cooltouch
XS650 Addict
I've had a soft spot for cafe bikes ever since I saw my first one in a bike mag more years ago than I care to say. Never owned one, though, but since the XS650 is a machine with almost chameleon-like flexibility, it just seemed to me to be a natural bike for this project, especially since I have been on a tight budget and couldn't afford the outlay for a Brit bike in halfway decent condition.
I have rather specific requirements, though. I want it to have that cafe look, but not necesssarily the cafe feel. I don't really care for the position one has to put oneself in when a bike has clip-ons and rearsets, for example, so I will be using neither with this build. I prefer a slightly forward leaning position with my feet beneath me. Thus I'll use the stock pegs and most likely a set of Euro-style bars.
This cool Norton cafe comes close to the "look" I'm after -- the project bike needs to have a largish classic roadracer style tank, a bumstop seat and NO rear fender.
I bought the subject '78 E model a couple years ago because I wanted a Standard for my cafe build. Why a Standard? Mostly because of its rear shock geometry. The Standard's rear shocks are located in a more upright position, whereas Special shocks are slanted more. Not only do the upright rear shocks go more to the traditional cafe "look" they usually allow for more nimble handling. Also, I didn't really want to deal with the 16" rear, preferring an 18". True, I could have converted a Special to an 18" rear, but why not just start out with one that has it in the first place?
When I came across the 78, I ended up getting a trashed XS1 along with the deal, most of which I parted out and sold off, which helped defer almost all the original purchase costs. So even though I didn't want the XS1, in retrospect, I'm glad the guy included it because it ended up saving me bucks.
Got started on the project rather slowly -- I was having rather severe health problems at the time -- but I made some progress. My health has gotten better, but now I'm having to deal with a severely tight budget. Fortunately, I've already acquired most of the parts I need for the project. It's just a matter of finding the time now. So, I've decided to start this thread, hoping that it will provide me with a bit more motivation to get out there in the oppressive Houston Heat and get busy.
Some pics of the bike. This is what it looked like when I got it home:
You can see remnants of the XS1 in the background. The bikes had been stored in a carpentry shop for who knows how long and were covered in sawdust. Here's the 78 after I hosed it down really well:
I snagged a no-dents XS750 tank (standard, not Special) off eBay and also bought a cafe-style bumstop seat. Here's the bike with the tank sitting on it, right after I bought the tank. The paint job was lousy, and wasn't long for this world.
I stripped the tank and the side covers with brush-on stripper, and a whole big mess later had managed to remove the lousy rattle-can paint job. But the enamel underneath didn't want to come off. Took quite a bit more work to get it off finally. I set the tank with its residual original paint and bumstop seat on the rolling chassis just for a visual take on things. Yep, starting to have that cafe look.
I used rattlecan Rustoleum primer and a charcoal grey metallic enamel for the tank, then shot it with several more coats of clear enamel. It looks pretty good now, but the clear I used will not resist gasoline spills (need a two-part automotive product for that), so I'll have to be careful.
I've decided on a tank logo -- Yamaha's triple tuning forks. Only. I'm hoping I can find, or have made, the logo in a gold-leaf look. I haven't decided yet what, if anything I'll put on the side covers.
Stripped the bike down to the bare frame, then blasted it with my sandblaster to get rid of all the rust and loose paint. I also decided that this would be a solo bike only, so I removed the passenger peg loops. More I thought about it, I also decided I didn't want a center stand either, so off came the center stand mounts. Here the frame is after surgery but before blasting.
As you can see, it's missing the rear frame loop. The PO had plans to build a tracker and cut off the rear loop as well as the stock seat mounts. Nothing much I could do about the mounts, but I did get the loop, at least. I wanted to keep it, so I welded it back on.
The frame after blasting and welding the loop back on.
I blasted as much of the original paint off as was going to come off easily. I figured the paint that was left was on there to stay, so I etched it as best I could with the blaster so the new paint would have something to stick to. I repainted it with rattlecan black Rustoleum enamel. I've had good luck with the stuff. When applied properly, it holds up really well in outdoor applications. I still don't understand why some folks want to powdercoat their frames. I mean, sooner or later, a frame will get nicked up, and then what do you do? If it's painted with enamel it takes maybe a couple minutes to cover the nick. Besides, PC just wasn't in my increasingly slim budget, so that made the final decision for me. I don't have any pics of the frame after painting -- yet. But I'll take some and post one later.
