Pony's XS Build

[Pony]

I used my new bench grinder to work down some MX foot pegs I am using. I want to use as much dirtbike stuff like pegs, throttle housing, levers ect. I guess kind of a little nod to my roots and because I have a shit ton of spare dirtbike parts laying around. A little grinding and they fit right in, and fold up out of the way nicely. I am going to hit up fastenal for a tension spring because The stocker from the XS or the YZ wont work.

Anyone have a special place they get oddball springs from?

 

[Pony]

Sweet! Just make sure you move the welder before you start grinding.

Yea, I thought it had a nice little home and when I started grinding I felt like an idiot. Gonna fill my new welder up with metal shavings. It has a new home now. lol

 

[Pony]

Got some work done this weekend. I gotta give my disclaimer first: My welding experiance is building fence and panels with my stick, and welding sheetmetal with a 220 mig when I worked in a body shop. I am learning a lot about welding with this 110 I picked up this week and really like it. My work is not beautiful, but I believe it will do the job and I am confident enough to ride this sucker down the road. *end disclaimer*

I cutt all the cheesy shit off of the shock mount and got them down to little plugs and found a little flatbar scrap.

 

[pregrid]

And...........................?

 

[Pony]

was going to drill out the flatbar but I was at my dad's garage and there was limited drill bits available. Punched out a little hole with the torch dropped them in and welded them up from both sides.

 

[Pony]

Then went to work on some bars. This thing is on a tight budget so I found some old 7/8 bars and cut them up. I wanted to keep the 7/8 because I have all kinds of dirtbike controls and stuff laying around to use.

 

[Pony]

Still gotta get some more pics but here was the results from saturday. Let me know what ya'll think.

 

[pregrid]

So far, so good.

 

[Pony]

I got my shocks in yesterday and they bolted right up. Picked them up for 30 bucks off ebay. I have a wedding I have to attend next weekend but my goal is to get the seat pan done in the 5 or so hours between dropping my girl off for her to get ready and me having to be up at the church. Im going to make the pan out of fiberglass. That leaves me to finish tacking up the frame this week.

Need ya'lls input on the fender mounting. Should I mount it to the frame or the swingarm? I dont thing there will be enough room on the bike for a passenger, and I would like to have a small sissy bar to bungee bed roll/bags to. After looking at this pic, should I wait to mount the fender after I have the motor and chain set up? The chain adjustment looks like it will have a lot to do with where the fender gets mounted. Let me know what ya'll think.

 

[mistercartoon]

Gday Pony. Whats going on with your bike mate? im at a similar point with mounting springs.
ill put a few pix up in a thread cheers

 

[Pony]

I have been working on the exhaust this week. For the first shot at it and I am happy. I not "proud" of it but I am happy. I am using a chop saw and knowing what angles i needed cut and even achieving those angles on the bent tubing was pretty tough. There were some big gaps I had to fill so they are not as pretty as I wanted. They dont leak though, and they will dump the exhaust where I want. They are going to come out the back of the frame and 90 out. Putting the baffles in today and finishing them up.

 

[blackbetty]

Nice bro!

I always found making custom pipes worked out SO much easier w a second pair of hands....

Keep up the good work, lookin good!

 

[Pony]

Thanks! Yea the clamps I had were kind of a pain in the ass. Now that I have gotten some tools together and finished my shed this bike is coming along a lot faster.

 

[Pony]

got a little bit of work done since the last update. I found a metal throttle assembly from a cb750. had to do a little grinding to fit an xs push button in there, then solderd my connections. running the wires through the bars was a major pain in the ass, the hard 90, with 5 16 ga wires made it hard to do without out tearing them up. Got them through in good shape though. If I had to do it again I would have used 18 ga wires. dish soap helped a lot. The throttle assembly includes a kill switch, on/off (hi/lo beam) and a push button start that will be for my horn.

 

[Pony]

Then last night got my speedo mount done. made them out of a passenger peg mount cut up and some scrap. going to use the other peg mount to make some pipe mounts out of. lack of tools and waiting for paydays has me recycling to keep progress going. That has probably be the most fun of this project so far is making the junk I have been collecting and moving around into something!

Now I have the speedo pulled apart and cleaning it up, and rolling back the odometer to match the frsh motor its going to have

 

[Fatman]

 

[Pony]

Didn't get to spend to much time in the shed this week but i did get a few parts. Should get the light mounted and finish cleaning up my speedometer. Got fender and I think I dig it, we'll see.

 

[Pony]

I mounted my headlight and I'm pretty pumped on it. I also threw this sporty tank on to check some measurments and after moving it around I decided I dig it. I was planning on picking up an old BSA tank but had this thing on the wall so the price was right. Still just plugging away. Let me know what you think.