rat bike, bobber, xs 650, mattblackrat.com


rat bike, bobber, xs 650, mattblackrat.com
rat bike, bobber, xs 650, mattblackrat.com
 





 

1978 Yamaha XS650.
Here's basically what I did to it.

I lengthened the swingarm and brake stay 3 1/2" and added a longer chain. The shocks are 10.5" Honda Rebel shocks set on their stiffest setting so I could get the rear nice and low and run the stock bobbed fender nice and close to the tire. I also shortened the kick stand and cut off the extra upper rear frame area. My neighbour and I built a buck board seat and re-covered it in the stock seat material with cut down seat foam. I had a stock Sportster gas tank that I stripped the paint off of. I scuffed it and clear coated it along with the stock side covers and fender. I mated a stock Sportster, (click-click) gas cap with a 3 bar knock off spinner cap from a car wheel. The stock headlight was pretty big for a bobber so I used a 4 1/2" headlight bucket from a 1977 Yamaha Enduro 100 that I've owned since I was 9. I replaced the stock 6v bulb with a 12v bulb. The fork tubes were slid out of the trees to flip the headlight ears side to side which lowered the headlight. The tailight is a satin aluminium Sparto. The cool old Z-bars and risers were an e-bay score. No speedo, tach or idiot lights. Fly by the seat of your pants! Everything that I painted gloss black is actually high temp engine paint. It's got a nice shine and wears great. I slash cut the stock pipes right through the cans getting rid of some of the baffles which gives it a great little rumble. I tuned it up with the stock point gap settings as a starting point and found what the bike liked by fine tuning it. One to two kicks cold, always one kick warm.

People will walk by the $25,000 trailer queens to gawk at bikes like this. You'll have more fun riding your budget beater than riding your kids college fund and a new scratch or scuff only ADDS to the look!

BoGiggers

rat bike, bobber, xs 650, mattblackrat.com
rat bike, bobber, xs 650, mattblackrat.com

 

 

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