First Bike Barn Find 78 special

[bootgirl]

I have always dreamed of riding a motorcycle and it all fell into place when I came across this bike. During a barbecue, my friends crazy old neighbor came hobbling over from the 1960s with his Grateful Dead tattoos and pirate earrings. In between gravelly commands at his pitbull Lola, he casually mentioned an old motorcycle he was trying to sell. Immediately I asked how much and he replied "almost nothing". When he stated it was a Yamaha XS650, I had no clue of the potential and the following these bikes have. But after visiting this site, I knew it couldn't be passed up. A week and a broken fence later I acquired the bike for $50. And so it begins...







My boyfriend is working on the bike with me, his comments will be italicized 

I'm not touching this thing until that seat is off...
She wasn't kidding. I tossed a piece of foam at her and you would have thought it was a poisonous spider. -Greg


Thanks guys!
When the front and rear calipers started singing on the push to the trailer, I thought for sure every nut and bolt on this bucket was going to fight us. -Greg


Beauty is starting to show
So far we've only lost one nut to cross-threading, the RS upper shock mount nut. -Greg


Stripped down to the base of our build
So none of the controls are functional, not one. The front brake reservoir is filled with something highly water based, the clutch cable has been down and ground, and the throttle cable "fly by wireless". -Greg

[preston]

You are nuts... and our basket is full of them here,,,,
Have fun,,, and don't get discourged , read a lot, and spend lots of money, and TIME,,, it will run again .
Preston

[kopcicle]

The Red Bike Started out much worse than this .
I've done this a few times . Maybe a conversation is in order :-)

~kop