Name: Cyclepsycho

Bike: XS650 Chopp

Year: 1981

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I'll be taking the best bits of this bike ...

And installing them into this frame

I really don't care much for those swirly '80s mag wheels, so you'll see those go away soon.

12/22/02:
I stripped off most of the needed parts from the donor bike including the engine.  Since I'm not keeping the frame of the donor bike, it was a lot easier to cut the frame to facilitate removal of the engine.

With the engine out, I'm ready to start cleaning it up and getting the chopper frame ready for the transplant.

01/24/03

Well, it's been a month and I'm finally starting to get things going again:

I'm installing a new rear fender as the one that came with the chopper frame was too narrow and not mounted properly. This one is being a bit of a bitch to mount properly, but I'm figuring it out through a lot of trial and error.

I welded the kickstand from the donor bike onto the frame.

March 2, 2003
Getting back into it:

I changed the front end to an '83 XS650 with the double laced spokes on the front wheel.

I'm thinking about leaving the rear wheel the aluminum mag, but I'm not sure yet.....

Drag bars give it a low, mean look.

With the help of my wife and best bud Steve, we got the engine mounted in the frame.
Since the frame had been raked, tweaked, and otherwise modified,  it required a bit of fuss, drilling and fitting, but it all went well and nobody got hurt (Steve is the bearded one).

After we got the engine in the frame, we messed around with some of the different fuel tanks I have hanging from the rafters.  I like the one on the right the best, but that tank needs a lot of work to make it suitable.  I think I'll go with higher handlebar risers, to get the bars above the level of the fuel tank.

As you can see, this is a small bike.  Steve makes it look small and I'm even taller then he is. What the hell, I'm really only building this bike for the fun of it.  Who knows if I'll actually ride it.

Oh, shit! You know I will!

Hell, Trish seems to like it.  Perhaps it will become her bike?

3/18/03

Since the frame had been modified a bit, the stock motor mounting hardware did not line up, so I had to make my own.  I cut some aluminum plates, drilled them , polished them
and installed them with some various spacers I had in the shop.  The plates on the outside of the frame are steel, and will be used to mount the footpegs and forward controls.

I cut some 1/2 inch pipe to space between the plates.

April 13, 2003:

With the engine mounted, I then mounted the fender and made the appropriate cut out for the chain.  The chain lined up perfectly between the front and rear sprockets, so no sideways adjustment was necessary, which was a good thing since every other piece on this bike has been a custom fit so far.

Since I am trying to prove you can build a bike on a budget, I am intentionally keeping the cost as low as possible. I was going to shoot the fender and tank with automotive paint but decided to see how good a job I could do with rattle cans.  Believe it or not, it came out looking better than I probably could have done with automotive paint and was
a hell of a lot less work!

I shot the bare metal with 4 or 5 coats of  Plasti-Kote sandable primer. I hit it with some 600 grit paper, wiped it clean and then shot it with several coats of Rust-Oleum Metallic paint.  I then wet sanded it with some 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper. Then I gave it several more coats of Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch clear lacquer.

After that, I wet sanded the clear to 2000 grit, then used some 3M rubbing compound, followed by 3M hand glaze. All the paint products dried fast and the whole job only took a couple hours. It was a sunny day when I did it, so I put the fender in my dark blue van after each coat of paint.  It was like baking it in an oven!

All supplies were things I had sitting on the shelf, left over from other projects, so there was no cash out of pocket. Even if I did have to shell out for supplies, it would have been under $20 and I would have used less than half of the product.

The metallic paint with the clear makes a nice deep shine.  It's kind of hard to capture with a digital camera but I'm quite happy with it.  If it gets scratched, I won't cry, I'll just grab the rattle can off the shelf and fix it! I've not painted the tank yet, because I'm not sure which tank I will use.

Now it's time to start wiring.  Since I have the stock wiring harness, I need to do some choppin here. The stock Yamaha has all kinds of crap like safety relays, reserve lighting boxes and other stuff that is not only unnecessary on a chopper but there's no room for it either. I used the wiring diagram to weed out the charging and ignition circuits. Everything else gets hacked out.  I'll build my lighting and signaling circuits from scratch.

Here is all that I am keeping from the stock wiring

And here is what I am getting rid of. Do you see why we call it a "chopper"?

So, we are getting there.  A little at a time, as time allows.

Making a mock up for the battery tray out of cardboard

Building a box for the switches and other electrical stuff

K&N Filters for the carbs.  The plastic choke knob was broken off, so I fabricated one out of a .44 magnum shell.

The rear mag that came with the rolling chassis was from a 4 cylinder Yamaha, and thus, the sprocket on the wheel was waaaay to big for a 2 cylinder engine.  It would have given me a top speed of about 45 mph! So, I had to come up with a way to put a stock 34 tooth sprocket on it.

I ended up using the rear wheel off of the parts bike.  None of the parts, spacers or the axle from the other wheel would interchange, so I spent most of that Saturday drilling, grinding, measuring and cussing, but I got it all to work.