Murdock’s 78 Special “Rose”, build thread

[jasidok]

Hey. I haven’t officially made a build thread yet. And to be honest, I have no end goal really with this bike, I just want a bike I love. I want it to be dependable and as powerful as I can get her. I really care about acceleration more than top speed. I want it clean. I love the cafe racer style. And tracker style and some scrambler styles. I just want something unique though. And I don’t have a billion trillion dollars to spend on this bike. So I’m trying to do this as cheap as possible..... I’ve spent waaaayyy too much already. I got this bike in August. I traded a non running 1980 Suzuki GS1100 for a running 78 XS650. I had no clue what an XS650 was, but it ran. So... I’m in! I got it and it’s in pretty good shape. No complaints really. I guess it hadn’t run since 91!? I couldn’t tell. But he had changed the handlebars and welded on these Harley exhaust mufflers which made it super loud. So that was the start.

Since then, I went a little crazy on MikesXS for a minute there. I bought the Pma kit. E-advancer/pamco copycat that they sell. I bought the pwk33 copycats. And I’ve pretty much spent the last few months trying to recover from installing that crap on the bike.

On the exhaust I tried to build my own kind of thing.... I put these mivv mufflers off a Ducati on the headers using piping from autozone... yea. Anyways. I recently got a 2 into 1 system from delkevic. It’s awesome. I had to pull off some weird engine bumper thing that was on there. I thought that was on all of them. But now that I’ve taken mine off I don’t see it on anyone else’s...

I’ve rewired the whole bike now because I got frustrated with trying to find what was making it not start. (The pamco wannabe) but I thought it was a great time to rip all that crap out and start fresh. So I switched the horn for a Badass one. I pulled all the relays except for the starter solenoid and the flasher relay. I have installed a bright H4 bulb in a cheap headlight thing. I had to dremel it open because it was a sealed package. And I soldered the bulb in there and sealed it up. I purchased the original basic pamco and this one is authentic... I hooked up the mechanical advancer and cleaned and greased the cam rod while I was there. I’m thinking of going back in and pulling the flashers and horn for now. Just for a while. Until I get everything sorted out. And I installed that nice shiny lithium battery that weighs like an ounce. I also have a small little battery underneath it that I want to be charged when the bike is running but other than that I want it completely separate. I want to charge my devices on that one. And I was thinking I want to be able to charge when the bikes off also.

I’m waiting on a pair of vm34s. I want to switch out the triple on top for the one I got from the junkyard for ten bucks. That reg/rec I got from the junkyard as well. I have it just in case the one from MikesXS...... grrrrr.... just in case another product from there gives out on me. Anyways. I have that clutch assembly from a super clean 92 Yamaha that was dead. I want to switch out that awful seat. And those handlebars. And I think that’s about it.

You guys have been super helpful so far! I don’t know where I’m going next. I’ve been eyeing that article “how to build a better twin” and I’m thinking of doing all the stage 1 stuff. Especially the chassis suggestions in there. But what do you guys think?? I would love suggestions. I don’t really know what there is to do or how to do it. So my creativity is only limited by lack of experience. I may not be a welder... but I can dremel like a beast!!! Cool. Let me know. Hope you enjoy. I’ll take pics from now on of everything I do.

 

[Jim]

And to be honest, I have no end goal really with this bike, I just want a bike I love.

I'd strongly suggest you develop a plan with a definite goal. You need an end game... as in... 'what do I want this bike to be.' There's nothing to say you can't deviate from that plan.... or even change it mid-stream, but helter skelter just makes things harder. Ask yourself what you want the bike to do and what you want it to look like.... and work out a plan backwards from that. Good luck with it.

 

[GLJ]

Jim has a very good point. Decide on a goal. Another thing is slow down. It sounds like you've made at least 4 major modifications to the bike at the same time. It's far better to do things one at a time. Learn what you need to to get the bugs out and then go to the next mod.