NorthWest lad making a Honda Cd175 cafe racer

I'll post more when I can as its late and my eyes need some sleep but here goes and pasted from my NWB thread, welcome to join btw if you're up our end

http://www.northwestbikers.net/index.php?threads/honda-cd175-1973-cafe-racer.24114/

Always good to see another small Honda. Those pipes look way too short though. I hope you are planning on fitting fenders and decent length mufflers. Those motors don't work well with shorties.

Good to have you along 8)

teazer said:

Always good to see another small Honda. Those pipes look way too short though. I hope you are planning on fitting fenders and decent length mufflers. Those motors don't work well with shorties.

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Don't worry about that haha I've so much on at the moment it's just a mock up- the pipes are being made by a local firm, MTC, no muffler but baffled.
Seat is being made by myself using another CD175 tank chopped to a 1/3 in length and then 2" taken from the bottom, this will then match the lines of the the front and hold the battery-LED TYGA brake light unit-indicators and reg plate.
She also has rear sets on off an R1, CNC machined 50mm clip ons, an acewell speedo, HID front light with LED running lights in the cluster.

I was going to flip the head by 180' as the Pistons are nearly parallel but it could have involved to much machining to set up just to get my exhaust to flow neater and hidden under the seat with a side exit so that idea was scrapped in favour of keep that bit original.

Still running the eld hub brakes on the Aprilia RS125 USD forks which should look trick.

Side exit air filter in green for some detail.

Engine covers have been engraved by myself as this;
And the Japanese rising sun on the tuther side.


Just need time to tune her up and give the finishing touches, tyres look well too thin IMHO but ah well, she is 40+ years old

I've never seen an inverted front end on a 175! Looks cool. Mind posting up some details? Welcome as well!

Some really good stuff so far, I think I will follow along for some inspiration.

1sttimer said:

I've never seen an inverted front end on a 175! Looks cool. Mind posting up some details? Welcome as well!

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Cheers
I'll post bearing details etc tomorrow- wasn't too hard or expensive really, £70 including the purchase of the forks and a new top yoke off an 07 RS125 aprillia.
The difficult part was machining a new front axle, took me all of 10 minutes on a lathe and a £10 punt on eBay for the solid alu bar

rumpoldstilskin said:

Cheers
I'll post bearing details etc tomorrow- wasn't too hard or expensive really, £70 including the purchase of the forks and a new top yoke off an 07 RS125 aprillia.
The difficult part was machining a new front axle, took me all of 10 minutes on a lathe and a £10 punt on eBay for the solid alu bar

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Keep those dimensions you might get a PM from me so the forks AND top triple were from an Rs125 or just the yoke?

Looking great.

Everything was from a 2002 Aprilia RS125, even the mud guard suits the look.
The yoke that came with them on purchase had been drilled, as seen in the first photo, and had added risers for flat/upswept bars.
Now although probably a better rising position it's not exactly caferacer and I wanted a stock look so I bought a new old stock top yoke off an 07 RS125 Aprillia which looks like a machined version of the original (cuts outs- and different colour)

I ground off the clip on hangers as the Aprillia bars are VERY pricey just for tubes and sprayed with black wrinkle paint (baked in my oven hehehehe sorry to my misses in advance)
The yoke then looked made for the bike and the CNC 50mm clip ons I bought.

Used the original steerer off the CD175 as it has more girth than the Aprillia one.

(Bottom yoke of the Aprillia bored out to accept the Honda steerer)
This also means you can use the original Honda bearings or upgrade to tapered needle rollers - as I did, and also means to messing about with the top yoke bore wise as the Honda tube narrows at the top and the heights are fine.


For the axle I needed a 20mm Alu bar, machined some spacers and hollowed and internally threaded the other side (again to look stock)

Also attached a brace from the disc calliper mount on the fork leg to the drum casing. Again as the RS only had one calliper- she looks stock

Looks good, can't wait to see the finished project!

How are you finding those RFY shocks? I've been reading up on them a bit on the forum but I'm undecided about whether to go for a set or just get some replacements for my 125 from the local friendly Honda garage.

twade76 said:

Looks good, can't wait to see the finished project!

How are you finding those RFY shocks? I've been reading up on them a bit on the forum but I'm undecided about whether to go for a set or just get some replacements for my 125 from the local friendly Honda garage.

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Cheers it's been difficult to find some time to work in her recently with finishing my degree off but I've finished the rear seat using the rear 1/3 of a CD175 tank which looks great.

The shocks; they look great, are fully serviceable, fully adjustable, they people you buy from are lovely and sent me some free fork ends as well as eyelet ones. They fit perfectly, and won't corrode like the stainless.
Make sure you get the ones with the logo cast into them not the ones with a sticker. I'll find my invoice and give you the seller details as this was an eBay purchase.

Just shows what you can do with a little imagination [ and a lot of skill ! ]

Keep the pix [ and info. ] coming.

Cheers, been on the back burner over winter due to the Benelli having a hissy fit and not running.
Will be starting again in a fortnight, need to sort out my speedo, source an LED rear light, fabricate some SS exhausts and rear sets then it's a basic tune up and MOT time.