XS650 in Harley Frame Build

So, I just realized that I don't have a forum to post this build in. I love xlforum.com but it's only for Harleys and the guys at Jockey Journal have decided that they only care about american and brit bikes. So It's just getting posted for my enjoyment here I guess.

Harley Wall Art

Sometimes you have to take a break and relax. This is what I did today. Rather than work on the bike, I made a little piece of art out of an old tank I had.

My old chopper at Utilikilts

Did a Google search today for "Utilikilts Chopper" and sure enough a picture of my bike came up on Flickr at the UK showroom. That was a weird sale for me. The guy shows up to look at the bike and steps out of his truck wearing a kilt and storm trooper boots. First thing he does is walk over to the bike, button his kilt in the middle and hop on the bike to roll it out of the garage. I had to stop him there. I was like "dude, what are you doing? Do you want to take it for a test ride?" He said yeah and was suprised that I wanted cash in hand before I let him scream around my neighborhood on that beast. So I got the cash from him and he trys to kick it over a few times. After watching him do it all wrong for a few minutes I stepped up and showed him how to kickstart a bike. Strange dude, slightly strange product.

Two of my Previous Bikes

My first love is Kawasaki KZ650's. I've had 3 and this was my favorite. They're cheap, run great and are fun to ride.

















This is a 1965 Harley XLCH. I traded a roller for it. I was getting ready to move to Idaho and wanted to get rid of my roller. A guy approached me with this bike and wanted to trade. The bike was cool and made you feel like a real bad ass to ride but ultimately I didn't feel right riding something I didn't build. I sold it after a couple weeks and made some cold hard cash. The guy who bought it happened to be the owner of Utilikilts. It's now sitting in his store in Seattle.

The Next Project

I'm not even done with my Harley but I had the opportunity to trade my AR-15 for a Yamaha XS650. The guy I traded with was the former owner of Beasleys Old Skool Bobbers and Choppers out of Garden City. Out of the deal, he got an AR-15 and I got an XS650 motor (rebuilt), hardtail frame, axels, fender, head and tail light, seats, brackets, exhaust, bars, tank and a bunch of other stuff.

First thing I need is a rear wheel so I can set up my chainline and make my motor mounts. Next is a front end. I have a couple options. I would love to go cheap and Vintage Cycles on Chinden is willing to give me a dirt bike front end with triple trees and wheel for $75 plus a box of bike parts I'm never going to use. I would rather not do business with them since they seem to act like jackasses most of the time, but it is my cheapest option. If I go with the dirt bike front end, It will give me a chance to use my lathe to spin up a 1" stem and weld it into the dirt bike triple tree. I recently made about $400 selling some crap on ebay so that's all I'm going to use to finish the bike. Shouldn't be a problem. Really all I'm looking at is a front end $75, rear wheel $50 and a stock wiring harness and carbs. Add in all the small things and I don't think I'll have a problem staying below $400.


















At the junk yard
If you got a rear harley wheel you want to sell me, let me know.

About my Bike

So this sucker started life as a 1980 Harley Sportster XLH. I picked it up in Northern Washington for $1700. I welded on a hardtail. I took pictures of the whole build and probably have a couple hundred pics. The tank is an old sporty tank that I cut the bottom out of and mounted frisco style. I made the bars, seat, all the mounts, taillight, license plate mount, all the small fabbed crap. I'm running road rashed and chipping Jaybrake foward controls that I made mounts for. Just finished up the pipes and have a used S&S Super E on the way. The list of things till she's finished is down to 6 things. While I'm only posting a couple pics here, you can see the whole build with all the pics on the XLForum HERE.

Here she was the day I brought here home:

Here's how she's sitting now:

Well, this should just be the beginning. I'll not only post about my bike, but also about projects, new tools, your projects, events or whatever. Feel free to comment!