1980 Honda CB400T - Fugly to Cafe

Last summer I bought my first bike, a 1980 CB400T. My wife had been driving scooter for a couple years and she really wanted me to join in on the fun. I was into the idea but it was after I really started looking at café racers that I became sold. I’m into vintage anything, I need to stay busy with projects, and of course, I wanted to try riding.

So I found a 1980 CB400T with under 5,000 miles. Last summer was about fixing it up and laying plans for my café…needless to say I’ve learned a lot so far. The first thing I realized was that this sub-5,000 miler was not fresh off the showroom floor as I convinced myself it was. Second, it was not going to be a bolt-on café conversion. Rude awakening.

After seriously, seriously considering eating my losses and getting something else, I decided to stick with it. That brings us to today and this thread. The beginning of my build. I have appreciated all the detailed threads on this forum and I hope my thread can help someone else.

First up: new tank, new seat, new wheels, new tires. The need for tires and wheels is mechanical and unfortunately not going to be cosmetic.

Without further ado, I bring you my fugly CB400T. Looking forward to your feedback and suggestions along the way.

AJP

This looks like a really clean starting point. Have you considered a front end swap? It can be complicated and expensive but its gives better suspension and brake performance and it looks beefy. This is a cb550 w/ a GSX-R front end (In no way a possession of or in any way associated with me).

I have considered a front end swap actually. After doing some research though, I opted not to for the reasons you stated (potentially expensive and complicated). Thans for the response to my post.

I like those wheels. Are they damaged in some way? If not there are all kinds of cool finishes you could get done for far less than new wheels.

I've got the same bike from the same year, also in progress, also my first build. Deciding what to do about the seat has been the hardest decision of all so far. Modify the frame? Chop it off completely and replace it with a DCC bar? Go cafe and hide the battery or mount the electronics inside of something? So much to think about. Replacing the tank was a nightmare (finally landed on a CB360 tank, which will be raised so the bottom edge lines up with the frame).

It's such an ugly bike to start out. But it has so much potential. I'll keep my eyes on this post. Cheers!

Yes! So much to think about. And in what order?! I don't want to lose a week of riding season since mine is so short (Minnesota).

I think I'm going to chop the behind off mine and go with a DCC loop. I'm going to do the chopping myself and hire out the welding. If I have more typos than usual in future posts, you'll know how that went.

If you're going to weld a loop on the back look into the possibility of cutting the whole subframe off and welding a new one on the back without the step (I'm assuming this bike has the step in the subframe).

Makes for much cleaner lines more conducive to the cafe racer style in my opinion.

neevo said:

If you're going to weld a loop on the back look into the possibility of cutting the whole subframe off and welding a new one on the back without the step (I'm assuming this bike has the step in the subframe).

Makes for much cleaner lines more conducive to the cafe racer style in my opinion.

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Yeah, I plan on it. Hopefully I can use the stock rear suspension still afterward.

Chadsan said:

I like those wheels. Are they damaged in some way? If not there are all kinds of cool finishes you could get done for far less than new wheels.

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Yeah, they are damaged, but sticking with similar style and going to powder coat. Did you have another type of finish in mind?

Powder coat is great, if you wanted to get crazy you can do pretty much anything you want with hydro-dipping.

ajp said:

Yeah, I plan on it. Hopefully I can use the stock rear suspension still afterward.

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Smart move.

hey. hows the build goin?

I was looking for some much needed info regarding these bikes before I buy one. It would be a lot of help if you could go through my post here> http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=48481.0