Yamaha X650 Manuel utilisateur

Background

The 2012 Storm is the newest conversion kit in the world

for the 650 Yamaha. The Storm is conceived as a quick

makeover for 1977 to 1981 Specials and Standards from

1974 to 1979. The 1983 model should be avoided

because too many parts are black unless you are doing a

black themed bike…and that model has a zillion wheel

spokes and is just too “out there.” The conversion can be

made in about 3 hours. The only hard part is whacking off

junk on the rear seat loop. Please note, the loop stays

put. You don’t have to paint the body because it comes in

orange. Black or white bodies are optional for a tiny up-

charge. If you are going to paint your body, order it in

white.

Building tips

Here are some things I did to my showcase bike that you

may want to do too.

Front brake caliper, remove black paint and polish

the aluminum

Get new spokes-they are cheap from 650 Central*

(about 30 bucks per wheel).

When your wheels are apart, paint the inside of the

rims and hubs for an extra touch of color

Front rotor, have Kevin Rickbeil* drill and swirl

polish the rotor face

Buy shocks with different colored bodies and

springs, all chrome stock shocks are boring

* see suppliers list

Part Suppliers

2 into 2 chrome upswept Ascot megaphone exhaust

Michael Morse

650 Central/Vintage Brake

15069 Lupine Lane

Sonora, CA 95370

209-533-4336

[email protected]

Michael is a Mike’s XS dealer and I prefer dealing with him

because he will actually talk to you, they won’t.

Swirl polished and loop drilled rotors

(Also jeweled engines)

Kevin Rickbeil

43065 County Road One

Rice, MN 56367

320-393-3062

[email protected]

Yamaha parts, old & new

Barney Heath

OffXS 650 Yamaha Parts

501 Milani Dr.

Ukiah, CA 95482

707-272-2151

[email protected]

CONTENTS

1. Frame preparation………………………………….3

2. Body installation……………………………………4

3. Vinyl graphic installation……………………….....4

4. Accessories…………………………………………...5

5. 16” rear wheel problem with Specials……………6

6. Warranty…………………………………………….6

7. Contact me………………………………………....6

YAMAHA X650 STORM ASSEMBLY MANUAL

Words by Phil Little

Edition 1 • January 2013

1. Frame preparation

You should be able to prep your frame in a single day. If

you are lazy or do not have metal working skills or tools,

hire a local fabricator.

Step one-Easy/fast conversion

Remove stock seat, sissy bar with taillight and rear

fender. There are protrusions on the seat rails/rear loop

that must be removed to permit the tail piece to fit. Those

pieces are; front seat mount gate (on Specials), upper

side cover mounts, flat cushion rests at the back of the

rear loop and seat lock/helmet lock. Cut ‘em off, grind

them smooth and hit them with a can of black paint.

Nobody will see the quality of your work.

Use a cut-off wheel and grind

off the upright “gate” which

was the mount for the front of

the stock Special seat.

Cut off the upper side cover

mounts on both sides.

Cut off seat supports seen

ahead of fender mount.

Cut off seat supports on rear

loop but save loop.

Get rid of the seat lock and

helmet lock. All this would

show below the X650 tail.

Step two on Specials

Upper shock mount stud on Specials. The threads on

these studs are extra long to accommodate the sissy bar

and shocks. Since the sissy bar is history, you have to

shorten the stud. Get a 10mm x 1.25 thread die and cut

new threads back to the unthreaded base. Cut off

unneeded part of stud. Dab a little clear paint over end to

retard rust

Step three (this is elective)

I’m going to assume you’ll

want to use the 650 Central

Ascot exhaust system. Don’t

modify the right side

pipe/passenger mount but

remove the complete left side-you don’t need this thing

hanging unused out in space.

Step four (aesthetic change)

Remove the center stand and mounts from the frame

Step five (for the purist)

I went overboard in dealing with the fender/signal mount

bracket on the sides of the rear loop. I felt this bracket

showed too much metal beneath the rear tail. I minimized

this piece with a grinder and much labor. I mounted

aftermarket signals on a tab which mounted to upper

shock stud.

You may not want to do all

this work. Don’t worry about

it. Just leave the bracket

untouched and use your

stock signals.

Dress all your removal sites

with a fine grit disc and

repaint the frame black.

