Tom's XS650 Yam chop

[Manky Monkey]

Lunatic runs a car body repair/paint workshop, down in deepest Hampshire. The bulk of his work involves repairing dinged & scraped bumpers & doors, but once in a while something more interesting comes along.
Tom recently brought a 650 Yam rolling chassis in. The plan is to hardtail it as cheaply as possible & put together a very basic little chop.
So Loony & workshop buddy PD, who works as a mechanic elsewhere during the day, spent an evening setting up a jig on the welding table to make sure it goes together straight & true.

[Manky Monkey]

With the frame jig finished, PD cut away the seat rails. Tom's tried it for size & decided he wants to keep the new frame the same length as the original, rather than stretching the hardtail out by a few inches as is usual with chop frames, because he's building a bobber, not a chopper.

[Manky Monkey]

Then Loony cut the swingarm & associated gubbins off the Yam frame, leaving just the basic front cradle.

[Manky Monkey]

Following a visit from Clive, the XS650 project now has a rather spiffing Harley Sportster fuel tank. Only wedged in place here, so might sit lower once the Yam mounts have been removed. Or not.

[Manky Monkey]

Tom brought in an old oil tank, originally fitted to a chopped Harley. With a bit of modification, it'll be recycled into a hiding place for the battery & fuses, (XSs are wet sump, so dont need a seperate oil tank). Loony's already sliced one end off. He'll sleeve it to produce a removable end cap.

[Manky Monkey]

He's also wondering about maybe disguising the ignition switch inside the oil filler bung.

[Clive]

I've got a couple of other tanks kicking around, if that one proves to not look quite right!!

Clive

[Archie]

That's my really expensive oil tank I bought for mine lol. Gave it to an engineer behind the wire to chop the ends off, but he couldn't hold t straight, so made me a nice one off instead.

Clever barstard