At the risk of rivaling Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, here is the backstory. For those not interested in all the minute details of it’s acquisition please skip to the next post.
This project was kind of an offshoot of the previous project I posted on here which was an 80 SG which I called “Dads Bike”. For those interested or who would like a refresher it’s located at - 1980 SG Back From The Dead – AKA Dad’s bike | Yamaha XS650 Forum. When I first started on the SG, I wanted to add the bigger tank from a standard for some added range, standard bars (for obvious, at least to me, reasons) and spoke wheels just because I like them. I was shopping around for parts and the total cost of buying them individually was not really in the budget, so I put it on the back burner. About six months later I saw an ad in Craigslist for an XS650 without a title or keys for $800. From the pictures it was a 1974 TX650A so it had all the parts I was interested in. I called the number and talked to the owner and made plans to see it early morning that weekend which just happened to be Mother’s Day. When I went to look at it nobody answered the door after repeated attempts so, not wanting to waste the trip, I looked around and found the bike in a shed out back. Turns out it had good compression, shifted through the gears, was mostly complete except for a missing rear fender, taillight and turn signals and the left side cover. It had some rust but not horrible. It only had 2600 miles and still had what looked like the original Yokohama tires.
Before leaving, I figured I would try one more time to get someone to answer the door and this time a barely awake and not to happy woman answered in her PJ’s and bathrobe. I explained the situation and she said she had worked late shift and had only gotten to bed a short time earlier and that her son wasn’t there, but she could tell me what she knew about the bike and try to call her son. She explained the son did HVAC work on the side and one of his customers was short of cash and made up the difference with the untitled TX. She said he and his friend somehow loaded it into the back of a Honda Civic and (without mentioning it) stored it in mom’s shed. When she found out, told the son to get it gone ASAP so that’s when it showed up on Craigslist. The son and I haggled a bit, with mom passing messages back and forth over the phone, but he wouldn’t come down to parts bike dollars. The mother was getting pretty irritated and looks at me and says “How much will you give him?”. I said “no title, no keys, can’t see in the tank no idea if it runs”….and gave her a typical parts bike price. She goes back to the phone and says, “It’s Mother’s Day, I’m tired, I want it out of my shed…the bike’s is sold!” and he sheepishly agrees. She then helps me push it flat tires and all (still in her bathrobe) through the yard and up the ramp onto my trailer and writes me out a bill of sale. (for whatever that’s worth)
This project was kind of an offshoot of the previous project I posted on here which was an 80 SG which I called “Dads Bike”. For those interested or who would like a refresher it’s located at - 1980 SG Back From The Dead – AKA Dad’s bike | Yamaha XS650 Forum. When I first started on the SG, I wanted to add the bigger tank from a standard for some added range, standard bars (for obvious, at least to me, reasons) and spoke wheels just because I like them. I was shopping around for parts and the total cost of buying them individually was not really in the budget, so I put it on the back burner. About six months later I saw an ad in Craigslist for an XS650 without a title or keys for $800. From the pictures it was a 1974 TX650A so it had all the parts I was interested in. I called the number and talked to the owner and made plans to see it early morning that weekend which just happened to be Mother’s Day. When I went to look at it nobody answered the door after repeated attempts so, not wanting to waste the trip, I looked around and found the bike in a shed out back. Turns out it had good compression, shifted through the gears, was mostly complete except for a missing rear fender, taillight and turn signals and the left side cover. It had some rust but not horrible. It only had 2600 miles and still had what looked like the original Yokohama tires.
Before leaving, I figured I would try one more time to get someone to answer the door and this time a barely awake and not to happy woman answered in her PJ’s and bathrobe. I explained the situation and she said she had worked late shift and had only gotten to bed a short time earlier and that her son wasn’t there, but she could tell me what she knew about the bike and try to call her son. She explained the son did HVAC work on the side and one of his customers was short of cash and made up the difference with the untitled TX. She said he and his friend somehow loaded it into the back of a Honda Civic and (without mentioning it) stored it in mom’s shed. When she found out, told the son to get it gone ASAP so that’s when it showed up on Craigslist. The son and I haggled a bit, with mom passing messages back and forth over the phone, but he wouldn’t come down to parts bike dollars. The mother was getting pretty irritated and looks at me and says “How much will you give him?”. I said “no title, no keys, can’t see in the tank no idea if it runs”….and gave her a typical parts bike price. She goes back to the phone and says, “It’s Mother’s Day, I’m tired, I want it out of my shed…the bike’s is sold!” and he sheepishly agrees. She then helps me push it flat tires and all (still in her bathrobe) through the yard and up the ramp onto my trailer and writes me out a bill of sale. (for whatever that’s worth)