When I first started this project, I decided I couldn't just leave the motor stock. So I bought a Wiseco 763cc big bore kit with 10.25:1 pistons. Also bought a set of Mikuni 36mm roundslides. Problem with the roundslides is they don't make right and left carbs -- or at least they didn't when I bought mine -- and both have the choke on the same side. I'm thinking I might fabricate a bracket or some such that will allow me to operate the carb with the inside choke lever a bit easier.
Wiseco 81mm 10.25:1 pistons. The sleeves that came with the kit have already been pressed into the cylinder block.
The Mikuni VM36es:
I also spent quite a bit of time on the head. I had a local performane machine shop do a 3-angle grind on the head. Then I worked on basically smoothing the intake and exhaust runners and ports as much as possible. Not having a flow bench or being able to afford one, I didn't want to get too fancy with a port-and-polish job, cuz I know it's real easy to make things worse if you don't know what you're doing or if you don't have access to a flow bench. So I stuck to removing the machining and casting marks and especially the ridges on the inside radiuses of the runners as they turn into the valve pockets.
Here's a shot of the head before I started working on it. The machining and casting marks in the valve pockets are pretty obvious.
And here's a shot showing one cylinder's valve pockets after I spent some time on them.
The finished head, or so I thought:
Then I read up a lot more on PnP procedures and found out that my intake runners are entirely too smooth. Come to find that the walls of the intake runners and pockets should be fairly rough. This maintains turbulence of the intake fuel/air mixture and prevents the fuel droplets from condensing out on the walls. So before I put the head on the motor, I'm gonna have to go back and rough them up some with some fairly course sandpaper and/or sanding bits.
About this time, I discovered rephased XS650s, and was captivated by the idea. So I decided to go for it. Had the crank rephased to 277 degrees and sent the cam to Webcam, and had them regrind it to their 59a spec for a 277 rephased motor. No pics of this stuff yet, but I can get some if you're interested. I plan to run Pamco Pete's ignition setup for 277 motors.
Stay tuned . . .
I have rather specific requirements, though. I want it to have that cafe look, but not necesssarily the cafe feel. I don't really care for the position one has to put oneself in when a bike has clip-ons and rearsets, for example, so I will be using neither with this build. I prefer a slightly forward leaning position with my feet beneath me. Thus I'll use the stock pegs and most likely a set of Euro-style bars.
This cool Norton cafe comes close to the "look" I'm after -- the project bike needs to have a largish classic roadracer style tank, a bumstop seat and NO rear fender.
I bought the subject '78 E model a couple years ago because I wanted a Standard for my cafe build. Why a Standard? Mostly because of its rear shock geometry. The Standard's rear shocks are located in a more upright position, whereas Special shocks are slanted more. Not only do the upright rear shocks go more to the traditional cafe "look" they usually allow for more nimble handling. Also, I didn't really want to deal with the 16" rear, preferring an 18". True, I could have converted a Special to an 18" rear, but why not just start out with one that has it in the first place?
When I came across the 78, I ended up getting a trashed XS1 along with the deal, most of which I parted out and sold off, which helped defer almost all the original purchase costs. So even though I didn't want the XS1, in retrospect, I'm glad the guy included it because it ended up saving me bucks.
Got started on the project rather slowly -- I was having rather severe health problems at the time -- but I made some progress. My health has gotten better, but now I'm having to deal with a severely tight budget. Fortunately, I've already acquired most of the parts I need for the project. It's just a matter of finding the time now. So, I've decided to start this thread, hoping that it will provide me with a bit more motivation to get out there in the oppressive Houston Heat and get busy.
Some pics of the bike. This is what it looked like when I got it home:
You can see remnants of the XS1 in the background. The bikes had been stored in a carpentry shop for who knows how long and were covered in sawdust. Here's the 78 after I hosed it down really well:
I snagged a no-dents XS750 tank (standard, not Special) off eBay and also bought a cafe-style bumstop seat. Here's the bike with the tank sitting on it, right after I bought the tank. The paint job was lousy, and wasn't long for this world.
