Visitors bikes

We get a lot of visitors to our website and some even contact me by email and send pics of their bikes so I thought it would be nice to be able to publish the pics of those that do. Although they aren't club members they certainly have the XS spirit.

Hi Terry,

Your site is awesome and I'm looking forward to joining the club even if I do live in New Zealand. I presume you let Kiwi's join. I was restoring my old 1975 Honda 500-4 when I got seduced by a XS650C on Trademe. So now I have two vintage machines. The Yamaha is fantastic, it is originally from the US and has done only 18,000 miles according to the clock, everything appears to be original. Judging by all the clear lacquer in good nick it could be correct. Anyway I enclose a few photo's of the XS650C.

All the best
Chris Toohey

Hello I am Gorän from Serbia I am owner of XS650 1976 model handmade. Picture is low resolution but my bike not.

Hello XS friends,
Hereby I send you some pictures as promised from my new ride. As I've seen the "old" one is still on your visitor's site. It is still the 880cc big bore, only in a new modified home made XS frame. The frond fork is a home modified lengthened up side down from a Kawa ZX7R with home made Alum. wide glide fork plates. Also the wheels are adopted from the Kawasaki. The tire size at the front is a massive 150 and aft is a 200 in a wide alum. fork. At the aft there is a 4 piston caliper and at the frond a double 6 caliper from HARRISON BILLET. To fit the 200 tire I needed a longer drive shaft to keep everything in the center line for good handling. The paint design I kept the same as the old one. So I hope you like the pictures and find a place at the site. With kind regards from a Dutch XS650 club member.

Sincerely
Bert Kettingvet

Bert's bike also features further down the page in it's former glory along with his wife's bike.

Dave Barrett in Canada sent in this picture of his restored 1979 XS650SF and a link to the full restoration process at:-

Thanks for the pictures Kim, it is certainly an interesting looking XS. The "bobber" style is very popular in Japan.

This message was unsigned but originated in Sanbruno California, sounds like an expat Aussie! Nice bike though.

I don't know all of Bob's plans for this bike but I do know it will be fitted with some new primary drive gears from Ivan.

Patrick Dimpre
Maîtrise Ouvrage Architecture et Sécurité
04 42 90 60 62 / 06 64 50 32 65

Hallo XS friends,

Hereby I send you some photo's of my bike. I'm a member of the Dutch XS650 twin club.
And me and my wife have both an XS My bike is a 79'-3L1 in bleu. Big bore 880cc - 8 disc racing clutch, hot cam, external oil filter and cooler. Home made stainless rear fork with 160 tire , Aluminium wide glide front fork plates, rear wheel at the front with 130 tire and double disc's with Harrison 6 calliper breaks.
Home made exhaust system, and painted by owner.
My wife's XS is a'78- 2m1 in red.
I made a open clutch cover in it, and special painted the tank.
At this moment I'm making a new bike with up side down fork, 200 rear tire racing wheels and lowered frame.
Send you pictures later on, if you want.(let me know)

With kind regards,

Bert Kettingvet

hi there dave Gary from CoffsHarbour here I thought I would send some pics of my 1976 XS650C that I just bought ,I sandblasted the engine painted the frame and polished the alloy, you may want to put them in your visitors bike section .

Love to Gary, nice job and if you'd like to meet some other XS owners and receive some great newsletters you could join the club if you've a mind to.

sorry I had to do that. I just wanted to drop you guys a hello from the usa. I got your site from one of the members of the xs650 garage discussion board for the refasing tech tips. its great that there are so many of us xs650 enthusiasts and so spread out. I was in Sydney in February of 1995 I loved it. it’s the only thing I try to remember about the old Navy days. I wish I could come back and visit again, maybe when I retire I will sail over there again and bring my xs650 with me and travel in style. kep up the good work down under.

The yellow one is my road bike, a '74 TX650 A. That has a std motor in it at present, running Yamaha's electronic ignition, & has an XV1000 TR1 front end on it ( they go straight on). I have been using this bike to test out a few motors that I have laying about. It seems to handle quite well with cheap aftermarket shocks(better than std, & a little longer), bronze swingarm bushes, taper roller steering head bearings. The forks are air assisted, but I use no air & put more oil in than recommended to reduce the internal air space, thus making the air inside compress sooner & more. This makes the forks dive a bit less & effectively ups the spring rate. It has the tank off a special, as the fuel sloshes around less in a smaller tank. I have also extensively de-wired it, no ignition key, turn the kill switch & push the button.

The other one uses a hacked up special frame, GSX1100 swing arm, floating rear drum(cures rear end hop) .Discs are off an XJ750, slotted as std, they are also 3mm thinner & about 1Kg lighter than std each. The motor is a 750 kitted 447, It runs 36mm flat slide Lectron carbs on homemade tunable length manifolds. I find these quite easy to tune. Gases flow out of a stainless 2:1 thru a Supertrapp. For maximum effect, it is best to run total loss electrics & no alternator rotor, as this makes the engine spin up a lot quicker.

The transmission uses an APE racing clutch with higher ratio primary gears. I had to gear the sprockets down a tooth on the front to make a realistic achievable top speed, as the std gearing of 17/34 took it to a theoretical top speed of 220km/h. So with 13/34 ratio it will achieve 206 km/h.

But 1st I have to modify the rear of the frame, making a new rear shock mount to give me more ride height, as using the alloy swingarm lowers the rear end by an inch, as well as lengthening the wheelbase by 2" . The XV1000 front end is 3" longer(also 3mm thicker), I have the forks protruding out the top, by an inch, & that seems to work fine with the std rear end, but if I am to use the alloy swingarm, to keep the right geometry(not to mention look) I need to change the top shock mount.

I am in the process of making fibreglass seat bases for '74-78 bikes, as a few people have been asking for seats over here. I also want to make a twin shock 650 dirt bike ( used to have a 650 beach racer).

Hey Terry
Pix of Champion framed 750 Street tracker built in 1979 went racing in 1980
My 1972 framed street bike . hope you enjoy them
Dwayne
650 CENTRAL

Lee Cole in the US sent these pics of his Special, he got it for free! Check out that original mileage.

Back-cut gears, ported heads, lightened, balanced, welded, rephased crank, adjustable [! ] race cam & springs, JE pistons, CARILLO RODS! Note flow bench . Also note all so shiny & new I hate to put it all together. At least I've got the photos. Apologies for all the attachments but hey, its just this one time - until the next time! Kim

The guys in the Vintage Road Race Assn. liked my bike so much they invited me to display in the Toronto International Motorcycle Show. How could I refuse ? Ignore the date on the attached photo, it was actually taken this past Saturday.(21 January 2006)

I've got the compression release and electric start operational, which really confounds the racing purists, but I'll show them on race day - no crew, no bumping, no roller starter - just push the button and go! And the hydraulic clutch works beautifully!
Kim Anderson

Here are some pic's of my Love, I would love to be a member of your site, (just broke right now:) I have been working on her for some years now, and always seem to get farther along but never seems to be close to finishing. Seems a twenty spot does almost nothing and a hundred makes room to spend some more, But most of you guys probably already know this story! Well she always makes it out, however I have waited for a ride several times. Most people really like it and to hell with thoughs who say they don't. Well I could go on and on like most of you I would imagine, So I won't. If anyone Happens to be in Idaho this year just give me a call I would love to buy you a cup of coffee or a beer :)

Thomas Johnston

PH: 208-573-2925

kc7ral@cableone.net