The Japanese Brat style craze seems to be sweeping the nation. I happen to like the styling of the XS650 brats and since I have a few laying around, I thought what the hell- Give it a try! Here's a few pics showing our progress:
Here's the before shot, showing the usual bare standard frame of our 1981 XS650 Special
Next, we take out the trusty sawzall, and cut the top rails at the welds in order to do the drop seat effect.
After cutting both rails out, I decided to just reverse the right and left rails, and turn them 180 degrees, giving the desired seat drop, and saving serious fab time and $$$:
Here's the finished product, just needing final MIG weld-up and finishing:
And finally- the bike, as it sits so far- needs some de-tabbing of all the unnecessary tabs, center stand, and other heavy things. The seat is a small bobber seat, mounted on new tabs. The seat drop requires a new battery box, and electrical system re-arrangement. She is sitting on short honda rebel shocks, which gets the bike down low!
Still a lot of work to do, but have no fear- it'll all be chronicled here!
