'81 CB750FA low budget project

Hi all,

I came across this forum a few weeks ago when I started my low budget cafe project. After reading a lot and posting in the introduction section, I wanted to start a project topic to show the progress.

So let's start with introducing the bike, an '81 CB750 FA, the Bol d'Or version. I bought it a few months ago for about €1200, which is a pretty good price for a bike in this perfect state. In fact, this bike has been completely stripped, the frame has been repainted and everything was cleaned and checked. Thsi was a graduation project of a bike mechanic. This is a pic from how it looked after picking it up:





I'm trying to turn it into a cafe racer, but with very limited budget. This is my first rebuild, so I'm kind of curious how it will work out...

I started with removing the stock seat:



And removing the taillight and indicators:



Next step will be to fabricate a fiberglass seat. I'm doing all the fabrication in a small garage in the winter, so please don't mind the mess in the pictures 8)

If you have a low budget, just leave it the fuck alone and ride it.

I'm trying to take a lot of pictures when moving on with the project. Here is how I made my first ever fiberglass seat. I'm not going to write a how to, because i fabricated the seat with info already on this forum. So let's just stick to the pictures:









The hump was still a bit to high in my opinion so I sanded it down a little more.





Time to bring in the resin and fiberglass ;D

This is what it looks like after the first layer

Looking good you look like youve worked with fiberglass before

Time to add some body filler, and start sanding, sanding, sanding....



And offcourse see what it looks like. Pretty cool huh 8)

AlphaDogChoppers said:

If you have a low budget, just leave it the fuck alone and ride it.

Click to expand...

I know man, that's probably cheaper. But I can't help it ;D

mrlvlagic said:

Looking good you look like youve worked with fiberglass before

Click to expand...

It is surprisingly easy to work with, but it's smelly and messy as hell

I thought it might be usefull to be able to switch between the new cafe racer seat and the old one, especially when taking a passenger or for longer rides. But I want to make the switch fast and not having to spend an hour of work when needed. So I came up with the idea to use the original mounting brackets of the stock seat. I've attached them to an aluminium base plate, which is bolted to the undeside of the fiberglass seat. I got this mounting brackets pretty cheap from an old torn up seat I bought. This is how it looks at the moment:

In the meantime I've got my gastank sandblasted and prepared for paint. It was not the cheapest but definetely the fastest and easiest way.

Sandblast is the clear winner for pre-paint surface prep.

The tank-seat combination is looking good to me. I also got hold of some Tomasselli handlebars for just a little.

Nice seat and pan work. I've been thinking of doing the same on mine. I like the way you did it. I've got an 81'750F.

Sounds like yours came ready to ride. You rode it a bit first right?

I want to tag along, thanks for the link in the DOHC's thread.

Thanks for following. I'll post some updates later today

So, it has been a while since my last update. I have been quite busy with the paint. It took a while, but the result is worth all the effort.

Here are some updates on the build.

I've made a license plate and taillight bracket to fit in the rear of the cafe seat.








And this is a view from the side on the new tank and seat combination:




It took a while to finish the preparations for the paint. A lot of sanding and filling with the fiberglass seat, but I managed to get it smooth as a baby's behind
I have no pictures of the primer but that's not interesting anyway. After primer I have made an improvised paint booth with some plastic hanging from my garage ceiling. To help get rid of the dust and overspray, I attached a PVC tube to an industrial vacuum cleaner. This worked fantastic and there is almost no dust in the paintwork.

The first coats have been sprayed white








After the white paint had dried, I layed out a checkered flag design. It would probably have been a lot easier to buy some stickers, but this is a lot more fun 8)

I used some 3M masking tape, a sharp hobby knife, a pencil and ofcourse some Belgian beer; Duvel



I started with putting 3 strokes of masking tape in the middle of the tank, fender and seat.



To get nice and even squares, I used another piece of the tape:



When cutting the squares, make sure you don't cut to deep. this will damage the paint.



It took a while to finish it, but this is what it will look like when finished





And after painting it black:

The next step was the color coat. I went for 'British Racing Green' metallic paint.



I also put some gold striping between the checkered falg and the color coats:








Time to clear coat it all. The clear coat went on nicely, but I did get the famous orange peel. This means sanding and buffing










I'm going to start buffing it out tomorrow and postsome updates of the end result.

Nice work so far.

Hey guys,

I hope you can help me out. It seems that my rotor has seen it's last miles and needs replacement. I've found a used one in good shape, but the old one won't come off

I don't have a special tool to do this so I tried with the rear axel (sorry if spelled wrong). Still won't come off. I tried hitting it with a rubber hammer but nothing happens...

What can I do to get it to come off?

Nice work! Looking sweet. I like the lines and the paint is looking terrific!

The puller you need is a simple tool that costs about $10. Buy one before you fuck something up. DO NO use claw type puller.