“NMDA”: My first commissioned build
In the fall of 2018, Chris Grannen (Chicago, IL) was approached by a friend who had seen his personal builds and asked if Chris would help him rehab his XS650 cafe bike. The inquiring friend wanted to add turn signals, update the seat situation a little bit, clean up the handlebars, and make the exhaust a little prettier. The bike was purchased after someone else had already done a cafe conversion to it…and seldom rode it. Grannen’s buddy offered up a budget that he’d be willing to invest in the bike, and then, in a stroke of accidental genius, gave Chris the creative freedom and trust to do whatever he thought would be useful. “I had recently finished doing a frame-up custom rebuild on my 1974 Harley Sportster”, explains Grannen, “and the chance to have a modest project with a paying client seemed like a perfect way to spend winter”.
Once Chris began disassembling and inspecting, the task sheet filled up very quickly, as the corner-cutting of the previous customizer became more and more evident.
“I wanted to create a bada** looking bike for him, but, more importantly, the build would have to be reliable, safe, intentional, clean, and thorough. I wanted the finished product to last for a long time, not just be a bike that gets passed to new owners who keep cutting into it and modifying it until it finds its way to a junkyard or, worse, the back of a dusty suburban garage to languish for a decade. I replaced just about every single bolt, nut, and washer with stainless steel. Every surface was polished or repainted. All of the consumable and rubber parts were replaced. The front forks were rebuilt to top form and function, accompanied by new tires. If NOS hard parts were available, they were replaced if rebuilding was not economical, such as the kickstarter and brake components. Efforts were made to re-use as much as possible on the bike to keep costs down, but because Mikes XS has such a strong selection of affordable, quality parts, it was easy insurance to just replace parts that were questionable.”
The electrical design is entirely new with all fresh copper. Chris was able to retain many electrical parts from previous builds (such as Shorai Lithium battery, stator, and coil), but added more functionalities. A KOSO digital multifunction speedometer/tachometer combination was installed, along with a new ignition switch with a starter switch on the key. To help beef up this XS650’s custom prowess, 2 USB plugs and a voltmeter are hidden on the triple trees.
For simplicity, Chris wanted to wire the headlight to be always “on”, but while wiring, he found that the aftermarket headlight had a cool daytime-running white halo LED functionality that looks wicked and had to be retained! To keep the handlebars clean, the headlight switch is a tiny switch on the steering stem nut. All of the electric bits are hidden behind the seat in the cowl or under the fuel tank, and any visible wiring is dressed in black, braided sheathing. Very sharp.
The frame was stripped down, welded, ground smooth (lots of messy tab cutting from the previous owner), lightly modified as to accommodate new gas tank mounts, new exhaust mounts, and to re-style the rear hoop for the new tail section. The angle of the gas tank was flattened from a cruiser-type posture to a cafe-type stance, parallel to the wheelbase. The gas tank was painted black, but after the build was finished, a pinhole leak exposed itself on the underside, and he had to give the freshly painted tank a POR-15 treatment without hurting the finish. Stressful! The frame, swingarm, and all other small parts were painted black, as well. The engine was painted with a black “sparkle” job. The exhaust pipes got wrapped, while the carburetors were soda-blasted to remove the awful black rattle can paint job, and then, fully rebuilt.
“The tail section was where I really lost my a** on this bike”, admits Grannen. “I had never fabricated any fiberglass body piece from scratch before. I have easily over 100 hours into that part of the build alone, almost all of which were in the depths of the Chicago winter, in a shop not well-loved for its heat!” Chris elected to use epoxy resin and chopped fiberglass mat over a shaped-and-sanded block of foam, and it took a LOT of trial and error to get that first foam piece correct. “In the end, it came out better than I could have imagined. It is 100% homemade and a true one-of-a-kind piece.”
The battery, regulator, fuses, solenoid, relays, and flasher are all hidden inside the tail behind the seat and mounted on a flat, removable fiberglass panel for ease of servicing. The seat is a custom-made stitched leather seat made by a boat shop outside the city. “That was a 4-month odyssey to find the proper person to make the seat, but the guy, Dave, knocked it out of the park.”
Chris wanted to have some kind of a personalized touch to the bike. The customer is a neurological researcher at a local hospital, so the “NMDA” tank badge was 3D printed to imitate the YAMAHA lettering style, but pay tribute to the specific neurochemical that he studies.
The build took mostly about 4 months, but then another 8-10 to finally finish up all of the loose ends and feel DONE. Alec Ozawa, a photographer friend of Grannen’s, came by the shop in January 2020 and snapped some proper photos of it before it set out into the wilderness on its own.
“In the end, I am incredibly proud of how the bike came out. I blew through every last dime of the customer’s budget (and then some) on parts and outside labor (paint, custom seat), but I feel like the result speaks for itself.
Excellent work, Chris and thank you for choosing Mikes XS to assist in bringing this vintage TX650 back to life!
Mikes XS Parts List
Kickstarter Assembly (fits 1970 – 1973 XS650 models)
Front Sprocket (17-tooth / 530 chain)
Rear Sprocket (32-tooth / 530 chain)
XS650 Engine Top Fastener Kit (fits: 1972 – 1984 XS650 models)
Petcock Rebuild Kit (fits: 1973 – 1977 models)
For more on this build and others from Grannen, click here
For more work by photographer Alec Ozawa, click here
