Drew's Tracker build

[DrewMartin]

Hey everyone, new guy here. Have wanted an XS650 for over a decade but things never really matched up right with either funds or a place to do it. I'll try to keep this short but mostly the build thread is to log this all for myself.

A brief history of myself; Grew up with dirt bikes, built an fzr600 from a wrecked bike when I was 14, got my m/c license on 16th b-day, wrecked it myself when I was 17. Bought a Triumph Sprint ST, was run off the road, damn near totaled it and swore off bikes for over a decade. Owned a race car shop and built a bunch of cool stuff before I got burnt out and fell into industrial maintenance. Moved to Portland from Dallas and realized everyone here is really conscious of anything on 2 wheels and wanted to build a new bike.

On to the build itself. A week ago I picked up an XS650 the previous owner had disassembled and felt overwhelmed with the projected. The frame and swingarm have been blasted and painted in prep for cleaning up the bike. The original motor was locked up however a new motor has been purchased by the previous owner that seems to have compression and turns over smoothly, in addition to this a whole lot of additional spare parts came with the bike like an extra set of wheels, a few sets of carbs, fenders, etc. pretty much everything except another frame.

Build plans as follows;
XS1 fuel tank, stock tank had a leaking bondoed spot that I got 1/4" into and never hit metal (ever start sanding and smell the gas get stronger?) and I think the lines look better
Rebuilt big bore motor leaving the good one for the next project
Progressive springs up front
Cartridge valve emulators
13.5-14.3" rear shocks
Omar's 19" rear wheel conversion
Something other than an XR or champion seat
Some kind of electrical nonsense without getting too fancy to keep it reliable
Renthal high superbike bars
Fairly short gearing, it's just to blast around town and twisty back roads.

Pics from the PO

And its current status, still reorganizing the garage to make space for all the parts, goal to have the complete motor in for mock-up by the end of the week. Gas tank is in transit and I'll have shocks and bars ordered up by the end of the week.

 

[racerdave]

If you have not bought the Progressive springs yet, think again. I bought brand new ones,spec'd for a XS, completely cleaned out my tubes. Installed them with appropriate oil volume and they were very weak. I went back to the 35 year old oem's and with no other changes they dived/sagged lest than the Prog's. I added a 1/2 in spacer to the old oems and was happy.

 

[DrewMartin]

Thanks for the heads up. Was only relying on previous knowledge and hadn't gotten around to reading on our suspension specifics yet. Thankfully the only thing I've bought so far is the tank, I'm trying my best to not buy anything until I clear out some old race car stuff first and do some more reading on here.

RD can you confirm if you used the springs on MikesXS or Progressive p/n 11-1119?

 

[racerdave]

I bought them either from 650 Central or the previous Omars. Can't remember which. They were genuine Progressive, they were part # 11-1119.

 

[DrewMartin]

Awesome, thanks again RD. I wonder if the heavy duty progressive springs would work better, their uncompressed rate is the same as the compressed rate of the standard springs. No point in venturing into uncharted territory and wasting a bunch of money on something that makes it worse. If I'm not happy with your preload suggestion (I'm pretty heavy...) I may try some linear rate Harley springs I was reading about last night on here that supposedly work well.

 

[racerdave]

This is from a post I made several years ago when I was not happy with the Prog's. I am at least 250+#'s

" Got some 15 weight Spectro. Drained forks well . Removed the Progressives and reinstalled spring's that came in forks. All measure the same length. I added 7 oz of 15w. The oil I drained was red, so is the Spectro. Now I really don't know what I had in there. I added 12 mm of spacer and washer total. I have the 3 position caps. With that spacer length added, position 1 and 2 are still less than 3 no spacer. Put together and went for my 30mph semi hard stop. Zip ty is now 1.125 from upper triple tree, vs on it when stopping before. I have to guess it is the oil that gained my reduction in compression? Maybe the springs are a little stiffer also. The spacer has not come into play yet. Tomorrow I will go to 3 and see what I get on that 30mph stop. I did accomplish what I wanted at least so far."

It is from this old thread, and may help you a little when you mess with your forks.

http://www.xs650.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25588

 

[DrewMartin]

Great information!

I also found some interesting stuff poking around on 650central in MMM's racing tales.

"I still have a 70 lb. rear weight bias (laden), and this won't work the front tire hard enough to get to an optimum, grippy temperature, even with 25 lbs air pressure. The rear tire temps, however, continue to climb, in spite of 41 psi. The 2" + swing arm should make it come right in, and allow me to use the 44 lb. straight-wound front springs, and get rid of the Progressive 35/50s. As rigid as the chassis is now, and with balance, I think I'll be ready to "Banzai!" Turn 9 more consistently and comfortably."

He's talking about road racing but that's much closer to riding on the street than flat tracking... I won't be riding the bike that hard but I do want it to handle predictably and consistently. Its only for around town so long term comfort really isn't that big of a deal. I'm sure I'll be tired of the engine vibrations long before the suspension anyways, our roads are pretty smooth here.

Tank and handlebars came in. It really doesn't look that bad to clean up honestly, most of the rust should be easily cleaned and repaired. I'll have to figure out something with the mounts but that's not too difficult.

Mock-up motor is in and the 19" rear conversion has been ordered. I'll decide on a seat over the weekend and order one Monday.

 

[DrewMartin]

Minor update, finally had a chance to work on this some more.

19" rear conversion and mockup tire came in. So did the thruxton shocks for the rear that'll probably just be for mockup while I'm doing more shock research.

Got the tank mostly stripped and found a bunch of bondo! So I had to get that all removed. Thankfully the emblem mounts were just packed full and otherwise untouched so I can put them back on. Found out it's a 71 based off the original color back behind some of the bondo in the emblem recesses. Also got the tank cut open to start fixing the dents. Glad I did since it has quite a bit more rust in it than I thought. It's definitely more significant than I would have felt comfortable with doing just chemically.

Also ordered up a copy of solidworks for this and some future projects. My wallet is hurting a bit and it'll delay some progress on this but open a whole bunch of doors. It'll make the seat buck quite a bit easier to make and gives me a bunch of options as to what to do with the other motor