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Post by ngordoncrosby on Sept 4, 2013 6:10:42 GMT 1
Great pics well done on the rebuild well worth it
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Post by JonW on Sept 4, 2013 23:39:22 GMT 1
Thanks!
I finally got round to replacing the reservoir to master hoses with Tygon 2375 the other day, interesting how long it takes to get the air bubbles out when can see them in the line.
Tank still at the painters....
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Post by fatty on Dec 17, 2013 14:57:09 GMT 1
OOOOH i like a supermoto !
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Post by JonW on Dec 17, 2013 22:53:59 GMT 1
Thanks Ash, If only I could get a better tank it would be being used :/ The tank is still at the painters having the dents taken out... well i hope they started at least. In the new year Im heading up there and taking it back and just filling and painting it if they havent started it by then. mental :/
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Post by loadsofmoney on Mar 17, 2014 9:48:16 GMT 1
Nice bike, what is the swinging arm out of?
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Post by JonW on Apr 4, 2014 12:27:10 GMT 1
The swingarm is from a company called Motolana, the same arm sells under different brands around the XT/SR world, but I believe that Motolana make it Its a wonderful thing, really well made and very trick, much nicer than the original tube thing that was like an LC arm, this is much stronger being made from extruded and CNC alloy.
A little update today.... I went up to the place doing my tank. Mostly as tomorrow it will be exactly a year to the day I dropped it in... 6months ago they hadnt started it due to work load. I always knew it would take a while and I agreed to be patient, but it was getting to be tooooo long as the rest of the bike has been pretty much done for a long time... long enough for me to snap off a couple of indicators and it to gain a lwayer of dust in my garage, hmm. So, I figured I would pick the tank back up, filler it and paint it white all over, ignoring the sexy alloy just to get the bike finished... To be honest, I really do need to complete some projects... sigh..
The office boys didnt know anything, and didnt seem to want to let me 'back stage' where I insisted they had my XT500 tank. I persisted and they called one of the owners to come to the office - probably to tell me to f-off LOL. Anyway, the bloke looks at me like he's just seen a ghost when he walkes in... He says 'Er... XT500 tank! Well... We lost your details... but.... it's mostly done!'... And... then he shows me... OMFG!!!.... WOW!!! Its not totally finished... but you I could immediately see it really is a work of art.... I need to drop colour samples of the rest of the bodywork in and they will complete it next week, but I'm stunned... it's beautiful!
Pics and more when i get it back... fingers crossed it wont bankrupt me, but this bike has had some many other new or sexy parts, it would have been a shame to skimp on the tank...
more soon....
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Post by JonW on Apr 15, 2014 13:07:21 GMT 1
Spent all day on this bike in a big push to tick off some of the outstanding jobs... The list was pretty long actually and filled with jobs I just couldn't get right the first time LOL Some I thought it would be a bunch of simple things, but once i got started I realised why some of them hadnt been done lol. Yeah that bloody cam chain tensioner LOL
Rear brake - A simple clean up really... just got missed last time round. I finally also loctited the rear master bolts in place now that the placement is done. As I dont have any news ones, and these were newish just grubby, I just tidied up the pads and cleaned up the caliper and hanger as they still had some red dirt on them from the 'noughties. It just needs bleeding now and its done.
Chain guard - what a nightmare of good intentions gone bad... This is a cool unit in stainless steel that is really for an SR400/500. What I wanted for this part was the simplest chain guard possible, no frilly clever parts OTT looking, just a simple bit of folded sheet. I certainly got that in this unit, its as simple as you can get, one long piece of steel, curved at one end, and fitted with two straight brackets that are riveted on. It came from the same seller as the swinger so I thought it might fit that ok... er... no... Neither of the bolt holes was designed to fit the bolts/holes that appear in the same places on the swinger, maybe they work on the SR with a standard arm, who knows :/ I had to drill and tap the back of the suspension mounting bolt... which is stainless. I broke the tap off and rounded a bunch of drills but finally managed it. The front edge I decided to drill out one of the chain slider mounts, retap and use that. Turns out it was a timesert type fitting, so I had to drill it out and fit a larger size instead, lucky i have a kit of these. I also needed to grind out more space for the wider tyre as fitted to my KTM 'motard wheel. I also had to cut into the lower fender guard to make room for the new chain guard to move up and down. All of this was a slow job with a dremel. All in all it fits nice now its done, but it was slow work, especially drilling the allen headed bolt to M6 to allow it to also take the screw for the chain guard.
Tidy up the wiring loom - one of those jobs that didnt get completed after I fixed the intermittent fault in the loom as supplied by Kedo with a un soldered branch. Sigh. Easily done and looks better now and much further away from the exhaust.
