Resurrecting an old bike - how much will it cost?

[toglhot]

On a more serious not this is what happens to our wildlife during bushfires.

 

[jetmechmarty]

It's no cross country touring bike, but it was never intended to be that.

It hasn't stopped me.

 

[FLEA]

It hasn't stopped me.

same here ,made many a trip from one end of oz to the other on a xs650 / also did the same trip on a xt500 , people seem to forget up till the late 60s and early 70s a 650 was viewed as a large cc bike (in common use ) and the size was used often for long distance , never even thought about the buzzy engine on it and the british twins till i got on here yrs later (i do like my rephased motor) in fact liked the xs650 over distance than the british 650/ 750 as didnt have that nasty habit of breaking down as much .. plus if had a major break down they were cheap enough to flog off to a bike wreckers and maybe swap for another one merely swapping the plates over (tags ?? maybe to you in the states ) AAAHH.. it was great before computors ... which brings me back to reviving old bikes .. in those days you could get away with a lot of stuff you can do today , which means its harder and more $$$$ to revive old bikes today

 

[FLEA]

This is a real drop bear, he attacked me walking through the scrub the other day, fortunately he saw my wife coming in to attack and ran away screaming.

reminds me of a bloke meet on another forum , was asking about parts and he reminded me of cruz ,also asked if ordered parts could i order some for him so his missus wouldnt know , asked why he put up with it ... he said she could scream louder and longer than him .. from the sounds of things reckon a drop bear would run from her as well .. ps .. was a carb kit worth us$19 .. even then he had me send it to a mates address ..... good to be reminded every now and then as to why im single

 

[GLJ]

https://www.xs650.com/threads/1973-super-rustbucket-resurrection.58711/
See the above thread if you want to know how inexpensively you can get a old bike running. I didn't say cheaply as I didn't want to disparage the quality of his work. He put a lot of sweat equity into it. The key to resurrecting is finding a complete a bike. The more parts missing the more it costs.

 

[cra-z1]

My current $900 money pit. Im not even keeping track.

 

[TX650A Van Islander]

Nice shop!

 

[WideAWAKE]

On my last five restores I spent $1800 to $2900 for parts plus buying the bike and shipping is another $2K +$800 shipping. I keep track of all parts in an excel spreadsheet.

I’d call em more of a very nice refreshing, not a restoration.

When every nut and bolt is stripped, properly recoated to factory spec, engine completely stripped and rebuilt, carbs stripped, every cable, gages, paint work, electrical, forks, chrome, etc done to factory spec - we got a restoration.

I don’t think many XSs see a proper restoration aside from the xs1.

Lots of people do true restorations to British twins (reflected in their price tags)