The bike needed rescued when I bought it. It was near the end, and I very nearly decided to part it out/ break it for spares. I didn't take a picture of the bike the very first day, but here is a picture taken by G.Christie (Friend) about a week after I got the bike.

This is the bike a few days after I got it. Sorry about the quality, it was taken on my mobile phone.

At this point I have freed off the brakes, decontaminated the discs, changed the oil, plugs, leads, caps, filters, adjusted the cables, hand syncronised the carbs, set the ignition timing, painted the side panel and removed the tail piece for paint. I hadn't renewed the exhaust yet, painted the tank, or the wheels. The wheels started out as gold, which were badly flaked off. The exhaust has three holes rusted through the bottom, and the tank has two large dents where the headlight stays have come back and dented it. The bump stop on the headstock was broken off.

Bike Before Rebuild

 I'll periodically post pictures here until I find an appropriate place for them on the site.

From getting the bike in May 2005 to now there has been a massive amount of work done

The bike tyres were flat, and although the guy who had the bike managed to get it running, it was only running on two cylinders, just.

The tank had two large dents in it and was rusty. One of two side panels was broken, the frame was rusty, the tyres were flat, the oil was thick, the wiring was trashed, but within two to three weeks she was on the road.

The bike is affectionately known as 750e Bucket

The back wheel paint was just flaking off

It took 4 hours to scrape the paint off, mask the tyre and paint it.

Not too shabby when it was finished.

Shame about the rest of the bike at this point

Following some running repairs, the winter arrived, and so did re-build time.

Woohoo.

Bike with tank, side panels, seat/ tailpiece and then engine removed

Frame ready to go for powder coating.

Frame under the coil and tank

Frame after sand blasting and powder coating. Black sparkle and high gloss.

This is the underside after the sand blasting and powder coating. Shiney.

 

The main frame now done, it's time to start building up the parts ready to go back on. A full chrome headlight bowl (7 inch instead of the standard 8) with new indicators and new (NOS or New Old Stock) headlight ears courtesy of ebay, and new indicators front, courtesy of WWW.WEMOTO.COM at only £8 each.

Never did use that chrome headlight bowl. Got a NOS rim from ebay and painted the old bucket 

I've sand blasted the parts below and they're ready to paint.

Battery Box

Speedo shroud I've gotten round to painting some parts for the better I think.

I've started to rebuild the forks recently and discovered to my peril that XS850 seals are different. At least the ones they sent me are. The oil seal sizes are 36x48x10.5 for the 750, and 36x48x9 for the 850. Anyone need 850 fork seals?

Here's a picture of the fork bottom after paint.

 

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