Hey guys,

Just another update. I’ve been cranking away on the bike, trying to tie up all the motor work so I can finish the rest of the bike for my April 1st deadline. I got to the magneto swap and the whole process is just pretty cool, so I decided to shoot a couple videos of it. You can find tons of info out there on the web about it – I’m not doing anything new in these videos by any means.

The 650 is a great motor, very well designed, but with a couple flaws. One of the biggest (in my opinion) is the charging system. bad regulator, contact rotor, wiring nightmare, etc. they break and often for no reason. no idle charge. Broken or not it’s probably a good idea to perform this swap. It involves using a banshee mounting bracket and flywheel, a stator from a couple of more modern bikes (there is a list floating around out there) and a 3 phase regulator.

Before we get started, I’d like to thank Hugh from Hugh’s hand built for make some wonderful aftermarket xs stuff. he provided the adapter plate and regulator for this swap. Keep it up my man. http://hughshandbuilt.blogspot.com/

Also, I’d like to thank Pete from Pamco (I think that’s his name – it’s his forum name at least) for the ignition system. No more CDI box waiting to fail me. my bike is running way better than before, and now it’s putting out 82,000 volts on spark. That allows me wider spark plug gap and a cleaner burn. check his stuff out at: http://www.yamahaxs650.com/

Anyway here’s the videos. Please bear with me, I’m not really a video making dude.

- XS banshee swap 1
- XS banshee swap 2
- XS banshee swap 3
- XS banshee swap 4

Cheers!

-Ludwig

This is another project I’ve been working on. It’s officially up and running now.

Since Erin and I never cook… ever, and we eat-out every meal, I thought this would be a fun website to start. Basically we go and review every place we eat out at in NZ.

Everything from fast food to fine dining, and then assign it a rating of 1-5 stars. Then when I pay the bill, I leave behind a business card with our logo, web address, and it says “You will be featured on our food review website”. So the restaurant people will be like “fuck” and check out the site to see what rating we gave them.

Check it out.
http://wedontcook.com/

-Ed

My cb500 is almost 100% finished up. I got my new set of Avon road runners on the other day, man what a difference new tires make!

I was still having issues with my clutch, it felt like shit, and it turns out my clutch push rod was broken. The clutch adjuster was also cracked. I got a new OEM clutch adjuster from bikebandit.com

CB500 clutch push rods are very very very hard to find on Ebay, but knowing honda double overs a lot of their parts, I figured another model must fit. It took a TON of googling but I found out that the cb500 uses the same clutch push rod as the cb450/cl450/cb500t, which made it much easier to find one ($20 on ebay). For future reference here is the part number – 22850-323-000

I had to take off the right side cover and then the clutch basket (the 4 bolts shown above) to get the broken push rod out, but it gave me a good excuse to change the oil and oil filter. I also put in a new air element. Man the bike is feeling awesome! So I rode it to the beach!

-Andrew

There’s a cycle storage place here in Auckland, NZ called “Bike Vault”. Basically it’s a place to store expensive motorcycles if you don’t have a garage.

Max’s cousin Colin is buddies with one of the older guys who runs it, so, one day Colin and I stopped over and they gave me a tour. It’s real legit inside. It looks like a newly built warehouse that’s sectioned off as inner “closets” and there’s a work-space area. Entire floor is fresh concrete with “shop epoxy coating” so if you spill shit, it doesn’t matter. Super nice and clean inside. Cycle mechanics wet dream i’d imagine.

Look at this for a better explanation of their idea. It’s pretty rad.

When I was there, I saw a ton of mint classic cycles. They had some really rare old cycles, including:
- Honda CX650 turbo,
- Honda CBX
- ton of old British stuff
- some race Ducati’s
- race Kawasaki’s

The guys who run this race older cycles in the “classic” division (or whatever the division is called) and they have a ton of crazy race parts for their old cycles. Pretty nuts. The one guy was showing me all their backup Kawasaki motors, everything’s custom. They make some of their own race parts.

- Take a look at their website.
- Also look at their Flickr for more pics of rad old cycles.

If and when you guys come visit me, this place, and also, Deus Ex Machina, are the 2 cycles spots that are a must-see. Both are within walking distance from my place.

-Ed

Last Sunday a few of us helped Mick sort out his SR’s wiring. The stock harness, in my opinion, is unnecessarily bulky with safety relays and switches. This inspired me to see if I could design something streamlined while still using the stock controls and dash gauge… this is what I came up with:

I found the stock diagram at the Philly Free Library. They have a decent selection of automotive and motorcycle manuals in their reference section. “Being a Yamaha owner, you obviously prefer a quality product”… These old shop manuals are awesome.

-Adam