brenguy

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Whats up everyone!? I just bought a 1980 xs400 II for turning into a cafe racer. My first question is if anyone can recommend how to go about getting a cafe hoop installed? There are a bunch of cafe hoops that are inexpensive and claim to fit the xs400.... I was planning on cutting the bar directly after where the shock mounts are because after that the tail tapers off and I would want straight lines.

Anyone have experience with these two items:

https://www.mikesxs.net/yamaha-xs650-legendary-cafe-seat-mounting-kit.html
https://www.mikesxs.net/yamaha-xs650-legendary-cafe-seat.html
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cafe-Racer...XS400R-XS650-XS750-XS750S-XS850-/122813874609
https://www.caferacerwebshop.com/en/yamaha-xs400-rear-loop.html
 
If you plan on using one of the seat plans, you could probably get away without using a seat hoop and just weld some flat stock off the back to keep it all together.

If you use a hoop, you will need to get slugs to connect the hoop before you weld it. I used a length of pipe that fit inside the frame and hoop tubes.

I may have some pics of my frame when I was building it, ill see if I can find them.
 
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I bought one off ebay that is similar to the one you shared only mine doesn't angle up. It was pretty nice but I had to tweak it some as I was welding it in to make it all good. I would do it again though as it wasn't that bad.
 
@NewHavenMike so the slugs.... am I supposed to somehow weld those in place? because otherwise they would just float around in the tubing no?

Yes drill some holes in both the frame and the hoop also gap the hoop and weld. The sander is your friend and will clean things up really nice. Just dont flat spot it.......hell sanding round is not hard but most people seem to mess it up......
 
You can see in my pic, I did drill holes in both the frame and the hoop. I also had to heat up the slugs and bend them slightly in order for everything to fit. I believe the holes drilled are called rose buds? Bending the tube and getting it all to fit right took some practice, and a few burns...

The slug was a piece of tubing that I had to buy 3 feet of on the web. I measured the ID of the frame and the ID of the hoop and they were both very very close. I was able to use 18mm OD tubing.

When It came time to clean up my welds. My little Lincoln did a pretty good job with the weld and I ended up just leaving the weld alone. The frame from the factory has some pretty rough looking welds on it already so it wasn't a concern for me. I painted the frame with a textured truck bed liner anyways that is holding up VERY nicely.

The goals I set for my bike never included it being a showroom queen that doesnt get ridden and only is ever seen in pictures. The bike is rough on the edges, and definitely gets ridden hard. Nearly all the bikes you see on some of the other café racer websites, never see the road and have countless dollars dumped into them and they still probably wont even start up.. I sometimes put over 250 miles a week on mine, including a 90 mile total highway commute for work.
 
It's good to hear that some of us do ride these bikes. I thought about starting a thread just for people to state how many miles they have put on there model bike. xs360, sohc xs400 and dohc xs400. I don't think many do much riding when they get them running.
 
@NewHavenMike what amperage of a welder did you use for this? I can tell you had a great quality lincoln. I'm planning to do the work in my garage (which I could pay an electrician to install a 220v) but i'm limited in what welders I can use. I was thinking of buying the Eastwood 135 to get the job done considering the motorcycle tubing should be less than a quarter inch thick?
 
Ive owned my 120v Lincoln flux core welder since I was about 10 years old. I didnt even have it on the max settings and I was able to get a nice flow.

That pic I posted is before I welded it all together

I had a build thread on this forum, but I used PhotoBucket for the pics and I lost a bunch of my old thread because PB went premium and basically seized 15 years worth of photos from me... I have to upload them from my phone.
 
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In these pics, you can see the frame just after i welded it and then stripped the paint off. In the other pic you can see how the paint came out when it was a rolling chassis.

You can just barely see the welds in both pics. Some of the factory welds were much worse looking than my own.
 
Any 110 machine should be fine for the frames on these things. I used a 220 machine but its what I have at the shop. I also used hard wire and gas as I am not a flux core fan but it works I just dont like the clean up.......and yes like Mike said some of the factory welds look like boogers :laugh2: the last frame I was cleaning them up and taking all the berries off the frame before powder coat......
 
I could only speak on Lincoln welders and i know Millers are both very good brands. The only two id consider looking. Those cheap welders are cheap and theyll probably overheat in a matter of seconds. Welding is still confusing for me too so maybe someone will have a better understanding of what all the numbers mean..

Id be more worried about getting the bike up to date and running first before i did any hacking. The last thing you should do right now is tear everything apart..

Get a set of carburetors, get the engine running and tuned up. Then i would proceed.
 
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