New XS650 Owner- Need advice

[joebgd]

Does anyone know the OD difference of the stock 16" rubber to 18"?

 

[fredintoon]

Picked myself up a small project that is going to be a short commuter bike, has 16k miles, fairly well taken care of, but needs some tires, stuff like that. I had a XS400 years ago in high school that I did a ton of work to, so I know my way fairly well around the bike, but have a few things.

I'm going for a cafe racer- Not going to go as far down as some guys do, but will be stripping a lot of the unnecessary stuff. This leads into the first question:

1. Is there any benefit to going with a "points" style instead of the seemingly thousand boxes and wires you get with the electronic? Mine works, so i'm inclined not to screw with it, but finding room to mount the boxes is interesting on an open bike.

2. Tires- Would like some classic tires, My gut is the firestones, but I've heard those can be a little, uh, dangerous. Heidenau seems to have some good options, but what sizes would look good on the XS? The 16" rear rim is rough on that regard, but I'm going for something looking like this tire wise (I am deleting front fender) Link here

3. What other things should I look into doing? Here's the plan, roughly-
front fender delete
Both rims powdercoated black
forks powdercoated black
Get a better seat (possibly the 650 Tuffside kit?)
Cable management (working on now, sorry about the cables everywhere in the picture below, I started before I took the picture!)

Thanks in advance!

Hi Wesley and welcome,
um, what "thousand boxes" eh? There's exactly ONE iggybox on E-ignition XS650s.
It's bolted underneath the stock battery box for the soft ride it gets on that rubber mounted part and there's a 6-wire loom that goes to it.
Mind you, there's all manner of other mystery modules that can be advantageously trash-canned and there's simplified wiring diagrams
on this site to tell you how.
The front fender is also a fork brace. Best you replace it with an aftermarket fork brace rather than live with twitchy forks.
&BTW, the stock rear shocks are built down to a price rather than up to a standard. Fitting better quality rear shocks will also
let you fit longer ones to improve the bike's stock arse-dragging stance.
I cannot like your bike's late model wire wheels, even the alternative artillery wheels look better. The BEST looking XS650 wire
wheels are the deep groove aluminum rim units from the mid to late '70s. Their hubs & rims will polish up nice or could be
powder-coated black if you must. Typically their spokes will be rusted and the wheels should be re-laced with stainless.
The rear is an 18" and yeah, they'll drop straight into your bike though if they came off a '76 or earlier you gotta swap in your
bike's brake disk.
Your backside knows best about what seat will work for you and the MOST important thing about cables ain't how well they
are hidden, it's that they are run in as easy a curve as they can for minimum resistance.

 

[5twins]

You've got your work cut out for you with those drag bars as far as cable routing goes. It will be very difficult, maybe even impossible, to do it correctly without kinks. I'm all for lower than stock bars, just not that low. I've tackled cable routing jobs on guy's bikes that have the drag bars and all I can say is it ain't pretty, lol.

 

[azman857]

Minton mod on front forks. Do it. Check the Tech section for past write ups. Shocks. I'm using IKONS. Great shocks. You mentioned Phoenix. 2-3 other xs650 riders up that way and I'm in Tucson but I get up that way now and again on weekends. 60E to Apache Junction to Globe usually.