Holy cr*p it's a 1976 Honda CXRL650R street-tracking dirt-jumper! (and beer)...

osteoderm

Been Around the Block
In the spirit of fine garage-builds everywhere, let me first say that A) I'm making everything up as I go, and B) all criticism must be accompanied by free beer. Having said that, let's jump right in:

In the beginning, there was a running Craigslist find:

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...and in fairly short order there was a non-running basketcase:

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After some ineffective soul-searching, random gesturing, and copious self-doubt, a hacksaw became involved:

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...with (of course) the usual results:

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I was tentative, careful, measured, and patient with my last project. This time I am trying my best to be none of those things.
 
Having no certain clues towards the futue of my mangled frame, I turn tun to the other bits. How about the front parts?

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21" front wheels are probably awesome for everything this bike was designed to do, but also probably not as awesome for all the street-jumpery dirt-standard grocery-getting I'm planning for this bike...

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In between furiously ignorant eBay searches for a new front hoop and nail-bitingly wallet-crushing conversations with the good folks at Buchanan's, the front hub clean-up commences:

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The front bouncy part of this bike sure has a lot of sub-parts, and all of them are ugly. Grinding fixes everything:

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Grind, sand, acid-dip, zinc chromate, recover from fumes, epoxy prime, paint, recover from fumes, assemble, question the meaning of life, kinda miss the fumes:

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Oh yeah, I did the lowers too... all the same grinding/sanding/painting nonsense, with 3" of lowering thrown in for extra masochism points:

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Bikes have two ends? Dag, yo... twice the work:

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My brain and fingers hurt so much from tearing the monoshock apart to internally lower it 10mm that I was unable to take further photos of the operation. And acid/primer/paint fumes:

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The rear spokes go something like this... Re-assembly is the reverse of dis-assembly, except for the bolt-cutter part:

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Smoothing the front hub sucked. Smoothing the rear hub blew chunks.

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19"x widerthanstock" front rim laced to stock hub. Goodbye to this week's allowance:

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Apparently there's something called a "truing stand" that makes this easier. Easier than what? Easier than pulling out your toenails with a fork?

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An interlude of either maniacal giggling or distraught sobbing is usually expected at this point:

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I've been told that torn-off dirtbike kickstand mounts litter the woods around here...

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I'm a barely competent welder, but I'm an excellent grinder.

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I can has subframe? Armed with nothing but reckless optimism, 12' of chromoly tubing, and imagination, yes I can!

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Mounts for a fender, an exhaust hanger, and a barely-imagined-but-not-well-though-out luggage rack arrive on the scene:

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On the one hand, this tank I found looks nothing like a stock 2001 XR650L plastic tank.

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On the other hand, it looks nothing like a stock 2001 XR650L plastic tank.

And it came with sweet Honda badges.
 
Starting to look like something:

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PO-installed FMF Powerbomb stainless exhaust, slightly-shortened through the central horizontal run to tuck the last upright diagonal portion closer/parallel to the new subframe brace. FMF can removed and replaced with Jeggs stainless reverse-cone. Oh, and new rear brake master cylinder bracket added (speedholes FTW). New Acerbis universal rear fender mounted.

Exhaust not looking quite awesome enough though...

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Stainless turn-down and hanger. Much better. Time to engage a "real weldor" with "actual welding ability" to button this stainless exhaust together:

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Whew, what a bunch of crap awesome work! Before moving on, let's take a break and celebrate with some Inappropriate Meatloaf:

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...and beer.
 
This is a very interesting post. I like where the bike is going, but please tell me more about this meatloaf.
 
Seeing it come together = good times.
Knowing it needs to come back apart for paint = groinpunch.

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Every last %#%@# $$$$$$$ bearing and bolt in the rear suspension replaced. Swingarm shaved, smoothed, painted, scratched, and re-painted.

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It's a roller!
 
Dig that muffler....get seat on this thing I think you got a winner.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2
 
Joe Suzuki said:
Loving it so far. But for the love of Tracker, please don't use that front fender... :'(

The front fender is certainly ugly. It's also free, effective, and easy to remove... progress will continue in other areas.
 
misfitfiend said:
This is a very interesting post. I like where the bike is going, but please tell me more about this meatloaf.

1/2-lb or so each of medium-lean ground beef and ground pork
1 fresh sourdough roll, angrily torn into ragged pea-sized chunks
1 large chicken egg
salt, pepper, and a squirt of Worchesterschirester sauce

(Or whatever meaty-loafy mix you prefer)

Don't mix it too much; time spent cooking is deducted from time spent eating. Mash it all up and flatten it out onto a sheet of plastic wrap. As long as you can, as thin as manageable, but no wider than the loaf pan you'll be soon be blindly hoping you can fit the whole sagging mess into.

Layer onto the meat:

many shaved honey ham slices
thin slices of cheese (I like Swiss, but each according to their Personal National Cheese Preference)
dill pickle sandwich slices

Roll the ungainly flappy meat spiral as tightly as possible, then curse and sweat the log into a loaf pan. Cook it in an oven until it is cooked.
 
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