81 Honda XL500 Scrambler

cascade_crawler

New Member
Been a long time coming, but I finally got around to getting all my pictures together and making a little build thread for this bike.

I acquired this bike several years ago with plans to build it into a scrambler/street tracker at the very beginning of it being "cool" to do so. Unfortunately I drug my feet and it just got done recently, so much for being a trend setter ;D
I got it off craigslist for cheap and it ran and rode, but had a massive oil leak. It poured oil straight from the head onto the exhaust and made it appear my bike was on fire. I later learned this was a common issue with this generation of motor, and it would be a little more work to fix than a simple gasket.

I liked this bike for 2 main reasons: It had the same tank and dual shock setup of moms old xr200 that I learned how to ride on, and was a big 500 single. I'm a big time dirtbiker and wanted the bike to have a lot of "dirt" influence.

Some how I managed to lose the "before" picture...maybe I was in too big a hurry to strip it all down. Here is a picture for reference...complete with with big goofy 23" front wheel. I stripped the bike down and swapped on a complete honda CR front end and laced a 19" wheel onto the CR hub.
 

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Next up was the cut off the ugly factory subframe and build up a new hoop. After that I made some supports that would hold the seat pan, and built a pan that would cover the goofy tank mount. Im not much of a seat guy so I had a local shop build one off of my pan.
 

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I swapped out the factory shocks for some progressive suspension units and lowered the front fork about 4". The back end got a rebuild and powdercoated wheel and hub along with SS spokes and a fat rear tire.
 

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Exhaust fab. 1.25 into 1.75 with a cone engineering muffler. This thing is loud!
 

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Everything got stripped down for powercoat and I started assembly and wiring. I ditched the battery and ran the bike straight off the stator. Although originally a 6v bike it was pretty easy to swap everything over to 12v using a 12v regulator. This bike is totally stripped down and only runs a trail tech speedo, headlight and tail light.
 

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finished and on the road
 

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You'd not think it was the same bike...good job, although I'd worry about the dirt getting to the air filter.
 
NoRiders said:
You'd not think it was the same bike...good job, although I'd worry about the dirt getting to the air filter.

It is pretty exposed but I dont ride it in the dirt or in the rain. I got a real dirtbike for that :)
 
excellent result. only a couple things I'd personally change but that's just a matter of taste. Looks like a hoot.
 
Very good work. Thanks for give me ideas. But can you send me in MP more picture about the modification frame and some technical explanation about your work. I'm not a specialist, so i won't make mistake doing this frame's transformation on my bike :)

I thank a lot.
 
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