Not Enough Xs650 Specials

[Whangarei xs650]

Good evening,

I'm Wayne from Whangarei New Zealand.

I owned a 650 xs Special back in 1979.I stopped at traffic lights in Wellington to see beside me a bike with a very active set of forks vibrating on the stop line.

I bought one shortly after but crashed it about a year later.

40 odd years later after owning many many bikes I decided to downsize from my Yamaha royalstar convertible xvz1300 after having just ridden 4250 km riding to and from Burt Munro in Invercargill from Whangarei.

There was one for sale in Whangarei for $2900 which is a 1978 special. I checked it over and it had compression and unfortunately the owner had died.It was black and I expected to buy a battery and have it running. No wrong. Seized brakes and wiring shoddy.

I decided to buy another for spares and this was a 1981 version which was running about 12 months earlier. I collected this and took it home expecting a quick start process. Well after using the starter button it turned over the engine several times before it gave up the ghost and only operated itself. I ried Kickstarting to get it going roughly about 20 min later. It's a bit rough but may use this as a main bike dependant upon the other bikes condition.

Then about 2 days later whilst mowing a lawn I was approached by another guy who said he had a fully functional xs650.

When I checked it out it was fully mint , fully functional and fully road legal with an XS650 custom plate. He wants $7500 for this which I haven't bought yet mainly because I don't have space. I was advised to get as many parts as possible as they are starting to get rare.

My goal is to ride a Yamaha xs650 to Burt Munro in Feb 2025.

 

[Its been a long time]

Good evening,

I'm Wayne from Whangarei New Zealand.

I owned a 650 xs Special back in 1979.I stopped at traffic lights in Wellington to see beside me a bike with a very active set of forks vibrating on the stop line.

I bought one shortly after but crashed it about a year later.

40 odd years later after owning many many bikes I decided to downsize from my Yamaha royalstar convertible xvz1300 after having just ridden 4250 km riding to and from Burt Munro in Invercargill from Whangarei.

There was one for sale in Whangarei for $2900 which is a 1978 special. I checked it over and it had compression and unfortunately the owner had died.It was black and I expected to buy a battery and have it running. No wrong. Seized brakes and wiring shoddy.

I decided to buy another for spares and this was a 1981 version which was running about 12 months earlier. I collected this and took it home expecting a quick start process. Well after using the starter button it turned over the engine several times before it gave up the ghost and only operated itself. I ried Kickstarting to get it going roughly about 20 min later. It's a bit rough but may use this as a main bike dependant upon the other bikes condition.

Then about 2 days later whilst mowing a lawn I was approached by another guy who said he had a fully functional xs650.

When I checked it out it was fully mint , fully functional and fully road legal with an XS650 custom plate. He wants $7500 for this which I haven't bought yet mainly because I don't have space. I was advised to get as many parts as possible as they are starting to get rare.

My goal is to ride a Yamaha xs650 to Burt Munro in Feb 2025.

Well done. Too many (in my humble opinion) have fallen victim to the angle grinder community. But it's a free world. I'm still working on bringing my 1977 XS650D back from the dead. I owned an XS650C back in 1976. So it's been a long time between them.

Not an angle grinder in sight here. Enjoy your bikes.

 

[Signal]

That is a long ride. An XS could do it easily if it is well prepared. The black bike has some goodies on it. Fork brace, looks like VM36 carbs, and cartridge oil filter. I found the 36 mm carbs hard to get running nicely. Fitting anti reversion inserts in the exhaust helped a lot. Keep us informed of your progress.