My mates brother had one with an XR piston, cam and carb fitted. I remember him overtaking me doing 50 on the back wheel. The 500 thumper era was fun. Great bike worthy of repair.

Got mine from very similar circumstances, from a Mennonite farm in Colorado. Rotten to the gills and rebuilt it. Miss that bike, couldn't take it with me when I moved and gave it to my buddys kid. Sweet.

Very useful step by step tutorial, thanks

Nice find - looking forward to future videos

Mate i envy you finding these beutiful bikes people in the uk still cling to the old English bikes that were trully crap you pushed them more times than you rode them

KILLER barn find man!! I've been working on the 1982 model of this bike on my channel actually and it has a super similar story to your bike. I met up with a guy from FB marketplace who bought the bike from the original owner. The original owner bought the bike hurt his knee and then sat the bike in the corner of his shop for 20 years and the next guy pretty much did the same! I found it with 6200 miles on and missing no parts. Those bug nests are so common though! I found that by working thru the electrical system and cleaning all contact points from dirt and bug remains, I was able to get rid of all the electrical problems I had. Keep up the awesome videos man!

Restoring the exact same bike at the moment this helps me a lot! Can’t wait for part 2

Great find ,looking forward to this project love the old XL s good luck with it , and it's got the makings of a great bike.

Great project to do my favourite bike looking forward to see how you go with your XL500s great vid.

Looks like a fun project...similar to one I'm finishing up. I acquired a 1982 XL500R that now has been sitting in pieces for 18 years. I'm finally going to try and start it this week. I'll be posting a video on my channel....but not as detailed as yours. Good luck with it!

An easy way to loosen seized up cables is squirt your penetrating oil up at the handlebars and work the throttle back and forth. It'll make its way down to the carb eventually and give ya some much needed movement. I've got an 85 xl600r I've been restoring. Good video I Subbed!!

New to your channel, love how you resurrect old Hondas, my first bike was a Honda XL-185s , all these old Hondas are awesome bikes, keep up the great work sir, will check in to see how this XL-500 is coming along,HAGD

I would get it properly repaired, nothing worse than crossing your fingers and hoping for the best!

Ive got an 81 XL500s i got with 9k miles and complete. Title and original paperwork. Im having a problem with the bike leaking oil and smoking. Thing runs fine but smokes after 15 mins. Looks like its coming from the exhaust seal maybe but it looks wet near one of the head bolts. I heard the threads like to come out and need helicoil. Lmk

That should make a killer old trail bike for you. Are you just putting it back into service or doing anything cosmetics to it as well? Frustrating with the tank. My xl250 tank is seeping around the back bracket as well. Ill be curious to see what you end up doing since im not sure how im going to repair mine either.

I want that engine

Where do you get your parts at ????