Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Customer Bike Spotlight: Rich's '74 XS650 Chopper

"It ended up being a father son project. My dad had lots of tools and a realy nice bike lift I didn’t have to go buy, so I asked him if he wanted to help out and it kinda took on a life of its own. Basically its all new bike... Besides the obvious chopping it in half  we completely rebuilt the motor, forks, brake calipers, master cylinders. Installed a new clutch, the old one was floating around in the oil... all new bearings. 


I also sandblasted almost everything on the bike and polished all the original aluminum, wheels, tappet covers, brake calipers, forks, etc . Installed new carbs , had to radius and bob the rear fender (your DIY write up was most helpful). Fabricated all the brackets, and sissy bar. Wired it with all new charging and ignition system. Then I picked out the colors and dad and sprayed it, he has been doing custom paint since the 70's so I figured who better.


Funny side story I kept kicking around color ideas and couldn’t settle on one, but had added a Lowbrow Weirdo t-shirt to an order I had just got and kept looking at it thinking black and green hmm... and so I ended up with what you see in the photos. I'd list all the parts i got from you guys but somewhere around 1/3 of your catalog bout covers it. Anyways just wanted to say thanks it wouldn’t have happened without y’all. Oh yea I am currently looking for the next project bike, I'm hooked !"


3 comments:

graham said...

shiney!

beanmachine said...

love te fact that it has turn signals and still looks so cool, nice work!

Calculated Custom Metal Works said...

Nice work guys. Clean and simple.