Sakura the Sake Rocket

Swagger

Putting boot to ass since 1967!
Sakura is Japanese for 'Cherry Blossom' which will be a running element in this bike's progression from heap to glory(I hope).

CB500T which is based on the venerable CB450, a lovely engine to look at and quite stout with a little effort. I'll be putting a lot of effort in.

Displacement: 544cc
Static compression: ~10-1, maybe a touch higher
Ported head with oversized valves, Delta regrind cam with fresh torsion bars and hard faced and relieved rockers. This cam isn't too wacky, consider it a 3/4 cam in automotive terms so I'm not going to convert this one to coil valve springs.
Dyna ignition from a GL1000 mod to fit with twin Dyna boosters, fresh coils and wires from MikesXS and a pair of nifty Iridium plug I had waiting for a home. A pair of Mikuni VM32 carbs will mate up to aluminum intake manifolds (balanced) and will be topped off with a pair of nice velocity stacks and some form of filtration.
Pipes will be long, low fishtails mated to some neat old brit mufflers and some 1.5" primaries. I'll probably wrap the primaries, though I may also have the entire exhaust Jet Hot coated....dunno. I've got Barnet clutch plates though I need some fresh springs for it. Thought about converting to dry clutch because it's cool, but really it's just not called for in this instance. I've made some finned covers for it and the engine will be dressed in wrinkle black and sprinkled with stainless hex fasteners and maybe a little brass for giggles.

For the chassis, nothing wild like Troybilt's amazing Willow but I am going to rework it some. It's been stripped and detabbed and had a goodly portion of it's ass end hacked rudely off. Kanticoy supplied me with a CB360 swingarm for another project but it ended up going out the door closer to stock (a 'flip this bike' kinda project) so it's now in this frame. Thanks Kiley!
I've got a pair of neat old Mulholand shocks that I'll shorten to suit whatever drop this gets. Some purist donk is likely to be gnashing his teeth about cutting up a 'historically significant' part that could be put on someone's period correct...blah blah blah...whatever.
Up front will be an internally lowered XS650 front end with lots of interesting details. For rollers I'm going with a 21"/19" based on 64 spoke hubs and running linked single discs, both via the foot pedal. A 300-21 speed master up front and a 4.25-19 Coker/Firestone out back.

Beyond these spare details I'm gonna let you see how it develops....can't give it all away. I've been planning this bike for a few years but just now things came together to get it underway.

For now, they're a little random and often from the cellphone, stick with me folks.

 

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The electric leg, post rebuild and a little dress up....
It's amazing what a little cleanup, some wrinkle paint and a couple chunks of brass tube can do for an otherwise homely part.
 

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Ok I did a bit of digging and found more pics. I'm really bad about stopping and taking them as I go but I'll work on it......
So the frame's been detabbed and cut down, like I said nothing as glamorous as Troy's Willow, just a clean and tidy core.
 

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Oh.........sha-dizzle! Is that one of those ultra rare black honda frames? lol

I kidd...

I'm sure this thing is gonna be off the charts. Gotta talk my smack while I can.
 
Yes, I love the way the 450/500t engines look too. I think they're about as pretty as they come as far as Nipponese lumps go.

Dunno about getting done faster than anyone else, I just be happy when I get her all wrapped up.
 
Thanks Joey, me too.....it's like a clean slate with nothin but potential. I dug out my old frame jig for the next project but I'm missing a few pieces..nothing I can't make though. I've got a spare XS850 engine that's begging for a Reynolds 517 trellis frame..
 
How to build a seat that hurts your ass.......

Well kids, it's time for another installment.....seat time!

First I made a pattern and traced that to some curved wood I had from a dead office chair. Then it was pocketed to fit a few features on the frame and the whole shebang was glued together with Gorilla wood glue....damn is that stuff strong. The buck was then shaped using sharp sticks and broken stones.
 

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The pics aren't perfectly in sequence, after I cut the pad out and tested it's fit I coated the whole thing it KwikPoly mixed with black dye. It's really thin and soaks into the wood for the first few coats. Once it sets up it's really strong, more or less impervious to chemicals and is kinda smooth and shiny.

Once that was done and stuck the pad on and started shaping with a flap wheel and draped a piece of 1/4" open cell over the black race foam.

The unfortunate truth is, while I've used the black stuff for ages on race bikes and cafe seats.....for whatever reason this seat is really uncomfortable so we'll call this practice for the next one....


Note: I'm still trying to figure out a good balance so for the time being the blog will have the most in depth info and I'll highlight here.

So....for all the poop, hit the blog:
http://swaggeringpagan.blogspot.com/
 

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