Aerosol black paint will work

fine-no one will see these

alteration sites

2. Body installation

Mounting the tank

Slip your stock cushions over the rubber studs I

mounted under your tank

Connect fuel lines and in-line filters

Slide the tank on as you would the stock tank. Rear

tank hole fits on frame stud

Connect line to carbs

Tank is installs before the tail

Mounting the tail

Install tail piece and guide on the ½” hole (rear tank

mount post). Trial fit tail. If binding with tank occurs

simply grind away a bit of hole, probably on the

leading edge of the hole. Shim to get a flush fit

between tank and tail

This is tricky –follow closely

A. With tank and tail on the bike, center the tail.

You’ll notice a small drill point about ½ way

back on top of the tail. Lift the tail off to see

where you are going to drill your mounting

hole.

B. Reinstall tail. Now drill a 1/16” hole through

the drill point and into frame.

C. Pop off the tail and look at your drill mark. Is

there enough frame material around the drill

mark for a 25/64” hole? If not make a new

hole with the 1/16” drill.

D. Pop off the tail again. Ultimately you will

need 25/64” hole. Don’t start drilling with this

big drill. Start the hole with ever increasing

drill sizes up to 25/64.”

E. Warning

Just below the surface you are drilling

through is another frame piece BUT this

piece is at an angle. If you are not careful,

your drill is going to be deflected. You want a

straight hole for the threaded insert I have

provided you.

F. You now have a 25/64” hole in your frame

and the tail is on the bench over there.

Threaded insert. Find the nifty little assembly which

is a thread-zert with a 5/16” nut and ¼-20 bolt

holding it all together. Shove the thread-zert into

the frame hole and make sure its flush on the

frame. Hold the 5/16” nut with ½” wrench. Start

tightening the ¼-20 bolt with a 7/16” wrench. What

you are doing is squeezing the thread-zert so it fills

the hole and swells out underneath. This will lock

the threads into the frame. Tighten until the

resistance increases. Overtighten beyond this point

and you’ll distort the threads and you’ll have to

chase them with a ¼-20 bit. This your anchor the

rear of the tail. Save my little tool pieces if the zert

loosens up-you can just crank on it again.

Warning

I suspect the two tail mounting places may not be

strong enough to carry a passenger—so don’t

unless you mount the tail more solidly.

When you mount the tail to the frame use red

Loctite on front and rear bolts. Use Loctite on the

6mm bolt which holds the rear of the tank and front

of the tail in place. Make sure you secure the two

body parts with a washer wider that the hole. I

wouldn’t over tighten either of these two bolts or

you may crack the fiberglass.

These two mounts will hold your tail in place. The

fender is shaped to sit on the frame for weight

support.

The seat cushion mounts with Velcro (supplied)

3. Vinyl graphic installation

You have only two approaches for applying graphics.

They are very difficult to apply. The problem is lining up

long skinny graphics over tank and tail. Do not try it

yourself-it’s just extremely difficult to do it without

misaligning one of the four parts. If you get 3 of the 4

right-what do you do? You’d have to call for another of

the botched vinyl parts. Option one-pay me to do it.

Option two-pay your sign company to do it. You can

bitch at me/them if they screw up.

4. Accessories

Taillight

I was extremely lucky to find these brake/taillight fixtures.

They are minimal, good looking and cheap…and naturally

illegal as heck. No one else offers them. Just position my

nifty taillight over the holes in the stock fender, drill holes

and bolt the light in place. This light is wired for light and

brake light.

WARNING

This light could contribute to your untimely death or

permanent injury. It does not have the DOT or SAE

requirement for square inches of illumination for

adequate motorist communication. Don’t buy it if you

are concerned or rig up additional lighting like

converting the turn signals into additional

brake/light/signals

Tarozzi fork brace (ter-oz-ee)

These Italian braces are top quality pieces. They are

designed for strength and ease of installation. The black

color is what happens when aluminum is heat treated for

toughness. I recommend you paint it silver to make it less

dominant when surrounded by the chrome fender and

shiny forks. Heck you can leave yours black or paint it

orange or whatever color. It fits; SR500 1980-1995,

XS650 1977-81, XS650SE 1980-1981 all with 35mm

tubes x 55mm sliders

Slide your black rubber dust caps up the fork tubes

Install right and left tube clamps. Don’t tighten cap

screws, just use light finger pressure

Install cross plate but don’t tighten

Now tighten screws on tube clamps. LocTite is a

good idea on the threads

Lastly tighten the four screws (with LocTite) in the

cross plate but do so in an X pattern-Ie: screw 1, 3,

2 and 4 and repeat 1, 3, 2 and 4 until tight

Slide dust caps down on to brace collars [yer done

Dude]

