Honda XL500 Chopper in 3 weeks!? Dirtbag Challenge 2020!

For this year’s Dirtbag I built a hard tail out of an absolute hunk of junk 1979 Honda XL500s.
The bike was listed at 1500 bucks. I was told it needed a little TLC and had a small oil leak but ran well and was in pretty good shape. The top end had even been rebuilt! When I went to see it, however, the first thing I said was "This is not a 1500 dollar bike."
It leaked oil. Like, everywhere, from everywhere. Every single gasket. The engine and entire back half of the bike were saturated. The brake light had fallen off, unbeknownst to the owner, on the ride over to our meeting location. Some sort of flex tubing exhaust had been tack welded onto the header. One bolt was backing itself out of the valve cover and I removed it by hand, as I laughed at the state of the bike. I later discovered that bolt had been stripped. The front tire was roached. The clutch slipped badly. The chain was dead. And so on and so on...
I was very, very close to just walking away. I had little time left to complete a build. But that was also partially why I didn't. I was already there looking at a potential bike.
I explained my position and how much work and money the bike was going to take. The owner understood and needed it gone, eventually offering it to me for $500. Even at that price, I almost walked away, simply due to lack of time. I literally had three weekends to work on the thing before the Dirtbag. And I likely had to swap the motor...but he did have a clean title...
So after staring at it for a long while and shaking my head, I ended up countering with $400 and that was that.
You might think that I stole it from the guy, but my offer was for good reason. The bike honestly just got worse and worse the more I looked at and wrenched on the thing. There were so many things wrong with it and I just kept finding more issues. There was actually a hole in the case (oil geyser!) and an awful weld job on the cylinder, so I ended up buying a motor for around $600.
But I was finally able to get it sorted in the end (barely) and finished the Dirtbag weekend ride with about 650 miles under my belt (I had to ride to San Francisco and then from our camp on the North coast above Fort Bragg).
The bike rattled out the gear shift seal and broke the mount on the cheesy headlight, but other than that, she was solid! Even through all the offroading we did. Overall, this is the stuff that makes the Dirtbag Challenge a challenge, and such a fun event to do. You should probably try it.

[@madjack_757]

Dude that bike is sweet! I picked up an 82' XL500 last winter that i've been working on all year. I picked it up for a little over 2k and gave it a $h1tload of TLC and now I got her dialed in and ripping hard. I got a few vids of up right now but it is so crazy to see someone change that bike into an entirely new style!

[@themotofirm]

Thank you! I sorta want a normal one, although I do have a little xl185.
Glad you got yours dialed

[@ndrseven497]

Nice job man, that's how it's done!

[@shampoo-supernova]

Looks and sounds cracking.

[@themotofirm]

Thanks dude

[@kennethjohnson7893]

Love to see this kind of thing. Im building a cb450 hard tail, long fork chop with a xl250 motor in it. Glad to see other people using single cylinders

[@Alanbataar]

Good build, well-deserved award.

[@themotofirm]

Thank you sir, hope the foot is doing better these days

[@Alanbataar]

@@themotofirm Of course. I wound up with plate and screws, fused joints. Going to the doc tomorrow to get the OK to bear weight on it. I'm about damn sick of crutches.

[@lawsyshawty]

This is sick!

[@themotofirm]

Thanks 🙏

[@johndawkins7823]

Great vision seeing that through.

[@themotofirm]

Thanks, it was a fun one ⚡️

[@Roolis77]

I am also switching from V to a singles now... Cool build!! What mufler was that?

[@themotofirm]

Just a no name Amazon one, didn’t do a whole lot of muffling!

[@abaca3989]

Dirtbag build with money lol

[@themotofirm]

Some. 2000 max budget, including the bike purchase. I was at about 1500, mostly because of swapping the motor.