We love to see that people keep contacting us with their news builds and this it is the Dutch Tim, with his new Yamah XJ550 Tracker.
Perhaps you’ve already seen his previous CB350 Cafe Racer, but if you didn’t –> Click here.
Tim has the floor:
While I was working on the build of my 1974 Honda cb350F I was looking for a new project on the auction sites because I wanted to build a cheap daily commuter.
I found two bikes which were for sale for 150 euro’s a piece in Friesland in Holland. The owner told me the bikes did run two years ago and I took them home. One of the bikes was a 1983 Yamaha XJ 550 and it really was a peace of rusty crap!
No way this engine has been running in the past 10 years! The carburetors were in an awful state and full of gum and all passages were completely blocked. The two caps on the outside were terribly rusted and even had holes in them so the diaphragm underneath it never could have had a vacuum.
After I cleaned them out and repaired the holes I fitted a new battery and poured some fresh gas in the completely clean! tank and after a few minutes starting I got the thing working.
Now that I knew it was running I first finished my cb350F and after that I stripped the bike clean.
In a bit more than an hour I had a basket bike and next I removed all tabs and the backsite of the frame and welded some reinforcements.
I did a thorough revision of the brake calipers and master pump for which it was hell to find the right expensive parts and made some steel goodridge brake lines.The frame was cleaned with a 3M scotchbrite wheel with metal in it which worked like a charm and the frame was rattlecan sprayed with glossy black paint.
In the meantime I also put new internals and seals in and on the forks and bought some gaitors from a moped shop. The forks and callipers were sprayed with flat black and finished with 2K clear coat.
The engines valves were set and the old oil was changed for fresh oil. The engine was cleaned by hand with a Rotary brush and the 3M Wheel and spraypainted with heat resistant paint.
After this I started to rebuild the bike and fitted a nice alloy fender and made a load carrier for it because I had seen the “gibbon slap” made by the Wrenchmonkees and liked it a lot.
Because I thought the stock gastank really was fugly I was looking for a substitute and found a Yamaha XS 650 gastank, stripped it and liked the looks so good that I decided not to paint it. Clumsy as I am I dropped the tank and the gastank had a nice big dent on one of the top sites. After getting completely pissed off and really not willing to paint the bastard I found a solution in a small 8 ball…
A nice bobber seat, enduro handlebars, a FZ1 moped yellow painted headlight and backlight were fitted to coplete the look. At the back I welded a frame for an old army bag for storing the electrics. Around the stock alloy rims are some knobby Heidenau tires.
As last I fitted some two into one K&N airfilters and had to tune the carbs with bigger main jets for the filters and the four into one exhaust that came with the bike.
After that it runs fantastic and the thing is fast, light and fun to ride both on the street and offroad.
Next to his awesome Honda CB350, Tim now is the proud owner of an equally cool Yamaha XJ550 Tracker.
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