NOTE: I found the Tarozzi brace I installed on my bike

didn’t seat flush with top of sliders. The beveled surface

of brace contacted fender and didn’t allow it to seat. If you

discover the same-you will have to grind on the beveled

brace surface. I wish I knew why this was the case with a

product that has been around for more than 20 years. It

may be just a sometimes thing. We’ll see. I just started

selling theses things

Frame beauty plates

The frame section of a

Yamaha 650 frame

where the foot pegs

and axle are located is

an eye-sore on all 650

models. These frame

plates are shaped to

hug the frame then

they flair out to meet

the bottom edge of the

Storm tail piece and to clear the bolt heads which hold

the rear brake reservoir to the frame. Notice how I had

them start at that two holed bracket that’s on all frames,

then gracefully taper up to the bottom of the side panel.

Drove my fabricator nuts trying to craft the shapes and

bends but it worked. Sorry these aren’t cheap but that’s

the price of laser cutting.

These plates are 1/8” aluminum. You could give them a

brushed finish or polish them if you want them to stand

out. I didn’t so I got a can of dark pebble tone and

sprayed them. The color and texture doesn’t match the

frame so in a subtle way they are noticeable. You may

find a slight variance between the top of the beauty plates

and the bottom edge of the tail side panels. Before you

paint or polish the plates, you may want to use a big

Crescent wrench to tweak the plates into alignment. Use

a section of rubber inner tube as a cushion between

wrench and plate

There is a locking plate underneath the axle nut. With it in

place there is a clearance problem with my plates. So I

am (gasp) going to suggest you remove it. If you decide

to do this, clean the axle threads with lacquer thinner and

secure the nut with LocTite high strength thread locker-

the red stuff, not blue. If you don’t like this idea, drill a

hole in the axle and nut and run a cotter key through

both. Or carve clearance in the plate.

WARNING What I suggest is potentially dangerous

and could kill you in an agonizing death as great big

trucks run over you.

Believe it or not, there were variances in Yamaha’s

production line. The foot peg studs and other holes in my

plates may not line up properly. I had the plates made on

one frame and they didn’t fit my other frame. Go figger.

Just take a rat tail file and make the necessary

adjustments.

Chrome signals

I don’t like the legal stock signals-just too big and

noticeable. You can order these signal ‘markers’ and use

them instead. Of course not legal (read dangerous)

Left side license plate holder

A license plate assembly on the rear fender creates

visual junk. So I offer a left side holder which mounts the

plate vertically on the upper left shock stud. Again illegal!

Handle bars

I was able to find these bars at a very reasonable price. I

call them ‘low western’ bars. Brit bikes of the 70s came

here with nicely bent bars but they had too great a rise.

They were called Western Bars, Mine are lower and a tad

more comfortable

Storm exhaust

Get the Ascot System like on my bike from 650 Central.

5. That small 16” rear wheel issue with

Specials

I designed the Storm for all those Specials still out there.

Sure Storm fits the Standards too. A 16” rear wheel won’t

be the best look for the Storm but if you are on a budget-

don’t worry, just build. An 18” or 19” would be more

preferable. If you are starting with a Standard you have

no rear wheel problems. Here are your options to get a

taller rear wheel on a Special.

The Specials came with three types of 16” rear wheels.

1978-1980 cast with disc

1980-1981 36 spoke wheel with drum

1982-1983 48 spoke wheel with drum

1978-1980 cast with disc

I think with this wheel configuration your only have two

choices are; 1) stay with 16” or 2) buy Robert Ward’s 19”

rear wheel conversion kit-OmarsDTR.com. This kit will

allow you to bolt-on a 19” cast front wheel and use the

same rear brake system.

1980-1981 wire wheel 16” with drum-36 spokes

This configuration gives you a fightin’ chance. Get an 18”

rim and lace it to your hub.

1982-1983 48 spoke wheel with drum

Don’t know about you but I was never crazy about these

too-fancy more-than-normal spoked wheels. I think

Yamaha caught the chopper craze late in the game and

produced lousy looking wheels. Try and avoid these

Specials if you can. If you bought one these cheap

enough you could do a total Standard wheel swap out

and be fine

6. Warranty

As with all other products I make-they do not have

warranties. When I screw up-I make the customer whole.

Period!

7. Contact me

Phil Little

952-935-8833 work

952-607-6063 cell

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