Sandrew's CB900 'phantom' - Done'ishh

Sandrew

Active Member
DTT BOTM WINNER
Well, here we go again.
Didn't really plan on building another bike right now, but heck with it, spring is coming.
I sold my face-lifted XS400 last September. It went off to Finland and my last ride with it was at DGR, proper end to a story of the kind.

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Then I had a knee surgery related to the mistakes from the past and had some time to think - what's nest..
I've been collecting tons of ideas and pictures from the blogs and forums on our scene and I started to notice what I like and what not. And two of them all stood out for me, Tarantulas CB750:

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..and MotoHangar's SR500:

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It's pretty obvious, isn't it? So It appears I like rugged finishes, rough edges, metal and black, the simplicity, which gives the vibe of a pure mechanical beast.
To categorize, the outcome should still be cafe racer (ish), hence the sub-forum choice.
And to be honest I already had built a trailer queen once (twice). Sure, I rode it hard, but the looks made it too precious. still.
So I got a nice looking SR500 from German eBay, It was a steal and had to be brought back home.

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Although, once I started looking into it, it turn out to be in pristine condition, only one previous owner and very well maintained. I just couldn't send it under the knife and sold it for relatively good profit.
At the same time Hookie had finished their sixth build.. again, jackpot. The pictures came up everywhere and I was blown. I Still stare at it whenever it comes through the feed.

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Suddenly I didn't necessarily need a thumper anymore, kinda glad the SR was gone.

Fast forward about a month. A friend got in contact saying he can't store his CB900 at the old place anymore. So I offered it a shelter, at the same time thinking numbers in my head.. Didn't need to think hard, tho, a few weeks later he texted me: 'Hey, I'm in great mood today, you can have the CB'. And there is that,
I was now a proud owner of a '79 model SC01 imported to Estonia in '05. For the next 5 years the owner rode it hard without any inspection til he didn't need it anymore and just left it in front of his house.. for 2 years. Then the friend mentioned before bought it with a two-up cafe plans in mind. This is how he picked it up back in 2012 (I guess):

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And then he started his thing. He made a custom tank, some clip-ons, seat pan, relocated the battery under the swing-arm and all that, but the 2 years of no roof had done the damage: all the pistons in calipers were stuck and what could rust or oxidize, surely did that. But the project was stalled, he now wanted something lighter. Ducati Monster clearly is..
So the looks wasn't that promising when I got it.

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As I just got my bachelor's degree and recently quit my old job, I've been spending all my time on building this thing. It's been a month now and as of today I could say I'm half way there. I haven't documented it that well as previous times but I try to make it up from now on.

Luckily I got the stock tank and all the original parts except the carbs (they appear to have walked away on their own). And as I already found out from the wide web, the stock carbs a a no-go with cone filter anyway so no biggy.

I'm probably going to update on different topics rather than chronological sequence.
Stay tuned,

Sander
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

I got the carbs. Much reccomended Mikuni BST's from GSXR, 38mm. In bad condition, full of sand and moving parts all pretty much stuck.

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Then some ultrasonic clean and other stuff:

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At least everything is moving now, we'll see if they're any good once I get around to starting the motor.

And the manifolds made, to get the new set-up mated:

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Engine covers and some other bits texture black powder coated:

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Rims got a fresh coat of semi gloss black powder as well, front wheel bearings replaced (rear wheele seemed to be in order and mounted in Shinko 705's.

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Time to go for the bare metal tank look. Lots of dents revealed once the paint was off. Even better. :)

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It's a start.

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Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

The forks were obviously too long and soft, even the seal stopper rings had rusted away, it was time to tweak those.

75 mm spacers for damper rods (oil channels drilled and secured in place with M3 headless allens(, new seals and stoppers as well:

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Springs cut shorter by 55 mm, legs brushed and everything back together:

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It was time to start with the tail section. As seen on my inspiration pictures above, they all have sheet metal cowl. As much as I like that, I don't know my way around shaping sheet metal and no way I can clearly explain to somebody else what I exactly have in mind. My way out was playing around with the materials I am already familiar with.

Firstly I laminated the seat section so it sits neatly on top of the frame rails:

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Then some Legos on top of it:

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5 hrs later:

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Masked up and siliconed:

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Laminated:

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And the shell:

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Now to cut and shape the edges and finish the thing, but more on that later.

Sander
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

Got some bits sandblasted today:

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About those frame mods.
I cut the subframe rails as short as needed, solved the under the swingarm battery a bit better and removed some more tabs on triangle section.Steering lock welded shut, new steering stopper (old ones were removed due to USD fork) and last but not least the new tank mount. Old one was heavily altered for the custom unit and it just seemed wise to build a completely new one.

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Had the underside of the tank blasted as well, too much effort to get rid of all that paint for powder coating otherwise.

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Tail piece taking shape:

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Sander.
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

A little one for today.
Put on a layer of paint to see the lines and lower spots, no filler just yet.

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Then laminated the seat pan

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and cut it in shape.

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Also drilled the mains to 130 on carbs, it's the starting point at least, hopefully can work it out from there. One of the sync outlets was broken, new one made out of welder's nozzle.

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Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

Got the foam and glue for the seat.

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And ready for upholstery.

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Second round powder coating back, as well. Frame and swinger gloss black, other bits textured and the tank clear coated. I don't really dig the look of the tank anymore, maybe try to sand it down a little or something. At least it's strong..

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Shocks with freshly coated spring back together:

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A close up from the tank, it actually looks better on the picture than it really is.

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The horse powers restored:

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So the cockpit. A while back I got some Tommaselli clips. One of them was slightly bent, handled that. The bike also came with 90's era Nissin front master, lever was damaged, cut the knob off and brushed/taped it a little. Also bought a Domino Throttle assembly yesterday and some Biltwell grips.

