My XS650 in progress

I figured since I'm back to working on it again I'd start a thread for it.

I picked this bike up right at 2 years ago from a guy who had bought it, rebuilt it and chopped it. He rode it around for a while and started having issues with it jumping out of gear. I bought it for $1000 with then intention of just repairing the problem and riding it. After getting it home I decided there was a bunch of things that I didn't like about it. The pipes, the controls were sketchy, the wiring was messy, the rear fender/sissy bar/tail light, the bars were 7/8 drag bars in 1" risers. He used a couple quarters to shim up.

I eventually tore it all down to kinda start over. However, it unfortunately got pushed to the side and hasn't gotten much attention until recently. I got my brother to give me a hand getting the engine back into the frame recently. Also spent some time redoing all the wiring recently. Still lots to do but the other night I sat on it and got pretty excited about the project all over again. Hoping to make some serious progess and have it road ready soon.


Here's a few pics when I first bought it.







Here's a few pics in it's more current state.

Nice and clean. I like those pipes!

Not really much visual progress the last few days, just small things. Put the front end on and rolled it outside so I could clean up the lift and my work area.

Also I'm not 100% sure of that's the seat I'm going to stick with.

Sweet!

If ya dont stick with that seat, shoot me a pm and tell me what you want for the seat, I might buy it off ya.......

I'll keep that in mind. For now I'm going to use this one until I figure out what I'm going to do for something different.

Not really much of an update but you can sorta see the direction it'll be going. A big local car/hotrod/chop/rat rod show this weekend has a "Under Construction" class and the winner gets $500 worth of powdercoating. I'm going anyway so I figured I may as well blow the dust off and make it look sorta presentable. Half assed plastidipped the tank for temporary purposes.

Progress has of course been slow but here's an update since last go round:

Shaved the fork legs of the fender mount/fender brace mounts and just left the front brake mounts
Opted for a Brembo caliper and GSXR master cylinder(still need brake lines)
New Firestone Deluxe Champ tires
Decided to go black on the wheels
Swapped to some attack bars
Went to a Unity Style headlight

Honestly the bike is about 95% complete/rideable, I just need to find the motivation to button up all the little odds/ends.

Still on the "To Do" list:
Sort out brake/shift linkage
Front brake line
I'm going back to electric start
Figure out how I want to mount fender(struts/sissy bar?)
Paint

Now some shitty cell phone pics.

A local car/classics/hotrod/chop show this weekend has an Under Construction class and the winner will get a $500 powdercoating gift certificate. I was going to the show regardless so I think I'm going to bring the bike along. Last night I stripped the tank(because I had to do it eventually) and just goofed around a little.