1974 XS/TX650 rebuild

**tonyfoale** · Mar 19, 2022, 04:22 PM

Neatly done.

**th62** · Mar 21, 2022, 01:05 AM

Finished off the front wiring and spaghetti bucket. Still looks a little untidy, but neater than most I think. I even mounted the lens on a couple of wire safety straps to stop it pulling on the harness. I had, to buy these double female bullet connectors from China, couldn't find anyone in OZ who stocks them. Trying to find sub 6mm eye terminals was a job, same with 3mm blade terminals, they stock female blades but not males. And they complain that everyone is turning to online shopping - no bloody wonder.
Got to attack the back end now, mount the indicators and plug them and the tail light into the lighting harness.

**th62** · Mar 22, 2022, 07:34 PM

The indicators I bought don't have a long enough threaded section to go through the guard bracket, so I made these extension brackets to mount the indicators on. The V shaped cut out at the rear of the brackets fits around the frame tab protrusion, thus stopping the brackets from moving.

**th62** · Mar 23, 2022, 01:51 AM

Nup, binned them. Looking at the picture I noticed the line on the top the aluminium bracket doesn't follow the line on the top of the frame tab. So I made a new pair. Not a lot I could do with the bottom line as the tab angle is different to the guard angle, so I followed the tab angle down to the bottom of the guard then followed the arch of the guard. I might have to thin it down a bit though, looks a bit too big???

**asterix** · Mar 23, 2022, 07:05 PM

The thinner bottom part of the first bracket look better. The pointed end of the upper part looks akward. Perhaps a rounded end ?

**Rikk** · Mar 24, 2022, 05:50 AM

What if you added a radius to the bottom edge of the bracket similar to the radius of the fender lip. Not that anyone would notice it unless they looked directly at it from the side, but it keeps the lines smooth and consistent.

1974 XS/TX650 rebuild-win_20220323_17_50_06_pro.jpg

**th62** · Mar 24, 2022, 04:11 PM

Nope, if I did that then the lower fork would be horrendously thick. That's why I followed the line on the bottom of the tab down to the guard then followed the line of the guard.

**th62** · Apr 4, 2022, 02:00 AM

A few weeks ago I sent off for some tapered mufflers, these were said to suit from 38 - 45mm pipes using the supplied sleeves. Well they came, but aside from being chrome when I ordered black, they were rubbish: The spigot that goes over the exhaust pipe is tapered, so no matter how tight the clamp is done up, they have an alarming amount of movement, so I wrapped them up and on sold them.

Today I went to an exhaust shop and bought 1.5 m of 57 mm pipe and the same amount of 41mm pipe and asked the guy to taper the ends of the 41mm pipe out to 57mm. This was just an experiment mind, just wanted to see what they'd look like. Once I'd welded the tapered cones on to the 57mm pipe, I slid the 57mm end of the mufflers over the exhaust, stood back and had a squiz. Very pleasantly surprised, they give the bike the look I'm after. So next week, or whenever, I'll get some 45mm pipe and get the guy to expand the ends out to 57 mm and weld them on to the other end of the muffler.

The plan is to make up a couple of long baffles and slide them all the way inside the mufflers, start the bike and gradually slide the baffles out until I achieve what I think is an acceptable noise level. I'll also throw a bit of fibreglass insulation in the bodies to dampen the high level noise.

They look a bit Pommyish, but that's alright, I like Pommy bikes.

Once I've finished the mufflers, that's pretty much the build finished. So I'll strip it down, repaint everything again, give the tank a coat of isocynate free clear coat and stick the bike back together. All that remains to be done then is get some tyres fitted and upholster the seat. That'll be the end of my bike building days though, unfortunately, this build has pretty much stuffed my body, my elbows are stuffed, can't doing anything without lots of pain now. So once finished I'll probably book elbow replacement surgery and retire from life. Although, every now and again I'll probably wander out to the workshop, sit on the bike, blow through my lips to make some bike noises, dribble down my chin and remember the good old days of my youth. Still a bit left to do though.