Advice on custom cafe build

[D-stoorm]

Hey guy's I'm a college student who ones a xs400 for school and just picked up a 650 (non-running) for a hundred bucks! The bike is in excellent condition and I think will not run due to varnished gas in the carbs. But now that I have two bikes I want to turn one of the bikes into a cafe/tracker bike! Since I'm new to the idea I was just wondering if i could get some advice for some experienced guys on where I could buy parts of that nature and possibly a list of some of the begging major parts needed (Seat, tank, front forks, etc.) any information would be very helpful!

Something similar to this.

 

[drewpy]

try Omar's, they have both types for modding into a tracker or Cafe

 

[Charles]

You can buy that exact tail from the Wrenchmonkees site.

http://www.bricksite.com/wrenchmonkees?id=195046&catalogue_selected=251296_9027#251296

The tank looks like a first gen XS400 tank.

 

[infafscottlio]

a friend of mine made his tail/seat pan out of an old dirt bike gas tank. he cut it in half hot dog style haha, and discarded the fat end of the tank and used the narrow end of the tank for his tail. he then cut the bottom of the tank off. welded a cut to shape piece of sheet metal onto the gap that is left towards the front of the tailpiece. made a perfect cafe looking tail piece, then he welded to it a seat pan that was machined out of some sort of metal probably sheet metal, then put a few beads down the length of the pan to make it more sturdy. then painted, padded and wrapped the seat with whatever leather he ended up choosing, that i do not know.

 

[STEVESKLT250]

The tank is a first gen 400, you can also get XS500 tanks on ebay for pretty reasonable, they are similar in shape to the 400's, the 400 has a single rear mount and petcock where as the 500 has dual rear mounts and dual petcocks, they also share the same cap. You could use it stock or with some metal fab work it can be modified into a GP style tank w/knee cut-outs like the one on my 400 build. The 500 tank will drop right onto the 400 front mounts, but the coils will have to be moved off the backbone as they will not fit under the 500 tank, mine will be tucked up under the front edge of the tank out of site still.
http://www.xs400.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6992

 

[OleDoc]

check out post Cafe racer seat by Herm from dime city by large in how to section