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This is an engine removal, tilting lifting thingie I made for my XS650. The XS650 motor is a very tight fit in the frame, In their wisdom, the Japanese decided if you need to work on the engine, it should be removed from the frame. But removing the engine from the frame is not an easy job as...

I put this page together to document the steps in building the 74 TX650. With the exception of chrome work, upholstery and rebore, everything was done in my workshop. It's a public page, so no need to join...

I bought this bike a few years ago with the intention of rebuilding it into a cafe raceresque custom. I started with a rusted out hulk: The crankcase was torn apart by an errant chain, cam chain guides were worn through, cam chain was so stretched the PO had elongated the holes on the points...

I machined up this reed valve engine breather for the TX650. The petal was half of a petal from a generic reed valve I bought on ebay. The rest I machined up on the mill. Reed valve breathers allow air in the crankcase to be expelled on the pistons downstroke and drastically slow the flow of...

Here's some pics of the fuel distributor build. This thing I'd great, neatens up the fuel hoses, makes them easy to get to and levels the fuel in the tank ensuring one carb doesn't starve when level gets low.

Here;s some pics of the bike I've been building, almost finished, just needs some tyres and the seat covered. I've also included a link to a video of the bike running and being synced. I turned the adjusting screws the wrong way a few times. But I'm sure you all know how eaily us old blokes...

I changed to VM carbs on the XS650 some time ago and only had pod filters on them. Pod filters look ok but do nothing for eficient induction. so I buit two new pancake style air filters. The base plate was turned up from a solid lump of 101.6mm aluminium then shrunk over the carb bell mouths...

I machined this line block the other day to replace the original. The original system has a steel pipe connected to the calliper, and a hose between that and the line block. Up top a steel tube was attached to the top of the line block and a hose connected that to the master cylinder. A five...

I've designed and put together a couple of much simplified harness' one for lights, the other for ignition, minus stuff I don't require, neutral light and so on. But still the spaghetti bucket lived up to it's name. I dislike untidy with a vengeance so made a bracket that sits inside the...

The coil on the TX went kaput, so I sent off for another CB 750 coil. It arrived yesterday so I went to install it only to find it didn't fit' the bracket I made a while back, the mounting holes on the new coil are 10mm closer together. Not much choice so I made another mounting bracket. Being...

I have chronic RA so the clutch lever on the bike is too heavy to use comfortably, so I put the law of the lever to work. The clutch lever's distance from pivot point to ****** centre is 30mm, whereas the clutch actuator lever's distance from screw, or pivot point, to ****** centre is 35mm, so...

I broke the brass adjuster on the left hand VM, so had to make a new one. Instead of a hex head I knurled the head so I don't have to mess around with an 8mm spanner when adjusting. As you can see, the thread isn't much chop, the only M6 x .75 die I had was a non split die and carbon steel so...

Nobody does anything properly these days. I bought some VMs a month or so ago and found the cable ends that sit in the adjusters on top of the carbs are a very sloppy fit inside the brass adjusters, so today I pulled them out and took some measurements. The hole in the brass adjuster where the...

I've been messing around with chain adjusters the last few days: I made a fabricated one from ally and stainless which didn't look too bad, then a snail cam which looked ****** awful then a billet one. The billet chain adjuster won, so I made a second one and bolted them up.

I finally had a win. Initially I made the adjuster with a 15mm slot to fit over the swingarm axle mounts. That didn't work too well, scratched the hell out of the paintwork. Next I tried putting a step in the slot, 15mm where the axle slips through and 16mm for the rest, but couldn't get a...

The BS38 carbs are gone. These are SU type carbs, comprising a butterfly and a slide and needle operated by vacuum, a totally ridiculous design in my view. Anyway, the diaphragms being 46 years old, started developing tiny pinholes. I plugged a few with Sikaflex, but they just kept coming. Yo...

I bought some round slide VMs in kit form, they come with extra jets, cables , manifolds and rubber boots for mounting. The kit is put together as a kit expressly for the XS650. However, when I mounted them on the bike I found I had to tilt the carbs over quite a bit for the carb cables to...

I have some VM round slides coming next week. I've read the cable interferes with the petcock, standard fare is to tilt the carbs inwards at the top to fix the problem, but, that's a bit too rough for my liking, so to circumvent the problem I made up these two 20mm spacers. Hopefully, these...

Around the mid 1980s, I'd had enough of pushing lawn mowers around so decided to build a small ride on mower. Hunting through the rubbish tips in the area, I found a 24" mower blade cover and seat. I also scavenged half a dozen Briggs and Stratton motors in various states of 'buggered'...

I made and rode recumbent bikes and trikes for years. In all, I built 12 recumbents, three two wheelers, nine trikes. Recumbents are seriously fast, particularly the two wheelers. They were banned from competition back around 1930, the ban still applies. The first two pictures are of a...