The front brake was binding... bizarrely after cleaning it up and refitting it's still binding... i think its an issue with this disk and caliper combination as the caliper doesnt look stright on the disk or the forks really, strange as they came from the same bike, tho the disk is newer. Its a moot point as I will fit a bigger rotor and 4pot caliper soon, I just havent bought them yet... The bike rolls well, the front wheel just doesnt spin as freely as id like.. its not like it will be on the ground much tho I guess LOL!
So Im inching closer to being done... still some work to do, but its nice to think im completing things now. Conversions are never easy and fitting a disk brake fat rear end to an XT isnt normal I guess. Ahh well, it looks killer and will go round corners like a loony, thats what counts!
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Post by JonW on Apr 15, 2014 13:07:53 GMT 1
continued... Rear brake... Ran out of time the other day to bleed the rear brake system as I had removed the caliper to fully clean it up and new fluid is always a good thing anyway. So, today I ran new fluid into the system and at the same time cleaned up the reservoir and line. Brake works like a charm. The heim joint could do with replacing at the bottom of the Brembo master as its a bit rattly, but it does help the lever have a bit more travel, its quite abrupt... Perfect really, as I wont use it unless Im in serious trouble... Or maybe backing it in... Er... Here it is... It looks less gold in real life... luckily...  During testing I also noticed that the re-bent lever is still not really sticky-out (technical term) enough as I skagged the paint off the repainted engine cover with my boot. Not happy.  Front brake... Bled this as it was running fluid from last year, never any harm to run more fluid through our old brakes, it had discloured a little so it felt right to do it while i had the bleeder and new fluid out. I still wasn't really happy with the front wheel and was rolling it round on the lift thinking 'that really doesn't sound pad'y.... More like gentle steel on alloy...' Turns out I was right. The caliper bracket was touching the disk where the disk spins through the pad locating part. This is an aftermarket disk and I think its a bit thicker than OEM. Lots of filing later and the 1mm step is gone on the Brembo adaptor, and im even wondering if the adaptor was just cut badly as really there was no need for that 1mm step that place. Hmm... Wheel spins much more freely now.  Next job was another from my old hit list; adjusting the timing chain. Ive always hated adjusting timing chains. The can chain has the ability to stretch then flap around, messing up the cam timing (bad for the engine) and if you neglect it it will snap and take chunks of your motor with it (worse for your engine). Hence I love two strokes, no cam chain to incorrectly adjust... Dont get me started on twim cams or serpentine belts with idlers on cars... Anyway... So, Thinking I was clever (is that that the same as being clever?) and spending money on this project anyway I bought a very swish (read expensive) modern solution; A hydraulic adjuster. A simple 'fit once and then forget' as it will do the adjusting for you... But can you see the error in my plan? Yeah... It was the 'fit once' part. Looking on line and it seems no one uses these. I guess the XT guys are real men who don't need no stinkin oil filled device to keep a cam chain adjusted. I mean, if you can kick start an XT and change it's oil now and then, then adjusting the cam chain is the least of your issues. Hmm... Talking to the (German) manufacturer the plan on fitting, if google translate is to be believed, is to fit it just like the OEM one... Cant get simpler than that! What followed over a year ago was a baffled me reading the Haynes, Clymer and OEM manuals not really understanding them. Everyone said 'it's easy...' and I reckon I must have been over thinking it as I found the task impossible. I always thought it must be like fitting the aftermarket Clutch Pusher bearing device on an RZ, fine when you know how to do it, but looks like you need an engineering degree until that 'Euerka!' moment. Needless to say Ive fitted it what I think is properly now after asking on this forum, thanks guys! The end of the push rod (in my case the hydraulic part) sits flush with the end nut when its tensioned, you then tighten up the big nut against the cylinder to lock it all in place. Well that's what ive done now, if its night right im giving up and pulling the old OEM manual tensioner out of the spares box... haha!  For those who were interested... ...here are the new and old indicators  And the reason I had to get the new ones:  ... and here is the PITA chain guard:  |
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Post by JonW on Apr 15, 2014 13:08:24 GMT 1
The tank is back! So what do you think guys? (before pics are on the previous page i think) (apologies for the naff pics, its an overcast day and now its raining here :/ )     I also had them do me a set of custom side panel decals which they also fitted: (Tail piece was there as they colour matched the tank off that, its an OEM Yamaha part bought new... as were the side panels, I love just how much you can get for the XT500 from Yamaha these days after other projects where parts are impossible, ie. XL500R anyone? Well probably not anyone here LOL! but anyway if you build one... well, make sure you start with all the parts!)   So, for those who are keen to know... no, it wasn't cheap to do this work, but it was worth it. I had it done locally to me by the only place anyone I asked told me to go to. Sadly most bodyshops I spoke to just wanted to cut the bottom off the tank, bash out the dents from inside and then weld the bottom back on, these guys didnt do that, they made tools and worked each dent one by one until it was done from the inside.... Artists for sure. I met the guys do did the work and they loved and hated my tank in equal measure i think, but both were proud of what they had acheived, and rightly so... The result is stunning, bright shiny and clean. Im very happy with their work, the bill is (almost) already forgotten. :smt023 Work was done by Collide-a-scope ( www.collideascope.com.au/ ) if anyone wants something doing there. |
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rdbuzz
Weekend rider
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Post by rdbuzz on Apr 15, 2014 21:14:29 GMT 1
Nice project that Jon, must make a start on my xt250 this winter. Had it around 4 years now . stored in sisters garage un touched.
