Bobbing my 1980 CB650

So I picked up my first street bike recently, it's a 1980 Honda CB650. It has 15K miles and I got it for $600



I got busy stripping it down and I replaced most of the seals and gaskets in the engine.



I cleaned the carbs and rejetted them with 120 main and 42 slows and set the air mixture screws to two turns out. Then I bought some K&N pod style air filters.

I picked up a shock from a Kawasaki Ninja600 which is designed to be used w/o a linkage. My plan is to create a bobber that looks like a hardtail but rides like a soft tail. Right now I just mocked it up with cheap conduit to get the rear suspension design figured out...The red section is just left there to give the illusion of a hardtail and I will eventually build in a section on the main frame (yellow) to hide the gap and support the seat.




I wrapped the pipes, ordered some MX bars from a KX, a leather solo seat, a 6" steel rear fender and I picked up a HD sportster tank off of craigslist. I'm relacing the rear hub to a 16" HD rim so I can run some whitewall tires.

I'm learning a lot as I go along and I hope to learn a lot from this website. I am open to all sorts of comments, criticism, suggestions, tips, etc... Thanks guys!

Looks Good So Far It'll be a sweet ride once it's all buttoned up, Good deal too a runner for $600 is never a bad thing

Any progress on the suspension? I would love to see how it turned out and hear how you like the way it rides.

Sorry for the lack of posts....

Originally the position I had the shock in made it way too stiff, so I reworked the mounts. Now once I got it all back together with the engine in it it's way too soft...So back to the drawing board, cutting, grinding, measuring and welding to find just the right angle to lay that shock at. I know it's going to be worth it when it's all done b/c I'm already loving the flow of the lines and my rim and tire combo came out very cool in my opinion anyway... What do you guys think?

I like it. I like the idea of hiding the monoshock. Keep puttin up the pics!

Found the sweet spot! Moved the rear shock mount up. Good travel, allows for shock preload adjustment and I actually like the look better, tends to hide the shock more. Now I just have to wait for some more tube to arrive and find more time to fab up the mount permanently and replace the section were the mount used to be with straight tube.

looks great so far

looks good i dig the red rims, did you paint them or pc them

Cool. And possibly inspirational.....

cb 400 t said:

looks good i dig the red rims, did you paint them or pc them

Click to expand...

Just paint. I'm trying to keep the cost down. So far I'm into it $2100 and that includes the original bike, all the parts, supplies and even my helmet.

i know this is a stupid question but do you paint the rims then put tires on or put tires on and then paint rims thanks

I painted the rims first. Trick is lots of prep work, then several light coats of primer and paint, waiting at least day between coats for it to set up. It took a couple weeks but for me it wasn't an issue b/c it's a project bike. I've seen people paint them with the tires on by deflating the tires and using playing cards to mask with...

this is an ATV rims but you get the idea...

thanks thats pretty slick

Been a cold and busy winter! Finally found some time and it warmed up enough so that my hands weren't sticking to the tools! Trying to get her together enough to fire her up and give it a shake down run, then I'll break it back down for paint and details.

Yeah, time to order some stuff for mine!

Cool build!! ;D

Red wheels with white wall tires on a bobber is such a good look!

Mounted the speedometer tonight. I'm going to go without a tach.

Maybe its me... But I'm a touch confused as to how that rear suspension works. I'm sure its just the pics, but I can't see where everything attaches/articulates.

VonYinzer said:

Maybe its me... But I'm a touch confused as to how that rear suspension works. I'm sure its just the pics, but I can't see where everything attaches/articulates.

Click to expand...

That was my goal. Here's pic from my first attempt. I had to relocate the bottom shock mount later to get the rate of travel just right but it should give you a good idea of how I did it. It's pretty simple really, cause it uses the stock swingarm.