Brett “BrettMan” Williams – My brother and I built this over the last couple months. We used it as an excuse to drink a ton of beer and smoke cigarettes in my garage with our shop dog “Twister.”
We had been wanting to build a motorcycle together ever since he moved to town a year and a half ago. An XS seemed like an obvious choice since they lend so well to it. But, we wanted to do something cooler than the standard bolt-on hardtails that are running around everywhere. While looking for a base bike I found an old project on Craigslist. I bought the frame and motor off some guy who started building it 10 years ago and never finished. I paid too much for what I got but I have an affiinity for building things that, without my help, would eventually become trash.
Bike details as follows:
1980 Yamaha XS650
-Custom, one-of-a-kind drop-seat, looped hardtail frame. Water-jetted axle adjusters. Powder coated copper.
-Permanent Magnet Alternator and minimal wiring. Custom mount to put regulator/rectifier below the motor. PAMCO ignition with “green monster” coil. Kick-start only. First kick every time.
-Lowbrow Wassel Tank, letting light rust form before powdercoating clear. Sweet dual brass petcocks.
-Shaved fork lowers and shaved triple trees.
-Bridgestone Spitfires. So tired of repro vintage rubber and fork gators…
-Joe Wiseguy 2 into 1 intake manifold with single Mikuni VM36 tuned for altitude and running like a top.
-Drag bar, Bates-style headlight, forward controls, tapered steering bearings, custom brake stay, custom chain roller, custom exhaust, el-cheapo pan seat, bigass K&N air filter, side mount plate/brake light, new brakes all around, rebuilt forks, etc..
Ever since we built this we can’t stop drinking in the garage and telling ourselves how awesome we are. We must have 100 videos of us starting the thing and bro-mancing.
The weirdest thing is, Twister never used to ask for attention until we started hanging out in the garage. Now he begs to hang out with us in there and isn’t happy until we start the bike and he’s breathing exhaust fumes with us.
