1979 Yamaha XS650 - Cafe Project Bike

A friend of ours is selling one of his bikes, a project Yamaha. Here is his description:

Runs great. 27,331 miles. Bought it as a project bike. Newly inspected until 10/2009. Standard Yamaha wheels were painted Yamaha Yellow and the rest is painted flat black. Added old clubman cafe bars. Seat was chopped and shorted to a single seater. Good tires. Older original cables, could use some updating.

The XS does have a slight electrical problem with a really dim headlight that will probably require a new regulator or charging unit. Headlamp brightens when revved at idle (stuff on XS websites to correct). Also electric start doesn't work. Kick starts in a few kicks. Bike sounds great and looks mean, fun to ride.

He's looking for $750 OBO. Contact Terence here.

Brittown - a British motorcycle documentary film

(There isn't any vintage Yamaha related info in this post, but I wanted to pass this on anyway... Chances are, if you dig old Japanese iron, you probably dig old British iron, too...)

Had the opportunity to borrow the documentary Brittown from my friend (and Bonnie rider) Brian this past weekend.

For those who haven't heard of it, this is a short synopsis from their website:

Brittown features legendary underground mechanic and Britbike connoisseur "Meatball" from the Hell On Wheels bike shop in Anaheim, CA as he eats, drinks, and sleeps British iron; using all his skill to transform an old 650 Triumph Bonneville motor into a barely-legal road racer.

Embracing the legacy of Steve McQueen, Meatball runs his old BSA in vintage motocross races, flies down the Willow Springs raceway on his Norstar, and conquers the So Cal freeways with the No Gooders motorcycle club while still finding time for his family and his rock band Smiling Face Down.

This movie wasn't what I expected at all. Far from some usual T and A biker flick or a long commercial featuring posers tinkering with stuff they really don't know about, these guys are the real deal: living, breathing, racing, and rocking out with British motorcycles.

The movie also has incredible production quality. It's funny, filled with interesting likable characters and good music, yet is quiet, genuine, even moving at times. It's very much a nod to On Any Sunday - but not a rehashing, rather one for this generation.

Highly recommended!

Yahoo! Yamaha R5 Group Bike of the Month

Unless they're fooling with me (it is the first of April after all), my bike has been crowned Bike of the Month for April 2008 on the newly renovated Yahoo! Yamaha R5 Group.

For the unaware, this Yahoo! group is populated with folks who are most knowledgeable in all things vintage Yamaha. Without their help many of the problems with and parts missing from my R5 would never have been sorted. I thank them very much!

Be sure to check them out, and to sign up if you haven't already!

http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/yamaha-r5-group

Motorcycle Hall of Fame - Arte House

Arte House is offering art prints as large scale murals, prints on canvas, as well as note cards, magnets and special signed editions from the image archive of the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

The murals are particularly interesting, in that they can go up to 44"x60" in size!

Not too much Yamaha stuff, but a whole bunch of interesting vintage posters and racing photographs. Pictured above is Roberts Yamaha at the Laguna Seca GP, while below, Rob Morrison and Kenny Roberts battle it out.

1970 Cycle Magazine 350 Review

Here's a great comparison test of all the "hot new superbike" 350s from December of 1970! Each page is individually scanned, so you have to download each one separately, but it's definitely a good read. I don't think you'll be too surprised when you discover which bike won the top honors in the review...

1970 Cycle Magazine 350 Review

Replica Badge Source

One of the most frustrating aspects of bringing one of these old Yamahas back is finding a decent set of replacement tank badges. NOS is really nonexistant, and even replicas are getting to be very expensive. Here is a guy selling replicas on Ebay for very reasonable prices, and the duplication looks pretty spot-on.

(Sorry the original link expired many moons ago... )

Here are a few sources that might help:
Diablo Cycle
HVC Cycle

Reader Mail / Relocating Signals

Michael Brito wrote in:

Great web site. Awesome bike. In fact your R5 inspired me to refurbish an R5 of my very own. I would like to know where you got the turn signals for your R5 so I can relocate mine. Did you farm out most of the paint work? How much $$$ did you put into your R5?

Thanks for writing!

I wrote a little about relocating my front turn signals here. After Mike wrote in, I realized now that I didn't go into much detail. I hadn't bought aftermarket signals, I just used the ones that were already there, but were mounted to the forks using brackets. From what I can remember, here's the process:

- remove the nuts on top of the forks
- slide off bracket and turn signal
- remove bracket from turnsignal
- replace fork nuts
- disconnect wiring to signals (no cutting necessary)
- remove headlight from bucket, reroute wiring (from bike) into the bucket from the hole in back
- remove nuts holding bucket to flanges on both sides
- run wiring (signal) through holes in headlight flanges and bucket
- align signal base to depression on flange
- use signals to hold bucket to flanges, reuse nuts to tighten bucket and flange to signal
- reconnect wiring, test
- remount headlamp

Sounds complicated, but I figured it out just by fiddling around myself, so with the above directions anyone should be able to do it no problem.

As for the paint, I was lucky and found a bike that had been parked in a garage for most of it's life. There's little damage, just a few dents and chips. I haven't done much in terms of paint besides cleaning and waxing.

If you're looking for the metallic Mandarin Orange paint, unfortunately you're out of luck as it's no longer made. Here's a link to some discussion about a possible House of Kolor alternative.

All in all, I haven't spent much on the bike, $550 to buy, and about $1000 in parts and work to get it running, inspected, new tires, new bars, one new sidecover, and a NOS matching mirror. Not bad for such a great little bike!

Ebay Finds

1971 R5-B AHRMA Racer


1971 R5-B Brochure

1973 RD 350 in Philly area

From Philly Craiglist:

73 RD 350 run good I have good title in hand with my name.11k miles after market exhaust and air cleaners new battery.side cover cracked $1500 obo SOON GOING TO EBAY

Motorcycle Classifieds Site Mash

This cool website combines classified and auction listings from various sites around the internet and displays them chronologically with photos, location and price. In order to actually see anything, select a motorcycle from the text cloud or pull-down. Want something added? Email the administrator.

BTW there's one for cars too...