more top end speed so I can rider her out on some highways and take her to show further away. But this is my 77 Yamaha xs60 thank you
Submitted by Shelby Steele
