Honda CB 400 Hawk T II (1978) Cafe Racer

Hello. I think the time to build my own tread has come.
Well, I always wanted to buy a motorcycle and when I saw this Honda CB 400 TII in good shape for $800 I bought It because I could se a beautiful cafe project.
Speaking about the shape, everything was fine but the electric sistem (I think I can handle that)





2 weeks have passed since I bought my cafe proyect and I have already work a Lot. Right now I'm working with the paint, I using Rust Oleum spry cans (I had really good results in the past using the high heat grey primer for the base coats)

Right now I will still be sanding and painting to make everything look like new.

Things are going well, think so.

Hey, I have a 78 Honda CB400 Hawk T II that I'm working on currently as well! I really don't like the look of the frame, but I'm working around it and trying to make something of it. What are your plans for a seat? Also, nice paint work on the frame and comstar wheels. I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to keep my comstars or go with something different. I'll keep up with your project, and hopefully will post my build up when I'm further along. It's my second build, I prefer the straight frame look of my first build model (in link below).

rauns20 said:

Hey, I have a 78 Honda CB400 Hawk T II that I'm working on currently as well! I really don't like the look of the frame, but I'm working around it and trying to make something of it. What are your plans for a seat? Also, nice paint work on the frame and comstar wheels. I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to keep my comstars or go with something different. I'll keep up with your project, and hopefully will post my build up when I'm further along. It's my second build, I prefer the straight frame look of my first build model (in link below).

Click to expand...

First of all, I have to say that your cb 500T is a really beatiful machine.

Thank you about the paint work. Well, It was really hard work, removing everything and re-painting, but It worth every penny.

My plan for the seat is to make a fiberglass seat. Actually, if you make a cafe racer seat with fibreglass, it might look really good, because the tail of the seat can covers the elevation at the end of the Cb 400 Hawk frame.

I'm thinking about something like this:


I also think I will do the tail a little bit high just to cover the rear end elevation of the frame, and to align it to the gas tank.

About the comstars, Yah, I also thought about other wheels but when I painted them I just felt in love.

I think you should try the same I did. Try to consider painting the comstars (To experiment, you know, to see how it looks) and then If you don't like It, you can change it.

Hope you could post your cb 400 Hawk build, I would love to see it.

Thanks for the compliment on my 500T... I'm actually doing more work on it this winter so I have it completely torn apart at the moment. I'll probably do another build post on it, and I'll definitely do a build post on my Hawk as soon as I have enough progress and pictures to make it worth it for all y'all viewers.

I like that seat! I'm trying to work with the original seat pan and trim it for more of a Brat look than a Cafe look. But I might give up on that if it doesn't work out. If I change it up, I might adopt your seat idea!

I'm going to work on the Comstars, and I think I'll like them well enough to keep them.

Wow, its been a while. I had been working on cb400 all I could on my free times. Right now it is at his 80%. I will take some free time to go over the details soon, and I will post some photos as well.

Speaking about my seat, It is not happening yet because where I live It seems nobody can do the job. I had to buy a pre-made ebay seat to start using the bike, and I can say the seat turned out to be ok. (I will upload some pictures)

I have seem some Comstar - spoke conversion, and I really liked it. I have already bought a couple of rims and I will adapt the comstar drive to a spoked rim (to keep using the same caliper and speedometer systems).

I will looking forward to upload those pictures soon.