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And matching left side - modified the perch heavily to get rid of the choke assembly.

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30 eur find from local moto scrapyard. I needed a 4-1 collector and this one also had a nice baffle for which I can find further use as well. Now I need to mate my headers to that collector.

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Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

Lots of shiid in the works at the same time, so nothing to show for that's completely done.

All set up for pipe routing:

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Everything sorted out:

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The engine on the CB sits a lot closer to the ground than the one on the bike which the exhaust came from, so the best solution was to tilt it to the right side.

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I know the joints don't flow that nice and there are some steep curves, but hopefully the exhaust wrap (for the haters favor) will smoothen it out a bit.

Next up was to fabricate a tab for rearset bracket to support the back end.

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Bolted up.

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Sandblasted and high temp coated. Waiting for the stainless zip ties to get it wrapped.

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And the seat is back from the upholstery fellows

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Cowl primed filled and sanded:

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And primed again. Some minor touch-ups to do and ready for paint.

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That's about it for now and probably so for some time.
Sander.
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

It has been a while.. again, although I haven't been sitting around.

Both of the calipers had their pistons missing and rather than getting them for 76 euro per piece I went into local automotive store and found a pair with the correct diameter for 22 euros - score. They had to be machined down 10 mm in height.

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Been ordering and sourcing together missing bits like all new cables, a choke for one carb, a pair of exhaust flanges, final drive kit, speedo and so on.

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Then made choke puller for carbs replacing the cable assembly.

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A under tank trey for the electrics out of 4 mm alloy sheet . The top side will house m-unit and starter solenoid while the underside holds reg/reg and spark units.

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Two piece licence plate holder out of same sheet. Welded together and mounted to the swing-arm via stainless fasteners. There already was a M6 threaded hole there, probably for a chain guard in previous life, so I just drilled and threaded another next to it.

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I cut and added a small reflector for inspectors liking.

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What about the lighting, you ask? Drilled a stainless bolt from two directions and routed a 3 mm bright LED through that.

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What do you know, the yoke fitted perfectly.

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Had all three brake lines made from steel braided hose and got the brakes working all around. I'm especially satisfied with the new rear brake 'reservoir'.

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Oh, and the cowl's been painted and sitting on my desk for weeks now. Still need to rivet it together with the seat.

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Today was The Day - it roars again. Of course 2 out of 4 carbs were floating like a motherfkr, but it started up right away, idled relatively nice. Now some sync and fine tune, should be ready to conquer the streets after 5 year hiatus. Boy the exhaust sound nice, phone mic prevents you from hearing that as usual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-c2phmivfI

And yes, you do see unplugged charging connector in there, I saw that as well once I tried to hit the starter again.. :)


Still waiting on my m-unit and choosing the lights, once I get those I need another weekend or two and this beast should be back on the streets.

Til then,
Sander
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

Things really slowed down in March, I only got about 3 - 4 days garage time. Now about a few weeks ago I moved the bike to my current town, where I'm able to tweak it constantly. So here's the progress from the first engine start til today.

Mounted all the components to the trey - spark units, reg/rec and solenoid on the underside, m-unit on top side and two 5 V USB ports mid-plane.

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Mated the saddle with cowl.

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The speedo had bunch of wires coming out, each of the function had its own hot and com, after a quick head scratch I was able to join 3 coms and 3 hots, then separated turn signal line into two and added a diode bridge inside the heat shrink. So instead of 10 there is now 7 wires coming out.

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Zip ties finally arrived. Tightening them down without a proper tool took some time. It also required some math to get all 4 pipes coverd with just 15 meters of wrap.

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From left to right: It took me four attempts to get the speedo mount perfect. You probably wonder why I didn't use cardboard at first.. yeah me too.

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At least I got the head lamp / turn signal bracket right with the first time. It felt like 4 mm aluminium was too soft so I made it double layer. Looks better that way as well.

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At the moment I'm in the middle of making new wiring harness and waiting on new intake manifolds, after that I should be on the road again this time next week (illegally at least). :)
More pictures in a few days!

Sander
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

Woa, I forgot about this thread.. again. Anyway the bike has been sort of ready for a month now. Just need to figure out a mirror for right side and maybe add horn.

Here's a bit about my May's work.

Speedo mounted, tach cable was perfect length for this location. It's clearly visible and readable up about 140 km/h, after that the hand disappears behind the tank.

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The idea of m-unit was to get rid of everything unnecessary and convert the controls to 4 push-buttons which were pain in the arse to install but the result is pretty neat.

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Then it was time for the taillight, Got some bright power LED's and handmade a bezel for them, Really happy with the result, using motogadget made it possible to use only one wire for both rear and brake light.

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Printed a 3D case for it to keep the dirt and water away.

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Got some tiny blinkers as well.

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And I tought using motogadget would make the wiring quick, still took about 15 hours to get everything as wanted.
A pictures just before isolating the harness.

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Had to get another clutch lever (left on the picture) because the stock had o weird angle of cable entrance, therefore unusable with clip-on's.
Gave it matching appearance.

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And then the bike was done, just needed some extra carb tuning. Took it out for a 500km spin without realizing it wasn't charging, so when I decided my phone needed a recharge I completely drained the battery. After a quick research I found out that charging on these machines are quite delicate. Both the rotor and stator were shorted and needed a rewind. 70 euros both done.

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I plan on getting some pro shots in upcoming weeks, up until then a cockpit sneak peak. :)

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Sander
 
Re: Sandrew's CB900 'phantom'

Still on pictures? Yea, I know, haven't really got around to it yet. There's an cafe/fighter event happening this weekend, hopefully get some good shots there.

I spent a couple of evenings fabing up a rack for my longboard, tho.

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Sander.
 
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