100% homebuilt Swedish Tracker finished!!

Anders JB

XS650 Member
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Location
Sweden
Finally!!
The bike is on the road,today was the Official inspection from the Swedish "Vehicle-inspection"....passed with no remarks,absolutely 100% road legal!!

It has been a timeconsuming but fun project,the goal was to do ALL work,machining of parts,painting and so on all by my self....and so it is!

Every "specialpart",all the enginework,fabricating of parts,zinkplating,painting,carbonfibermolding and so on is done by myself in my normal 70 sq/m garage.

Have no special cnc-machines,only a lathe,mill,drillpress,hydraulicpress,benchgrinders and Tig/Mig and Oxy/acetylene welders and equipment for vacuum carbonfibermolding.

Built a zinkplating equipment,and also a aluminium anodizing equipment to be able to do this also...had to learn the processes,but fun and nice to be able to take the parts directly from the lathe/mill/welding,and make the parts shine! :wink2:

Some info about the bike that started with a decent XS650 Special -81.

Engine total rebuilt,new liners,bored with new pistons. (650cc).
New conrods and main bearings,crank trued and welded.
New camchain and tensioner,new valves and mildly "ported/cleaned" head. Lobe center checked and corrected.
Camshaft standard.
All transmission bearings new,gearbox very good.
Clutch not replaced,previous owner had replaced with new clutchbasket,clutchplates and primary drive recently.
Kick only.
Filters new of course...
Cases glassblasted and painted.

New Mikuni RS34 kit for XS650 by Topham-Mikuni with large K&N:s
Exhaust homebuilt with "as-good-as-possible" calculated dimensions,primary 38mm.
Boyer ignition.

Frame stripped from all not needed brackets,cut the rear loop.
Tankmounts lowered 15 mm at the front.
New brackets welded for e.g rear brake caliper,ignitioncoil,batterybox and so on.
Sandblasted and painted.

Seatbase was a big job,took me a month to first make a plug in Styrofoam,(was hard to get the shape I wanted),then make a mold and vacuuminject a carbonfiber seat/tail.
The seat itself was made from a carbon "baseplate",with som "Styrofoam"(?) padding,and used my wifes sewingmachine to made the seatcover.(THAT was the hardest part,almost threw the machine trough the window several times...)

Did a mold from the original inner rear fender,made a carbonfiber that also.
New electricalbox in carbonfiber made the same way as the seat....first a plug,then a mold and finally a carbonpart.
Original fuelcap welded shut,new smaller welded in center of tank.
New petcock,had to manufacture new "lever" put upward because no space at the carbs.
Painted in House of Kolor Snowwhite Pearl,and "Yamaha stripes" in red metallic.
No decals,everything masked and painted by me.(That was a timeconsuming job,had to do it over three times before it was decent...)

Lowered the fork internaly 20mm,and new 360mm YSS fully adjustable shocks for better weightdistrubution.
Rear wheel from a XS500 -76,made a special adapter for the sprocket to line up the chain properly.
520 chain conversion.
Rear master cylinder from a Yamaha 600 -01,modified original brakepedal to fit.
Front master cylinder 11mm from a Honda CRF450 motocross.
Brakerotors standard,drilled and grinded flat within 0,005mm!
Calipers anodized with new seals.
Braided hoses made by me from Venhill components.

Made a new electrical system,solidstate reg/rect,and Led:s all the way except the headlight.
Small 2,4A battery under the tail.
Motogadget Chronoclassic analog Tacho with digital speedo built in,mountingbracket made in carbon.

All controlcables new,built by me from Venhill components..

Lots of bits and pieces not listed,everything was put on the bike with a effort to "harmonize" and have a function that I tought was best for my needs.

Bike runs perfect,pulls from low and no flat spots,ligtweight and feels "small" and I have a blast when riding it!!

Some pictures of the finished bike.....built it like I wanted it,that's the beauty...we all have different taste! :wink2:

Hope You like it,but as I said...everybody has different taste,and this is how I wanted it to be. :)

Regards.

Anders J-B.
Sweden.
 

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Last edited:
Anders I nominate your bike for the 2017 calendar.
I'm sure a second will come along shortly.
 
That's a great writeup, one great looking bike. Great roads you have in Sweden for a bike like that. Hope summer turns out great this year and you'll ride alot of miles. Thanks for sharing.
 
I really am impressed, but that comes with a disclaimer. If I had an XS as nice as the one you started with, I would have looked for another bike to customize. I liked the blue stock looking version as well. You've built one of the nicest trackers I've ever seen.
 
Thank You all for the very kind words!!
I'm honoured to get that kind of "rewiew" from all of You,i Think You all have wrenched and ridden more xs650:s than I ever will do.

And I understand that it maybe was a bad thing to "destroy" a decent original 650 Special,but here in Sweden is it difficult to find a XS650,and I REALLY wanted to build a fun bike based on this magnificent Engine.

In the 1980:s was this a extremly popular Engine in sidecarmotocrosss here in Sweden,so many bikes was "scrapped" to donate the Engine.
And compared to the US,it was a very small amount sold as new,so it's very hard to find a "complete" bike for decent money....

Again,I'm deeply honoured to get this kind of "rewiew" from XS-experts as Yoy all!!!

Anders.
 
That is one beautiful bike, the balance of all the parts just perfect. Next year's calendar for sure. i also live in a land of very few XS's so appreciate "what you cant get you have to make" Be prepared for a lot of people looking at this one. Be Proud man.
 
You did an amazing job. It is really cool to read your work, and including a detailed narrative helps other builders like me see how you put it all together. Your attention to detail is phenomenal. This bike needs to be in the calendar!

Among other touches, the carbon fiber inner fender and under-seat electronics pan are really creative. I'm buying a bag of Swedish Fish candy today in honor of your swimmingly superb tracker!
 
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