It was rusted and seized

I started out with an ’80 special, a basket case, as so many are, that was purchased for a few hundred bucks. It was rusted and seized, had a big Harley fenders bondo-ed over the original fenders and worst of all it was painted purple!

The motor was pulled, stripped, & fully rebuilt. The jugs and head were blasted and everything was coated with a high temp paint, detailed and reassembled. The frame was stripped and hardtailed.

I fabricated the hardtail, as I do with all of my bikes, so I decided to leave the original frame supports (those triangular things) to keep the overall wedge shape I was going for. The forks were shaved and lowered and a 21″ Yamaha dirt bike wheel was fitted up front with a new Avon Speedmaster tire.

The tins consist of a little vintage headlight I found at a swap meet, a 2.2 Paughco Mustang tank and a flipped front fender for the rear.

Paint was done by my buddy Tom Sullivan and the pinstripe by the wonderful Doctor D. Some of the little details are in the Drag Specialties seat, the cloth covered wiring, clip-on bars and those cool plug wires from Lowbrow Customs.

This is one of many bikes, mainly XS650’s built at my shop, Vintage Customs, in warm sunny Florida. This has been a great little bike that just got a bit of attention at Bike Week here in Daytona, was photographed for BSH magazine and was featured in an article about my shop with BikerMetric. The Royal is currently for sale privately through my website, VintageCustoms.tumblr.com .

Thanks,
~Jay