Just another 650 ADV bike

[BIG ED XT FAN]

Originally Posted by SOS

I got the bracket made to hols the air boxes together and in place. Made some tabes to hang the side covers. I was not intending on using the original side covers, but I changed my mind. Unfortunately I had already cut the tabs off to mount the upper shock brace.

Also started to fit the small tank. The front mounts are fine, but the tunnel doesn't clear the coils or the upper motor mount. I'll have to relocate the coils, but the upper motor mount is a funky 3 piece deal on each side. Not sure why, but Ill make a 1 piece set and the clearance issue will go away.

Not much to show, but here's some pics with the stock tank and the side covers remounted:





And with the small tank mocked up:







I am lengthening the kick stand today, but the welder is giving mefits so that will have to wait.

Heres a XS650 motor in a XT 500 frame. Just google Hennorit 2011. Its a Dutch club who has a almost all Yamaha XT TT 350 500 600 ride each fall. About 2 weeks ago. BIG ED XT&TT&XS FAN!!

[SOS]

Pretty cool Looks like a fun ride. The 2012 ride looked a bit wetter

[BIG ED XT FAN]

Originally Posted by SOS

Pretty cool Looks like a fun ride. The 2012 ride looked a bit wetter

Well, Its Holland land of dikes??

[SOS]

The welder was giving me trouble, but I think that is finally sorted out. It is so much easier to get things done when your equipment is working properly

One of the issues with the XS650 as an ADV bike and the new suspension is that the 1979 XS650 Special had the pegs too high and too far forward. The frame does have exhaust mounts on the frame that are much closer than the stock peg mounts so I am trying to use those to lower the pegs and move them back underneath the rider. Here are a couple pics with both the stock pegs and the new locations:









The toughest part abount moving the pegs for me (whether it is rear-sets on the cafe or these) is getting the rear brake pedal and the exhaust clearences to all work out. In this case I didn't need to reverse the brake pedal pivot like when you do rear-sets, but I still needed to get the brake pedal to actuate the rear brakes while still clearing the exhaust and foot pegs. Clearing the exhaust was done by building the right peg mount around it. Then it was getting the brake pedal to fit between the peg mount and the exhaust.

We used the original XS650 rear brake pedal and pivot with the YZ125 cable to the rear wheel. Once I had the pegs in place we could measure the original brake pedal to section out 1/2".

Here is the stock pedal where it would hit the new peg mount:







And here is the sectioned lever that clears the exhaust and the peg mount:



Then to make it stand on it's own the side stand needed to be extended due to the new suspension. The first time I did it it was still too short. It leaned way over and only needed a nudge to fall over on the stand side. Here is the 2nd extension.







I still need to add gussets to the foot peg mounts and trim the brackets of the excess metal. I got new grade 8 bolts to mount the plates to the frame, but I'll probably add some side plates around frame mounts to stiffen it up.

[SOS]

Got some work done on the XS over the last couple days. To mount the mono shock with the reservoir I had to remove the horizontal frame brace from the backbone to the tail section on the right side. That is also the lower mount for the right side frame cover. I do not have a way to bend tubing so I had to find a part that I could cut to fit with the correct bend already there. An old engine guard worked out well.



To reinstall the side cover the lower mount had to be moved forward on the cover. I tried to drill the spot welds holding the lower mount bracket without going through the cover.





Even with the mount removed the cover had to be modified on the lower side since the new frame rail stuck out further than the original to get around the shock reservoir.





With the lower mount moved forward and the bracket located on the new frame rail:





One of the things I wanted to do with this bike was to have 2 different tank and seat configurations that could be swapped out easily. The stock tank for normal and longer riding and a much smaller and lighter tank for short rides. The smaller tank ended up being an MX125 tank from an early '70s Yamaha. The front mounts are the same as the XS650 Special tank. It clears the tunnel with the exception of the coils (still need to relocate them) and the 3 piece upper motor mount (another mod still coming). The tank is much shorter than the original so a second rear mount had to be added while still being able to mount the original tank.

The mounts for both tanks are similar, a round grommet on the tank slides over a frame mount and is captured by a bolt through the top. I was able to use a modified lower suspension bolt I had with the YZ490 doner and weld it to the frame. It had to be short enough that I could mount the original XS tank over it. That part took a couple tries.







Now both tanks can be swapped out easily. The next stem is to relocate the coils.

[SOS]

I haven't been keeping the posts up too well here, but I finally got around for an update.

I had to find some place to stick the coils since the bracket had to be removed to fit the MX tank.



I almost mounted them by the air boxes, but then I decided to check the Pamco ignition instructions that is getting installed. I'm glad I did because the Pamco requires a single coil with dual outputs. That changed the coils all together. I went with a Dynatek coil for a Harley because I could buy them individually and not waste a coil.



The coil used the original bracket modifiied and relocated where the reserve lighting relay was. Now both tanks can be fit without interfering with the coils and it is protected from the elements.

On to the muffler:

I finished welding the 2 into 1 header that was reconfigured from the old MAC that came on the bike. That was a lot of fun welding the pieces together at the bends where the metal was stretched to begin with. After that was sealed up and test fit I still did not have a muffler to put on when another one of my buddies donated an aluminum can muffler from one of his projects.



