1979 Yamaha XT500 Street Tracker



She Looks Like She Just Rolled Off the Showroom Floor!

This XT500 had spent many years just sitting in a garage awaiting the right folks to cross paths with her - she desperately needed someone to breath life back in to her!  Her prayers were answered when her previous owner decided to place her on Craigslist and the BBR Brothers came across the ad!  And luckily, she was local to the BBR shop!  


We were able to get her fired-up after all of those years and since she only had 4,500 original miles on her, we knew the XT500 had many years of life left in her!  We did not go crazy with the modifications, just some BBR touches that help to preserve the classic & iconic bike she is with a more custom look & feel.  We decided to go with a vintage red/white/black color scheme reminiscent of the vintage Yamaha race bikes from the 60's & 70's.  We also changed out her carburetor to a period correct TT500 carb (1978 model).  She now runs beautifully, starts right up with a just few kicks - she runs her ass off in any gear at any RPM as you can see/hear in the YouTube videos to the right.  For a 1979 Thumper, she still has some balls and will definitely give you that grin when you whack open her throttle!


We believe she turned out to be an awesome build ... our friends and peers love the bike for sure!  We know she will make the next owner very happy ... especially when he/she throws their leg over this unique XT500 and heads down the road on her!  Thank you for checking her out!  See some of the build highlights below:

Some Highlights of this Build:

    • custom fabricated sheet metal rear tail/seat section using 16 gauge for seat pan and 18 gauge for sides/rear section (seat height is now 29 ¾”)
    • custom fabricated 1¾” exhaust system (thanks to raw exhaust piping from our friends at BiltWell) with black header wrap
    • Shorty reverse megaphone muffler with baffle (repacked with higher grade baffle material and double wrapped)
    • new battery
    • new All-Balls fork seals and PJ1 15W fork oil
    • new front/rear Shinko SR244 Tires (excellent reviews/ratings 70/30 street/dirt 4-ply load rating) with new tubes/rim strips
    • new Uni-Filter Foam Air Filter fully oiled
    • new engine oil and filter
    • new higher performance rear shocks
    • new fork gators
    • new super-bike handle-bars
    • new mini-turn signals
    • new wide-eye cat-eye tail light with custom fabricated license place bracket
    • new front & rear brake shoes
    • new bar-end mirrors
    • new RK heavy duty X-Ring gold chain
    • new satin black mini-Tach & Speedo
    • custom dash/indicator panel with operating LED’s (red is a spare as the XT500 did not come stock with an oil pressure light)
    • new dense/water proof ¾” seat foam
    • custom shaped front fender
    • PPG Epoxy direct to metal primer used first on all bare metal parts
    • engine painted with a 2-part urethane satin black heat paint (rated to 650°F)
    • Cardinal Red and Olympic White paint scheme with PPG Deltron Gloss Clear on all tins
    • the BBR graphic on the seat pan are vinyl stickers on top of the clear coat and can be removed for more personal touches/graphics or kept plain
    • new NGK spark plug
    • rebuilt petcock, new fuel lines and fuel filter
    • ...etc. with lots of TLC invested to get her to this stage!
Picture
Go back to THE BIKES