'72 CB500

jvandyke

Been Around the Block
Here's where I ended up so far. It's in it's "rat" phase at the moment. I hope to tear it down and paint and polish. Would like to mount a front fender as a hugger on the rear wheel and relocate the brake light there, or at least see how that looks. Polish all the aluminum to a high shine, black out the rims and polish the daylights out of the spokes, get the paint to a nice satin finish.
But here it is at the moment.
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Highlights;
cell phone holder (custom designed and 3-D printed) for speedo/odometer/gps/tunes off my iPhone
idiot lights embedded in handle bar
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blinkers (cheapies from ebay) double as running lights, I made LEDS to fit in them
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made some clear abs 3-D printed covers (blacked out some of it) for the cut frame tubes and put red LEDs in there as secondary brake lights
also shows the brackets I made to hold the blinkers/running lights)
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rear brake was made from stock lever cut and flipped up, retained return spring/stop/light switch
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seat
had buddy cut rough shape in aluminum plate, cut foam, rigged up attachment method, rode a few hundred miles, gave whole thing to a cousins to make me a seat cover, after 2 weeks cousin admitted to not even looking at it yet, nice
so I made a whole new seat and hand sewed my own seat cover, will clean it up a bit yet it turned out pretty good for a temporary solution, better then riding on raw foam which I had been doing. Foam (enough for 2 seats) $10, vinyl for about 5 seats $17, time, well, we don't count the time it took to hand sew pleats and all that, first try, never tried nothing like this before, I'm impressed with myself
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I love the ride, just frigg'n love it. I can't get enough of it, my wrists hurt a bit yet but I'm finding new positions and such is helping. I just frigg'n love the thing.

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" I just frigg'n love the thing." That's really all that matters mang... keep on truckin and buckin :eek:
 
Nice. I'm impressed as well with your seamstress abilities. It's great that you love the ride. I love it too. Keep up the great work brother.


Yeah Son!
 
the seat turned out surprisingly well, it's "chunkier" than I envisioned it but since I made it all myself, I can tweak it until I like it, I made it a bit thicker than the traditional brat slab for comfort and to secure my butt, it rides nice. I should have secured more of the stitching but is not a huge deal to pull it off and redo it. Still hoping my cousin gets off his unemployed butt and sews up a seat cover that is a bit "better' but until then, I'm okay with it.
 
I couldn't stand the wrist pain with the clip on bars two seasons back, ran super bike bars this past season and that combo was really nice. Almost found the perfect formula for my seat pan (like Goldilocks, first too soft, than too hard, third try will hopefully be "just right" will end up thinner then pictured but firmer).
Bike is needing new rubber so now I'm researching spokes since this will be the time to redo the wheels. Thinking black rims, shiny spokes (either new or polished old??) polished hubs, or maybe blacked out.....and, yes WHITE WALLS
Ditching the clip ons meant return to triple tree clamp and OEM (though whitefaced) gauges and standard idiot lights, maybe not quite as "cool" but at least i can ride it now.

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Decided to try a front fender on the rear and home made whitewalls. kinda like it
 

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