My latest restoration..Should I convert to a cafe???

You get what you pay for most of the time. Most things you'll have to pay for especially if you want it to look as good as the one above... Dime city cycles, legendary motorcycles, motorcycle superstore, honda restoration, Charlie's place, z1 enterprises, and some others. Hell, even eBay can be decent for some cafe parts, be cautious of parts from overseas though as quality is often lacking... Some of the parts may need to be hand made and custom made. Some things that you may need made using tools you don't have can be had here on the forum. Crazy PJ is amazing at making anything you want out of metal. A lot of custom parts are available by members of dtt. You just have to ask around...
Your personal bike is lost likely going to be at a loss if you should ever sell it. Most people that build bikes for themselves put far more money and time into then they'll ever see selling it.
 
With my build currently I'm sitting at over $5,000. And mine is not near as nice as the one above, yet... I'm sure there are guys on here with more money in their builds and some with less.. Usually most people don't keep track of money spent on personal projects because it can be depressing and make you want to stop. The figures I have are from about 8 months ago when a friend at work was asking the sane questions you are. Haven't added anything to it since then so I'm unsure where I'm at.
 
This is what I was thinking (most from Dime City):

Seat-150
Clip-ons-100
Tailight & turn signals-90
Headlight bracket-35
Gauges (smaller)-90
Front fender-178

Looks like its going to be around $650 unless I'm missing anything?
 
Missing,

labour, immesuarable
broken original parts, easliy 400
screws and fasteners, another 2 to 300
clip on extras, grips controls, another 200
light itself. welding, cutting adjusting, 500
fender paint and mock up. 500
sundry shit you see along the way, 1000.

have you done, rubber? chrome?, elec? carbs?, decals?, certification,? another 2500
 
It adds up quickly and usually its the small inexpensive things that add up to over $1000 easily buy the time its done... If its done and done right you will have more into it than you'll ever see selling it... If your looking make money on it, your best bet is to just do seat, bars, a couple other things and a hell of a lot of cleaning and time and labor that you can calculate out your hours to less than workers get paid in Mexico or China... Really no cheap and easy way out... If this was a get rich quick type of business there would be 100,000++ more people doing this and we wouldn't be picking bikes up for $5.00-$200.00 all day.
 
Can you expand on broken original parts? The only issue I possibly see is the chrome where I will remove the old headlight bracket. What clip on extras? Grips and controls are in good condition.

Was going to use the current headlight and just mount it lower. Going to buy a new front fender and the rear can be powder coated black.

The bike has been completely restored and there isnt any rust at all. Its in great shape.
 
Broken parts and fastners and brackets which break when you are taking something else off. Or Something the PO jigged together that you cant see until you take something else off. grips and controls might be fine now. will they fit on the clip-ons? will something break or not work when you take it off and try to put a hard dried out piece of plastic back on and your screw just makes it crumble. Wiring is very tight in the old Honda controls. Will it last a removal and replace?

will the cables be too long with clip ons. will they even fit?

how will you mount the head light? will you buy or make bracket? Powder it. paint it. weld it?

all of the above add up money-wise.

just saying.
 
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