The bracket would not work, the pipe diameter was too large and the bend angle was wrong, but it was free and I think it will look good intalled. It should work well on the 650 too. I think it was off of an SRX600 single, but I'm not sure.



I had some straight pipe that was just larger than the MAC single pipe so it was a pretty easy swap with the original muffler inlet.

















The bracket still needs to be positioned, but all the clearences work. Iwill need to put a turn back on the muffler tip to get the exhaust to the rear, but it is aluminum and I cannot weld that. There are a couple of buddies who can though.

Rear Fender:

The rear fender has had me puzzeled for quite a while now. Originally it was going to be a standard motorcross fender with a small LED brakelight, but it did not really fit with the XS rear loop. Also, there was still a problem of the license plate. Today I decided to through a bit of kawi into this hybrid and adapt the rear frame section from a defunked 1974 F11 with a bent frame.



It will be an obvious Kawasaki duct bill on a Yamaha, but I really like those, it leaves plenty of tire clearance and I can get a bigger taillight further back on the bike. It also lends itself to tuck the license plate up it and give me a bit more fender.

The XS rear loop woul have to come off.





With the mono shock there is no need for the upper shock mounts, but I still need some strength there to support the back of the seat and the taillight, license plate, etc. The F11 tubing was about 0.020" too big to fit inside the XS tubing so I spent the next 45 minutes with a grinder and 120 grit flapper wheel trying to fit them together.

I did get them to fit so there would be about 1 1/2" of lug into the XS frame. There is also a small triangular support that I used from the F11 frame that should give plenty of weight bearing support.







It is just held in by the lugs right now. It still needs to be set in straight and welded in place. I mis-judged the angle on the gusset so it will take some work to get that fit prior to welding, but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Other items that got done were adding the steering stop so it works with both tanks and adding gussets to the new foot pegs.

[hunter_greyghost]

Looking good, nice job on the modifications
Cheers
Baza

[SOS]

Originally Posted by hunter_greyghost

Looking good, nice job on the modifications
Cheers
Baza

Thanks.

There were a couple guys from your thread that asked about the front end swap. I have a Z490 top tree on this one and it was a direct replacement as far as the steering stem goes, but I was going to try the whole triple tree swap from the YZ490 and report back.

I did a quick comparison when I added the steering stop, but I think the YZ490 might not work on a standard XS. The stems and bearings are almost identicle, but the threads on the YZ490 stem that hold the upper bearing in place are not as high as the XS so I don't think you could get the bearing secured. I haven't tried it with new tapered bearings yet (that would be more final), but still have welding to do and blasting so I don't want to install them right now.

Now, if I can get this XS to go where your XS has been I'll be a happy camper

[hunter_greyghost]

Originally Posted by SOS

Thanks.

There were a couple guys from your thread that asked about the front end swap. I have a Z490 top tree on this one and it was a direct replacement as far as the steering stem goes, but I was going to try the whole triple tree swap from the YZ490 and report back.

I did a quick comparison when I added the steering stop, but I think the YZ490 might not work on a standard XS. The stems and bearings are almost identicle, but the threads on the YZ490 stem that hold the upper bearing in place are not as high as the XS so I don't think you could get the bearing secured. I haven't tried it with new tapered bearings yet (that would be more final), but still have welding to do and blasting so I don't want to install them right now.

Now, if I can get this XS to go where your XS has been I'll be a happy camper

With all the mods you're doing, it should run ring around my old beasties
Tyre choice has a lot to do with dirt riding - well pretty important on the blacktop too!
So there's not enough length of thread on top of the stem of the YZ?, that's a real bummer, hoping to find a front with easy adaption onto the XS frame, still looking - might start looking @ roadbike frontend options
Cheers
Baza

[_CJ]

[RonZacapa]

Nice looking build SOS! I see your craftsmanship is up to the job and this will turn out as one sweet looking special.
My one point of concern is how will the YZ125 frame handle the torque of the 650 motor? My guess is probably allright though some stress points may need beefing up. Did you do anything in the way of additional stiffening to the frame / engine cradle?

[helidude]

Originally Posted by RonZacapa

Nice looking build SOS! I see your craftsmanship is up to the job and this will turn out as one sweet looking special.
My one point of concern is how will the YZ125 frame handle the torque of the 650 motor? My guess is probably allright though some stress points may need beefing up. Did you do anything in the way of additional stiffening to the frame / engine cradle?

ahhh... I think this is an xs 650 frame...

[nsu max]

Look'in good!

[SOS]

Originally Posted by helidude

ahhh... I think this is an xs 650 frame...

It is the XS650 frame, now with a touch old Kaw F11 for the rear tail section. Honestly, if were to do it again I might start with the steel YZ490 frame. It would be easier to mount the motor than reconfigure the suspension, but here I don't think I could title the ZY for the street.

[SOS]

It is a Sunday morning here is Toledo and I got a few hours free to come down to the shop and get some work done on the XS. It is still too early to fire up the grinder so I am prepping some parts to connect the F11 inner fender to the one I modified from the XS.

The radii between the 2 inner fenders was different so I ended up fitting them separately and hopefully I'll be able to fiberglass the 2 together. Never tried it before.

I have a cardboard template made up to support and shape the fiberglass.







The other project for today is building a bracket to fit the F11 tailsection and hold the taillight and license plate. Just got the layout done so far.



Just past 10:00AM so I think I can make some noise now