I stripped the tank and the side covers with brush-on stripper, and a whole big mess later had managed to remove the lousy rattle-can paint job. But the enamel underneath didn't want to come off. Took quite a bit more work to get it off finally. I set the tank with its residual original paint and bumstop seat on the rolling chassis just for a visual take on things. Yep, starting to have that cafe look.
I used rattlecan Rustoleum primer and a charcoal grey metallic enamel for the tank, then shot it with several more coats of clear enamel. It looks pretty good now, but the clear I used will not resist gasoline spills (need a two-part automotive product for that), so I'll have to be careful.
I've decided on a tank logo -- Yamaha's triple tuning forks. Only. I'm hoping I can find, or have made, the logo in a gold-leaf look. I haven't decided yet what, if anything I'll put on the side covers.
Stripped the bike down to the bare frame, then blasted it with my sandblaster to get rid of all the rust and loose paint. I also decided that this would be a solo bike only, so I removed the passenger peg loops. More I thought about it, I also decided I didn't want a center stand either, so off came the center stand mounts. Here the frame is after surgery but before blasting.
As you can see, it's missing the rear frame loop. The PO had plans to build a tracker and cut off the rear loop as well as the stock seat mounts. Nothing much I could do about the mounts, but I did get the loop, at least. I wanted to keep it, so I welded it back on.
The frame after blasting and welding the loop back on.
I blasted as much of the original paint off as was going to come off easily. I figured the paint that was left was on there to stay, so I etched it as best I could with the blaster so the new paint would have something to stick to. I repainted it with rattlecan black Rustoleum enamel. I've had good luck with the stuff. When applied properly, it holds up really well in outdoor applications. I still don't understand why some folks want to powdercoat their frames. I mean, sooner or later, a frame will get nicked up, and then what do you do? If it's painted with enamel it takes maybe a couple minutes to cover the nick. Besides, PC just wasn't in my increasingly slim budget, so that made the final decision for me. I don't have any pics of the frame after painting -- yet. But I'll take some and post one later.
When I first started this project, I decided I couldn't just leave the motor stock. So I bought a Wiseco 763cc big bore kit with 10.25:1 pistons. Also bought a set of Mikuni 36mm roundslides. Problem with the roundslides is they don't make right and left carbs -- or at least they didn't when I bought mine -- and both have the choke on the same side. I'm thinking I might fabricate a bracket or some such that will allow me to operate the carb with the inside choke lever a bit easier.
Wiseco 81mm 10.25:1 pistons. The sleeves that came with the kit have already been pressed into the cylinder block.
The Mikuni VM36es:
I also spent quite a bit of time on the head. I had a local performane machine shop do a 3-angle grind on the head. Then I worked on basically smoothing the intake and exhaust runners and ports as much as possible. Not having a flow bench or being able to afford one, I didn't want to get too fancy with a port-and-polish job, cuz I know it's real easy to make things worse if you don't know what you're doing or if you don't have access to a flow bench. So I stuck to removing the machining and casting marks and especially the ridges on the inside radiuses of the runners as they turn into the valve pockets.
Here's a shot of the head before I started working on it. The machining and casting marks in the valve pockets are pretty obvious.
And here's a shot showing one cylinder's valve pockets after I spent some time on them.
The finished head, or so I thought:
Then I read up a lot more on PnP procedures and found out that my intake runners are entirely too smooth. Come to find that the walls of the intake runners and pockets should be fairly rough. This maintains turbulence of the intake fuel/air mixture and prevents the fuel droplets from condensing out on the walls. So before I put the head on the motor, I'm gonna have to go back and rough them up some with some fairly course sandpaper and/or sanding bits.
About this time, I discovered rephased XS650s, and was captivated by the idea. So I decided to go for it. Had the crank rephased to 277 degrees and sent the cam to Webcam, and had them regrind it to their 59a spec for a 277 rephased motor. No pics of this stuff yet, but I can get some if you're interested. I plan to run Pamco Pete's ignition setup for 277 motors.
Stay tuned . . .
