XS1 wheel on an xs650

Big John

Big John

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For those that have swaped the XS1 drum to a later model, What was your solution for the lack of an anti-rotation tab on the later fork leg?

Did you come up with a type of bolt on solution?
Weld on a tab?
Swap out the fork leg or fork tube?

I was considering doing this swap, had the wheel, and was looking for the best way to do it.
 
You can either:
1: Find the impossible to find SR500 drum brake plate stay (good luck..... been looking for one of those forever..... If you do find one get me one too since I gave you this awesome advice ;-) )

2: Tig weld a tab onto you existing fork leg.

3: Swap our your fork legs for an XS1 front end. If you have the later fork legs you will have to swap out the entire front end and not just the fork legs.

4: Just sell me that wheel and run disc brakes. (my personal favorite choice for you)
 
i am using one of these front wheels on my 81 front end. after going over my options i am just having a bobo bracket made up that will mount to existing fender mount holes for the time being. probably gonna snag a narrow glide front end in the near future and will just have a tab welded on that.
 
Anyone with pics of what that SR500 plate looks like? Sounds like I should machine up one of those
And several extra to sell.
 
Uh guys I believe any solution that involves welding on the lower leg is a non starter. I have a fairly high certainty that welding on a leg will warp it enough to turn it into scrap. It is thin wall and has a fairly high precision bored interior. Much better to fab a stay arm from one of the existing caliper bosses down to the brake. I believe I have seen this done a time or two already.
Here is the above mentioned SR500 bracket


View attachment 7648
 
I had the same concern with the welding. Not sure how much potential there was to distort the tube, but hey, with as old as these bikes are, I bet the tolerances are merely in the neigborhood of "in spec".:laugh:
I think I will be looking at manufacturing a plate to accomplish this. I am very interested in seeing what was on the SR500. Let the original manufacturer do some of my durability testing for me.

Edit: Sorry gggGary, your pic did not show up for me before I responded. That looks doable. How much these things going for? Maybe I should make up extras. Any dimensions would be awsome. Thank you again for your help.
 
Big John-

They don't go for much money when they come up for sale, it's finding one that is the hard part. They seem to be pretty few and far between. If you decide to make some I'm sure you could easily sell some here on the forum. This question pops up pretty often.

I would buy a couple from you and I'm sure others here on the forum would as well.

I've seen several people TIG the tab on with great success. I guess its just what you are comfortable with.
 
I went out and looked in the shed: I think the easy (and decent) way out is to use the carrier from a late model disk brake caliper, side doesn't matter, cut away what you don't need and weld a chunk of aluminum on it to fit the slot in the drum brake plate, done.
 
gggGary said:
Uh guys I believe any solution that involves welding on the lower leg is a non starter. I have a fairly high certainty that welding on a leg will warp it enough to turn it into scrap. It is thin wall and has a fairly high precision bored interior. Much better to fab a stay arm from one of the existing caliper bosses down to the brake. I believe I have seen this done a time or two already.
Here is the above mentioned SR500 bracket


View attachment 7648
Click to expand...

i know a couple guys who have had tabs welded on for this purpose with zero problems. That said the bracket has to be the better bet.
 
Big John said:
Edit: Sorry gggGary, your pic did not show up for me before I responded. That looks doable. How much these things going for? Maybe I should make up extras. Any dimensions would be awsome. Thank you again for your help.
Click to expand...
See below; I think cutting up a caliper carrier to make the bracket is the fast way through this. I looks like a caliper carrier from a 35mm 77 on fork will work, nice that the mounting holes are already aligned, drilled, and threaded. you might even have enough material left over from the clean up to make the slot block. I don't know if any of the 72-76 34mm fork/brake set ups can be used in this way.
 
Thanks for all the great suggestions guys. I will take a look at the bracket off of my 79 and see how it looks. Other than the rotor, that may be the only good part on my existing front brakes.
 
No chance to work on how I am going to use it yet, but the wheel looks a lot better.

IMAG0751.jpg

to
IMAG0773.jpg
 
I am ok with resurrecting it. I have been working on a few other bikes and was hoping to finish this one up this summer. I still haven't installed the drum brake wheel yet. Need to make sure the axle will fit and find/make an anti rotation bracket. I have the brake shoes and brake cable. I was still trying to figure out what I am going to do about the brake handle and switch also.
 
I have a slow build I'm working on. When I say slow, I mean I'm almost done taking the engine apart so I can start blasting 3 decades of grime. However one thing I'm going to do definitely is use "Inverted Levers". I don't think you can use inverted levers with a regular brake disc/caliper set up so that's why I was looking at a front drum set up. Not sure exactly what front drum would be most similar to the rear on an '81 model.
 
I figured I would polish both and possibly drill some 1 inch holes in rear to match the right side of the front drum and the use mesh with grommets to keep most of the grime out.
 

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