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Johnt3
Still learning...
I'm really liking your work on the frame.
Your tank looks great, good work JAGspeed.
Your tank looks great, good work JAGspeed.
Can you tell me a bit about the XT550 swingarm?. I was thinking about what to do to mine, and I decided I would like to do a mono shock street tracker using my spare VStar650 rear shock. While searching swingarms on ebay, I thought that the XT550 looked like the best match for what I am envisioning. Then I did a search of the forum, and lo and behold, you are building one. Great minds think alike. Anyway, If you can tell me how wide the arm is between the axle plates, how wide it is at the pivot, what mods you had to make to get it to fit, how long it is from pivot to axle, Will an XS 650 wheel, and brake fit, or will I need to use XT parts? I am planning on using a 19" front mag on the rear, but I would like to use the normal rear disc brake setup.
How about chain alignment? How long is your Buell shock eye to eye? The VStar shock I have is 10 3/4" and it looks like a nice fit between the curve on the backbone, and where it would mount in front of the tire.
Thanks for any info you can provide.
The good thing about the XT swingarm is that it has the same pivot bolt diameter as the XS and it's steel so working with it is not to hard, but I had to do several modifications to make it work.
The length is about 18.75" (pivot to center of axle) close to the stock XS. The width at the rear axle is about 9"(at axle plates) just a little wider than the XS so fitting the XS wheel requires some spacers.The axle diameter is bigger on the XS so I made the holes in the swingarm larger to accept the XS axle.
Now for the hard part, the pivot on the XT is a little wider than the XS it also has a center cut out and it is not centered to the axle (the XS pivot is centered to the axle) both sides of the XT's pivot bosses are a little different. I was able to cut down the plastic insert on the left side easy enough to get clearance which also helped center the swingarm. I made a spacer to go in the space at the pivot. I still need to double check the alignment of the rear wheel , but getting it centered is now just a matter of my axle spacers since there is a little more room on the XT swingarm to work with I can adjust the wheel from side to side.
OK now to the suspension. This is the most critical part. The Buell shock I used is 14.25" eye to eye it is also fully adjustable. It barely fit and I had to make major mods to the arm to get the pivot in the right place so my leverage ratios were correct. Finding a shock that has the right shaft travel and spring rate for this was not easy. You may be able to use the Vstar shock, but like most modern shocks they have a short shaft travel which means you you have to mount it very low on the arm to get the right leverage ratio. These old style swingarms and shocks had a leverage ratio of about 2:1 most of the newer bikes are closer to 3:1. Finding a shock that will bolt right up to the XT arm and work correctly is difficult.
If I had to do it over I may have welded bracing to the stock arm for a shock mount, but so far I am happy with what I got. If you need any more info let me know.
Good luck with your build.
JAGspeed,
Thanks for all this Information. I am going to look at modifying one of my spare swingarms, and I am going to pick one of these XT550 swingarms up from eBay when I find one that is within my budget. I would attempt to keep the geometry similar to what I have on my VStar, which has a shock I modified to drop the backend a couple of inches.
I have a machine shop at home, so making bushings, spacers, adapters etc. is no big deal.
I like what you have told me about the XT550 fitment.
Thanks for all this Information. I am going to look at modifying one of my spare swingarms, and I am going to pick one of these XT550 swingarms up from eBay when I find one that is within my budget. I would attempt to keep the geometry similar to what I have on my VStar, which has a shock I modified to drop the backend a couple of inches.
I have a machine shop at home, so making bushings, spacers, adapters etc. is no big deal.
I like what you have told me about the XT550 fitment.
I made a seat for the bike. I laid fiberglass to make my seat pan so it contoured to the bike. I got a piece of seat foam from Hotwings Glass and cut and shaped it. I still need to make a cover for it. I also found a tail light from a mid size pocket bike that fit nicely Progress has been slow lately, but I'm getting there.
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smoker
XS650 Enthusiast
Good work. What part of VA are you in?
smoker
XS650 Enthusiast
Ah, civilization.
Well, finally time for an exhaust or two. I decided to run 2 separate pipes. I basically used a lot of spare exhaust parts that I had lying around, lots of work to fab, but cheap. The tubing is 1.6in inner diameter which should give me a good flow. I started with 2 stock YZ450F head pipes, a CBR1000rr header and a couple of cobra mufflers. I made my exhaust cans by cutting up 2 chrome slash cut mufflers. I welded a cone shaped tip to the end of the baffle and formed a mx style end out of it. The head pipe fit in with some minor modifications. I used the resonators from the CBR header to make my own powerbomb type pipe. The CBR head pipe gave me plenty of bends to make the rest of the pipe. I did run into a couple of issues. One is the subframe I made did not clear when the suspension was compressed so I had to cut and re-weld it in a slightly different configuration. The other issue was the oil dipstick would not clear the pipe, but after some research I found that a newer XS 650 has a sight window so I cut down the dipstick and just made a cap out of it and found a newer style side case on E-Bay.
One down one to go!
One down one to go!
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Cool work you have some skills there man!
I'm late to the show but saw that first pic and had to ask; have you checked for a bent neck? Those fork tubes were tweaked pretty good (bad)
That seat and exhaust are awesome. I'll be interested to see how this handles. I have a back burner "project" with similar front geometry.
I'm late to the show but saw that first pic and had to ask; have you checked for a bent neck? Those fork tubes were tweaked pretty good (bad)
That seat and exhaust are awesome. I'll be interested to see how this handles. I have a back burner "project" with similar front geometry.
1974jh5
Curmudgeon.
Looks great. I really like the seat setup!
Thanks man. I'm pretty happy with how things are looking so far. Yes, I was a concerned about the frame, but I've checked it out and had it on a frame table and it seems to be OK.
Just finished mocking up the left side exhaust. Turned out pretty good. still need to completely weld up both sides. I also did some work on the left side engine cover, not quite finished with it yet. I still want to put some wire mesh behind it.
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scabber
XS650 Guru
The seat you made is a work of art. This build keeps getting better. Great skills. Like how the exhaust turned out. 
Worked on a couple of things this week. I made a front fender. I used an old fiberglass fender that I had, cut it down some and made a few mounts for it. I also mounted up the stock gauges to the triples. I eliminated the center warning lights to make it more compact. Also mounted up my headlamp.
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racerdave
^ Gone not forgotten ^
Got any more headlight pics? Size? It looks nice and tight to the forks. How is it mounted?
The headlight is a 5 3/4 inch Drag Specialties. I made a small mount that attaches to the bottom triple clamp. Here are a couple more pics of it.
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Getting closer to the finish line. I mounted up some pegs. They are from a CRF450. I modified the stock brackets to accept the wider pegs. I also had to cut and re-weld the back mount of my brackets because I cut away the stock mounting point when I modified the frame. They are actually much sturdier feeling now than stock. I have included a side shot of my progress so far. Still need to mount my electrics, strip, paint powder coat......Dam; the finish line just got further away again.
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pregrid
XS650 Guru
Heh heh heh
