My friends always had a xs650 so I decided one day I’m going to give it a go! I do a lot of custom work and pinstripe, so already knew what kind of style I wanted to go with. I started out with a 1979 xs650 special I found on good old Craigslist for 1200$.
Went to go look at it and the guy had torn the wire harness out so it didn’t run. I offered him 450$ and he took it! I went home with it and immediately started ordering parts! Wanted to go with a sportster/ old school bobber. For wheels I started with a kz650 my buddy had out in the scrap pile 19in front and 18in rear.
I wanted spoke rims and not the mags that came on it. I immediately stripped it down and started cutting! Ordered a tc bro hard tail and got a sportster tank for low brow. As soon as that came in it was go time from there! Long days and nights getting everything squared away from wiring too getting everything mounted up.
I wanted to run a speedometer so I went with a gps driving one which I absolutely love! I ended up mounting it underneath the gas tank. For a seat I ended up getting one from low brows. I wanted something with a lot of padding but still that low style. I ended up going with the hairpin style springs just because I love the look of them.
For a oil tank/electrical unit to hide most my wires. I went with a fence post and cut it too my length and got 2 round fence post toppers. I gave it a bronze/ copper look. For the frame I ended up painting it black and did a slight dusting of blue/ silver flake. I didn’t want it all flaked out like everything else I just wanted enough flake to tie in the rest of the bike and still give it that black frame vibe.
For a tank I went with a flaked silver and tape it off and did a marine blue candy. After I that I airbrush some wood grain and did some pinstripes on top of everything and some gold leafing . I really wanted to go with that 70s vibe with the tank. My personal opinion I love it! For bars I went with so protaper comp 3 straight bars.
With gold accents. For the brake levers I got some cheap Ones off Amazon that were gold. After all paint work was done everything was back together we tried to start it. And boom nothing happened couldn’t get it started for anything. Everything we tried nothing worked! I thought it might of been the coils so got new ones still nothing! Thought it might be the spark plug wires nothing!
Was about to give up on everything and say screw it! Remember I bought this bike non running so I was freaking out at this point thinking I bought a bike that was toast! In the end it ended up being that the points was grounding out on the housing. After a deep clean bike started right up and everything went good! Next is a PMA because the damn charging system don’t work!!
But still is rideable just gotta put a maintainer on it at night! Also my exhaust I just bought a kit and built my own! And for my mid controls I cut my old controls off my frame and bolted them too the bottom of my frame!
Submitted by Trevor Pinegar
