XS and XT stuff

I've got the paint on the '75 XS650 almost done. I'm using Duplicolor silver wheel paint and clear coat.


It is a metallic, and looks great in the sun.


Just seeing how it looks on the frame between coats.


I'm using reproduction 70's Yamaha racing tank decals from Speed & Sport Vintage. I think they look great.


I still have to clear coat, but pretty much done. I almost went with the Yamaha white and red paint scheme, but I'm liking the silver.


The engine work will be next.


I also got the new fenders for the '79 XS650 Special ready for paint. I blasted them, shown here, and then body worked and primed them.


I'd bought this '76 XT500 frame several years ago. It was cheap and had a title, and I figured at some point I'd find a lost title donor bike. I'd picked up a TT500 awhile ago, which was a good parts bike, but not a complete donor. I'm using some of the TT specific parts on my other XT500 project.


I found a donor this week. $150 and only about 15 miles away. It is a 1978 XT500. The lights had been removed, so it was possibly being used as a farm bike. Once you get past the ugly, most of it is in decent shape.


The story is that they thought it had a bad cam chain, so removed the head but never got any further with it. They just unbolted the engine and tilted it to the right to be able to remove the rocker cover and head. That is really the hard way to do it since it is only about 5 minutes more work to have it out of the frame.


It came with the removed parts. I think the only thing missing is a side cover.


The problem is rather extreme rocker arm wear. It isn't all that uncommon, and later on Yamaha changed to a different style rocker arm and top end oil routing to prevent this.


It has an aluminum gas tank. Nice, since my others are the early steel tanks.




Too cold to paint the XS parts today, so I figured I'd fiddle with the XT.


The swingarm pivot bolts are usually rusty. Someone must have known what the grease zerk was for on this one.


I had to see what was under the paint on the tank, so hit it with some stripper. The only body filler was this repair on the left side. I'm hoping that I'll be able to fix it without any filler and run the tank polished.


Getting started mocking up the '78 parts on the '76 frame, so far I need to move one tab for the skid plate and the rear brake switch bracket. It'll probably end up being a fairly stock 'bitsa' bike, but with a few mods. I put the head back on for mock-up and don't know if I'll rebuild this engine or the TT500 engine, but with a few projects ahead of it that won't be for quite some time anyway.