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Post by JonW on Apr 15, 2014 22:53:04 GMT 1
Thanks mate, these are nice simple bikes to work on so you should be able to do the work fast, everything is exposed and if not it a matter of only a few bolts to get to it. Whats amusing is that everytime i sit on mine it reminds me of a 50 its so small compared to a modern trail bike, Will do some pics when i get the new bodywork on, thinking about how to have my seat done now...
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Post by JonW on Apr 17, 2014 3:26:32 GMT 1
Bodywork is now on... I used a nice CNC fuel cap and for now a long breather hose.   I just need to sort out my seat now... I have two seats: 1, A short seat that came with the bike and is probably correct for the 1980 Aussie bikes, but someone tried to cut the foam down and its become a nasty uncomfy thing as there is no padding on the part where your thighs pass over the edge, and imho it just looks funny, its in a few pics on this thread. I spent ages looking at other peoples SM seats and started messing with it, adding take and bits of wood to get a line that i liked, and ended up with... pretty much a lowered version of the standard seat, grr... Anyway, last year I chatted to a local boat/car trimmer who also does off road (adventure bikes) seats and I can have it all done up with new foam and gripper or normal cover, or a mix, but its about half as much again as getting a normal new foam and cover and stapling it on myself. hmm... 2, In the meantime, it took a while for the tank so I bought a few bits n bobs LOL, I got a new yamaha long seat. Its stunning and clean, but... its way too much seat for this bike.  So... I took a couple of pics with the huge new OEM seat fitted... sorry the camera wasnt happy when i was doing them, this is the best of a bad bunch  |
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Post by jeremyh on Apr 19, 2014 8:05:16 GMT 1
I've started writing up my XT500 supermoto project for my website, so if anyone is interested then the start of it is here: Jon's Yamaha XT500 Supermoto projectBike is now part mock up and part built... and looks a bit like this... it will be white when its done not orange LOL  |
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Post by JonW on Apr 19, 2014 14:11:01 GMT 1
?
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Post by JonW on May 1, 2014 23:13:06 GMT 1
So this bike looks almost finished? Well, almost... if I'm honest that's just a trick of the light really... Whack on some nice parts and, well, you can fool almost anyone I guess, and while most of it is done, its not all finished yet. A few people noticed an issue, but I think most were too polite to say anything, knowing (hoping?) I would fix it before the bike hit the road. So... Yes I know, one thing that was never right on this bike was the rear master cylinder. It's the Brembo from a KTM that matches the rear caliper, and if you fit one to an XT500 and run the up-n-over pipe then it's too close to the master cylinder. This is because the KTM version of the master is designed to have the take off to the brake caliper at the top. Fine, for the KTM, but too tall for use in this setup.    While the banjo bolt does not actually touch the pipe, it's obviously too close for sure and the heat soak would heat and possibly boil the fluid. A non working rear brake isn't a big issue for me as I very rarely use it, but even as a 'hobby engineer' I can't hand on heart leave it like this, I'm better than that... Luckily with a bit of research Brembo also make the same master cylinder in a side exit version, if you orient the units in the same plane. These are used on the late model Ducati 848s and other bikes that site the master cylinder horizontally. The plunger and the fittings dimensions are the same, so its a direct fit and considerably shorter.  Ok, I'm not using it in the same plane, but that's no issue as the exit is still at the top of the stroke. Only issue was I really needed a brake pipe that has a 90deg bend or goes straight in, the existing line (from an Aprilia) isnt perfect, but actually works well once I fitted the master at 90degrees to how the KTM was fitted, this allowed the hose to pass off to the side instead of straight out. To do that I had to weld up a couple of 'clever' bolts with nuts on their heads.  After a quick bleed Im very happy with the setup, it's actually a nicer brake to use than the KTM setup. I guess that's to do with the size of the master, which I couldn't actually find on the body, which is bizarre. The reservoir inlet is slightly different and now in the way a bit of the hose, but I will just reshape the lower part of the inner mudguard next time Im working on the bike. |
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Post by JonW on May 3, 2014 2:06:18 GMT 1
