Custom Trees – XS650 Goes Honda XR250!

I’ve got a friend named Bill.   Bill is the kind of guy that gets the craziest ideas in his head and will send you an email at 3:00AM asking about possibilities and techniques to create his crazy ideas…   I like Bill.   Bill is also the kind of guy you want to Bench Race with, even if over the phone and he is several states away.   One day I got a package from Bill, and inside was several stators, flywheels and a set of triple trees from an XS650 and a set of Triple Trees from an XR250.   He also sent me a few camshafts to rephase, just as a gift.   I like Bill…

Well, the latest crazy Idea from Bill was to put a set of Honda XR250 Forks on an XS650 he is building.  To keep it simple, he wanted to reuse the tapered steering bearings and stock frame headtube from the XS650.  Armed with a set of calipers and a telephone, he was certain it would work, so he called me up, gave me some numbers, and the next thing you know, I’m machining down an XS650 Steering stem to be pressed into an XR250 Lower Tree.  To make the upper tree work, it looked like I would need a .039″ spacer to fit between the stem and the Upper tree, so I made one of those up real quick as well.   This is the kind of stuff I like doing, so if any of you other folks have crazy ideas you want to see happen, wait until about 3:00AM and send me an email.   I’m hoping Bill gets us some pics of this build soon.

 

 

Bill, good luck with the build, and shoot me some pics once you get the front end mocked up…