Cb550 build

bergers

Active Member
Hey guys, somewhat new dtt member, longtime looker. Short background on me; I'm a senior in mechanical engineering, have experience racing across country against other schools as the captain of our school baja team, and have spent my whole life working on cars. I always wanted a cb550 since they were lighter than a cb750 and sounded and looked better to me than the other smaller cbs. After having a few project bikes (sl100 and two at1s), I figured I have enough experience to take another bike on.

I was looking for a while and found this bike within a few hours of me for a good price with title. The bike actually ran on the spot very roughly, but ensured to me that the electrical system was at least in ok condition. The rear half of the bike was hacked badly and the tank had pieces of plumbing brazed to it, maybe in some sort of effort to build a cafe racer. Luckily the wiring and engine doesn't look touched. The plan for now is to rebuild carbs, put a 4 into 1 on the bike, rebuild brakes, and restore the rear half of the frame with a donor piece. The plan for that, although overkill, is to mill 4 aluminum fixtures/clamps with windows cut out to butt weld the tubes together. I could sleeve the tubes with smaller pieces of pipe then weld, but then I won't be able to sleep at night knowing those pieces are forever in the frame :p
Here's a few pics of the bike the day I got it, and where its at now. Also for those interested, I posted a team photo with our baja car after our second race in california.
 

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It's been a couple of months since the last post and since I came back from competition, so I have had some time to work on the bike. The first thing that had to be done was build the carbs, since they were overflowing and causing the bike to run like crap. As soon as i pulled them apart, I knew they needed a full rebuild since it looked like there was a swamp in the bowls. One of them was filled with pine needles and a dead bee, so I cleaned them all out with rags, took them fully apart, and then acid dipped them. I also decided to pull apart and steel wool the linkage assembly too since it was already off. Since the carbs and engine covers on these bikes look really good, I decided to put some time into sanding and polishing them. I ordered all new gaskets and o rings for them, and finally got to put them together. Over the past week I also pulled the whole front brake system off, painted the side covers, and I'm now planning what to do with the frame. Rather than replace the whole rear half like originally planned, I will most likely cut the pieces off that are missing and weld them in their respective places.
 

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