A little more time spent on this bike... I made a simple heat deflector out of stainless sheet that is fitted behind the lower mudguard, then trimmed that a bit more and fitted it. Sounds easy when you say that, but as anyone who's made heat shields/brackets and cut down plastic panels knows, it's a pretty laborious job and takes way longer than you think. The shield sits up a bit higher than the master cylinder of course, you don't want it touching the master or it will not do it's job. I think Ive allayed any fears about an overly hot rear brake now. I was thinking I might also add a shield around the pipe or the filter next, to keep hot air away from the intake. Something for another day....  |
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Post by JonW on May 9, 2014 6:44:51 GMT 1
I'm not sure that too many folk are following this build here, and since I'm only copying posts from elsewhere (RDRZ500 and XT500 forums) I think I will draw these updates to a close. From those that want to see how it comes together in the end, further updates can be found on my website using the following link: 2smoked.com/Yamaha_XT500_Supermoto_-_Home.html |
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Post by grunt33 on May 12, 2014 19:58:26 GMT 1
joh looks great
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Post by JonW on May 13, 2014 0:53:11 GMT 1
Thanks m8. Ive now ordered the caliper for the big front brake as the 320mm disk has arrived and now on and the seat is now at the trimmers (updates with pics on my website). So it's getting closer to being done. Will be a fun bike when complete for tooling round the city as I can never really believe that my LC421 would be happy in traffic LOL
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Post by arrow on May 13, 2014 19:32:07 GMT 1
Superb Jon, I'm loving the look of that with the different modern rubber.
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Post by JonW on May 15, 2014 13:23:12 GMT 1
Thanks Gary, me too  I really do need to get it out in the light and take a decent photo of it when the seat gets back. I also need to order up another set of indicators I think, I just dont think these look right, sad but true. I still think it look pretty ungainly in that pic with the orange front muddy, but nothing was quite fitted right then, now its all white and 'more of a piece' as things are fitted, everything works looks wise. So... Im still waiting for the call to come get the seat with the foam done to check it feels right on the bike before he covers it. I just hope he understood what I wanted it to be like from the bits of wood and tape I put on the old seat LOL |
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Post by JonW on Mar 10, 2017 12:48:02 GMT 1
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Post by veg on Mar 10, 2017 13:54:01 GMT 1
Jon as a former xt owner that is probably the best looking xt I have seen as ta a real credit to you. Something very engaging about kick starting them. I used to bet my mates they couldn't start mine in 3 kicks most failed. Lovely bike
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Post by rich on Mar 10, 2017 17:40:32 GMT 1
Lovely
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Post by JonW on Mar 10, 2017 22:43:34 GMT 1
Thanks for the kind words guys, I just love this bike, it makes me smile everytime I look at it. In another year I'll probably have finished the cush drive rear wheel and maybe fully rebuilt the forks, but really i should just ride it LOL
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Dave B
Drag-strip hero
Posts: 240 
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Post by Dave B on Mar 11, 2017 10:31:36 GMT 1
I went in a different direction with my old SR 500 racer. I turned it into a pretend Manx Norton  |
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Post by iwantalc on Mar 11, 2017 19:20:43 GMT 1
that looks the bollocks must admit though I wouldn't like to kick start it .. |
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Post by skydemon on Mar 11, 2017 19:35:40 GMT 1
I really like that. Think it needs a smaller back light though 😱
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Post by JonW on Mar 11, 2017 23:47:24 GMT 1
Kicking it isnt as easy as a normal XT either, its got a 10:1 piston in it. But with the timing bang on and the brand new TM36 pumper it actually starts very easily, but if it does kick back you'd better hold on as youre off for a wild ride.... probably to hospital lol.  Lots of people comment on the back light, but for me its one of the things that makes it an XT500, and I always like my restomods to look like the thing they started out as. |
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Post by mouse on Mar 12, 2017 19:02:48 GMT 1
That is a beautiful job, really like it and love the colour scheme
Fantastic job
Mouse
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I really do need to get it out in the light and take a decent photo of it when the seat gets back. I also need to order up another set of indicators I think, I just dont think these look right, sad but true.
