Topic: Look what I get to work on .. non Honda..

[754]

I get to work on this, clean it up, make it run etc.,  80  650 Special..
 It was down the road from here  so I thought I would just push it home, rather than mess around and get a trailer ..
 Only around a kilometer or .6 mile. .
 So I get dropped off, then realise tires are low. . Damn no pump  should have brought it.
  Its really hard to push and now I remember it's slight uphill at least 1/2  way.., the slight rise from the driveway to sidewalk almost does me In...
 The tenths of a mile slowly click by, not really getting a whole tenth before rests.
 And didya a know  ......  pullback bars absolutely suck for pushing a bike.
 Around the 3 tenths mark ......I start thinking, maybe front brake is dragging, although the mc is limp. So I smack it a few times with heel of my hand and hey..... what do you know..  its easier to push now.  That and it levels off a bit.
 Silly  should have realised it soooner. 
 The  it's flat for a bit, then last blck and a half ...a welcome slight downhill.  A few more tenths click by, and home is in sight. . .7 or more miles I am sweating and I need a beer..
 My introduction to this bike..is a bit strained.

[BPellerine]

used to be alot of them around my parts,tough bikes from what I saw,but big on vibration,pushing bikes sucks!bill

[Scott S]

 The best British bike the Japanese ever built.

 The XS650 was my first bike ever and I built a bunch of them. Bullet proof.
 Check out XS650.com forums.

[bill440cars]

  I don't know about now, but used to be a huge following for them. I picked up on a deal for 3 of them once (all in various state of disrepair), with the intention of trying to build 1 out of the 3, BUT somebody got wind that I had them and he bought them. Like to see how this goes for you. 

[ken65]

I hear ya Frank. I had to push an 81 xj650 special home.  About a mile all up hill till the last couple of hundred metres. Leathers on and hot. Nearly killed me.
What made it worse was a car load of teenagers drove past me a few times being smartarses .
 I vowed to hunt them all down and kill them . By the time I got home all I could remember about their car was that it was white.

[Johnie]

Frank that reminds me of my first CB750 find. The ruby red KO had 18,000 miles and was in a garage with title. I was afraid he was going sell it before I could get back with my trailer so I paid him and pushed it 2 miles to my mother-in-laws house. I was 55 at the time, but it was a hot July day of 88. Had a guy ask if he could give me a hand which was nice. Everyone thought I ran out of gas. Sure felt good to get that bike bought and secured. That would have been a tough one to lose.

[spotty]

make sure when you give the xs an oil change that you do BOTH filters, the one behind the little round cover on the right hand side is a mesh filter that often gets a hole in it which if you don't clean/replace will flush through when the new oil hits it and send all the nasty crud straight into the crank which may then completely destroy the big end bearing and cause the piston to come into contact with many other things of interest. this will make you quite unhappy
when this happened to me i got about 200 yards after doing a 'full' service before all power went somewhere else, new and interesting noises came forth and it had to be pushed back to where we started
one big end bearing was completely gone, the rod had a 1/4 inch sideways shunt half way up, the top of the piston had hit the valves, trashed the piston, bent the valves, the edge of the piston crown had taken the side of the bore out
i pulled the engine to find out what had happened and ended up selling the remains to the wreckers

[754]

Well this was a big surprise..
Having no key , had to work at getting seat off..  pull taillight , easy once you find the push spots.

 I had assumed the feame was konged , like the 750 A and other bikes, with a dipped seat. Imagine my surprise when I saw it was all done with seat and sidecovers..... clever actually..
 So now it looks like so..

[Terry in Australia]

They're a nice old jigger Frank, I had a mate with one back in the 70's (the earlier, nicer looking one with wire wheels) and it was fun to ride. It wouldn't keep up with 750's, but was a nice ride.

[70CB750]

Following 

[754]

I had thought to clean it up  with minor tweaks, and then sell it , unless my son wants it.
 It would be sort of fun to work on something different.
 So my first thought was a smaller low seat, and sort of a bobber look , keep the rear fender, and work both lights into the licence plate light.

 But then I saw this, and it looks pretty cool. Hookie built a pair of them.
And I am wondering if that type of rear fender seat cowl could work with the stock rear fender, hmmm ..and change sidecovers, and run superbike bars..
 Maybe shorter forks and TT pipes...
LAST PIC
 Tail mockup IN cardboard  signals will be removed or be smaller

[Terry in Australia]

I like the first stripped down one Frank, keeping in mind that yours has those heavy looking mags, which you should probably replace. (they might look OK on a CB750 though) I don't like the second one at all.

[BPellerine]

its been done alot but they really lend themselves to the tracker look.bill

[72 yellow]

Have a friend that has the same exact one.  I tried to buy it from him but no sale.  It's just sitting in another guys garage rusting away.   

[scottly]

its been done alot but they really lend themselves to the tracker look.bill

I was thinking the same thing, Bill.
From a 1984 Hot Bike magazine:

[BPellerine]

the seat change alone changes the look of the bike,that is what I would do,not alot of modding.bill

[Terry in Australia]

I see that "70's Man" has changed the carbs to Mikuni round slides, which is probably a smart move if you're gonna dump the OEM airbox for that "minimalist" look Frank, CV's need a big restrictive airbox to work well, or a DynoJet kit before you can run a better flowing air filter arrangement.