Done.

We can’t believe we are saying it but the XS850 is officially done.  Well as done as any custom bike project ever is. Pretty sure we will come up with some cool new stuff to do with it down the road, and maybe even replace the harness with all new wires…  maybe next winter…  if our legs are broken and we can’t ski or ride dirt!

The only issue that the bike had was leaky petcocks. Easy fix right?  Just order some new ones right?  Well not so much with the ol’ Special.  Yamaha no longer makes them. They are vacuum powered so you never have to do the challenging task of bending over and turning a switch.  Apparently your average cruiser rider can’t be bothered with such trivial things as turning on fuel or off your turn signals.  This “ease of use” means there are diaphragms and many other extra parts inside them that makes them fail.  Because of this any decent used one sells for a few hundred bucks.  Rather than spend $80 on some rebuild kits, or $400 on newer used ones, we went on a mission to find a replacement that would work.  After a ton of searching with no luck Jaxon lent us an XS650 unit to check for fit and it was a match! Knowing the hole spacing was right let us broaden our search and we found some really cool simple ones that are a perfect fit.  I won’t mention where they came from because the company had horrible customer service and I’d like to give them as little business as possible.  Dealing with other suppliers for parts makes us appreciate how rad Brandon and the Motoshop really are!  Boneyard!

Here are the old petcocks seconds before their trip to the City of Bend waste management center.

And then the new much simpler, much less leaky ones. Also you can see our cool new clear Spin Cycle Stickers!

With the bike done there is really nothing left to do but ride it! ….and try to finish the other 4 builds!

As a side note we have to say that EVERYONE who rides bikes needs to borrow one of these and go for a spin. They are an absolute blast to ride.