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Alright, I swore that when I started my second build that I would actually document this one....and I have already fallen behind. A couple of months ago a friend of mine was moving out of town and sold me his cb500 in boxes for a 100 bucks.
first build
Having already satisfied my lust for a cafe, i decided I'd take it in another direction. So far I have already rebuilt the engine and ported and polished the heads. I needed The reason I ever fell in love with old hondas long ago was the fact that I loved the scrambler pipes on the cl's. I opted not to do them on my first bike but now it was inevitable. The problem is I haven't really seen many sohc4's with the high pipes on both sides so i thought I'd give it a shot. Here are a few pics of the progression thus far.
stretched
took two old header sets and started cutting and mock up
The other side, a little further along. ignore this tank its a paper idea that i thought i would like, but it just wont do.
Here they are all finished up and wrapped, next step is fabbing up a heat shield
how low she sits next to me other baby
and this is the direction im going to go with the tank, starting the welding and hammering later today
Im building this "for my girlfriend" so hopefully she won't be rubbing her legs on em. I've got them tucked in as far as they could go, and they look really sexy from the rear. Ill get some more pics, i also got the front tire mounted and wheel painted yesterday.
One thing that jumps out about the bike though, is the rear shock angle.
Its pretty severe, and honestly might be a little dangerous at speed. Look for a set of shorty shocks and try to move the bottom mounts forward a hair. Reinforcing the swinger is a good idea as well.
Yea, that has been on my mind a bit. I might just make another swingarm, just a tad shorter and move the mounts a bit, but new shocks are in the works for sure. The swing is enforced pretty well, lathed a thicker diameter tube and lathed down the ends to act as slugs.
looks like
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I have seen shocks run at more of an angle, but that by no means its right, what effect would the angle have other than affecting the radius/arc of travel?
Made a little progress this weekend considering I had to go out of town. Got my new tire mounted, wheel painted and cut, formed and welded the top half of the gas tank. Going to have to lose this 16" wheel and get an 18 for the back to even out the look.
What do you guys think that I should do for handlebars? I was thinking maybe some 1" rise track bars or maybe just the flat drag bars to give it a low pro look. At first I hated these bars but with this tank they look somewhat decent. Let me know your opinions.
i have the tank in two pieces, should i wait to weld the halves together and braze it in from the inside, or can I go ahead and finish the tank and braze it in once its together?
Whichever you find easiest, I would probably get everything together then fit cap (you can check its level, etc with tank on frame)
The swing arm is going to need some sort of brace, they are pretty flexible when stock, with extension it is going to allow wheel to twist
cool, Yea I will go ahead and brace that swingarm this weekend, shouldn't take too long and will definitely be the right thing to do in the long run. Made a little more progress this weekend, went ahead and tacked the lower half of the tank up, made a headlight mount, a seat pan and cut foam to fit. The foam that i find the best, is a combination of the dense gray foam i got the upholstery supply store, and the foam from a garden knee pad/wet buns/pool mattress.
Wanted a little cleaner look up front and didn't want to run the usual fork ears, so i bent some tubing and and hung the mount from the triple tree tabs.
Well, i didn't know if i should just weld it from the inside since I did have it apart, but i went ahead and welded it up, so that basically means ill be welding it in from the outside. ordered my cap from low brow customs yesterday, here's it is
I stretched the swingarm 6 inches, but should have done 5". Ive decided im going to need to brace it and probable weld some new shock mounts on it further forward to level it out and reduce that angle a bit. I do love the length though. If ride height is the goal, I'd stretch it like 3 to 4 inches and get shorty shocks.
By the way, Joe, what kind of filler did you use on that last tank you powdercoated, I was under the impression that powdercoat only sticks to bare metal, at least that's what I've only ever done/tried, I've been thinking about powdering this tank.
it was brazed in bud, primered, blocked then coated... we tried all kinds of fillers in the past like JB weld, and crap and even got the metal fill that was made for coating... they all suck! after 1 bake they can not be rebaked... so i have tried flow out cures, then final cure and always get crap results, only realy way to do it is brazing. we did also do soldering on another tank that we did with a low cure powder but anything that cures at 350+ solder runs and looks wack
you can powder anyting that takes the heat, we have done skulls, plastics, wood, stone work, you name it if it can take the heat we will coat it!
the skull looked wicked... but we swore never again. we did multi out gas cycles to keep the temp damage low and we did those in our outside air ovens... the final cure was done in the shop oven, smelled like death! never again... but the customer was SUPER pumped!!!
Alright, so it's been a long time since I've posted on this bike (cb750 reincarnation project as well as home remodeling) but I've changed my mind on the direction of the bike. I changed my mind on the swingarm/shock setup, and after building the monoshock swinger for my other bike, i never want to build another swingarm. Yea, not nearly as much math and geometry in just lengthening a "non performance" bike, but Im over it. So i hard tailed it. My neighbor just got a bike with sportster tank and bobber seat that he doesn't want.
So here she is as of now, shitty pic but I have since put the engine mounts on/ engine in amoung other things, updates to come
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