New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike (UPDATED 4/7)

Hey, I am new to the site and thought I would post some pics of my project. This is my first motorcycle, a 74 cb550, so I really have no idea what im doing, but having fun. ??? ;D

I have had the bike for around 3-4 weeks now and have gotten quite a bit done I think.

Engine before :-[:



Engine now :



Grinded off old seat brackets and made a seat pan for a cafe seat.



Started to make a cafe seat with an old harley davidson gas tank (may just buy a seat, but I don’t have a lot of cash, so this will be a very low budget build)).




I prepped the frame a week before last and got it painted last weekend:





Re-installed the engine this week:



I also cleaned up the guages, polished/painted forks, and got some new headlight brackets and mini turn signals this week:

Gauges before :-[:



Gauges now :



couple more pics:

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Holy Shit!!... That looks AMAZING so far!!... And you said that you have no idea what your doing????..Sheeshhh..

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Great Job!
Cant wait to see some more progress!

P.S. That your Scion?

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

holy crap...i know what i'll be reading and keeping an eye on updates for.
looks terrific so far. for not knowing, you seem to be doing some great work.
are you doing it all yourself?

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Very very nice. Love your work.

Funny - I also was contemplating using a tank for a seat cowl.

Love to share ideas. See my project - Shooter Cafe Racer '77 CB550 Super Sports

BTW - how did you get the engine looking so choice? (Process)

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

bluayeddvl said:

holy crap...i know what i'll be reading and keeping an eye on updates for.
looks terrific so far. for not knowing, you seem to be doing some great work.
are you doing it all yourself?

Click to expand...

Yeah, Im doing it all myself, I have a downloaded shop manual and a digital camera (to help me remember how stuff goes). I just hope it still starts when I get it back together

Shooter said:

Very very nice. Love your work.
Funny - I also was contemplating using a tank for a seat cowl.
Love to share ideas. See my project - Shooter Cafe Racer '77 CB550 Super Sports
BTW - how did you get the engine looking so choice? (Process)

Click to expand...

For the engine, I first sprayed it with one of those de-grease engine cleaners. I let it sit for awhile and then scrubed it with a sos pad and a wire brush, and then wash it off. I then sanded the areas I could with a detail sander to get the paint to stick better. I used flat black duplicolor paint. After it was dry, I took the sander and polished the fins on the sides.

Ease said:

Great Job!
Cant wait to see some more progress!

P.S. That your Scion?

Click to expand...

Yeah, that is my Scion, it is one of the special edition ones, #22 of 2200 ;D

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Nice work. Those aftermarket finned covers are a bonus.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

DrJ said:

Nice work. Those aftermarket finned covers are a bonus.

Click to expand...

I didnt even know they were aftermarket, I thought they were the factory ones. That was a bonus.

Here is one more pic with the gauges mounted and the indicator plate finished. I removed the stupid wood grain plate, polished the center, added a couple gold pinstripes to match the frame, clear coated it, and painted the rest black.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

DrJ said:

Nice work. Those aftermarket finned covers are a bonus.

Click to expand...

I found and bought some of those finned covers on an online auction site and they are sitting on my shelf waiting to be installed. They really add to the "schnizzle" I think.


Bars - interested in how you are going to mount the bars and the headlight?

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Im just waiting on the bars, mirrors, grips, etc. I ordered them the Friday before last and the still havent come :'(. I post pics as soon as I get them on.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Thanx - keen to see how you deal with mounting bars to the forks so some detail in the pix would be great.

How do you think your paint job will perform on the engine when it gets hot? I like the black against the fins

How did you strip the frame? I assume original frames are painted not powder coated?

Don't suppose you kept the artwork for the white face gauges did you? They look brilliant (although I need KMH) I am considering chroming the whole case of each gauge.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Shooter said:

Thanx - keen to see how you deal with mounting bars to the forks so some detail in the pix would be great.

How do you think your paint job will perform on the engine when it gets hot? I like the black against the fins

How did you strip the frame? I assume original frames are painted not powder coated?

Don't suppose you kept the artwork for the white face gauges did you? They look brilliant (although I need KMH) I am considering chroming the whole case of each gauge.

Click to expand...

Just got the bars, mirror and grips in the mail today, here is a quick pic:



No real trick to mounting the bars, just buy 7/8s bars and bolt them right on like the stockers. The only thing now is the wiring, which is scaring me, as of now I removed all of the wiring in on piece, it is just in a big pile on the floor. Unfortunately it looks like I have to start discontecting some stuff to take the wiring out of the old bars (actually, it sucks cause it looks like some of the wiring already got disconected and im not sure what plugs into what, but its just the wiring for the kill, start swith stuff on the right grip so cant be that hard to figure out but the wires arent color coded, they're all black ???). I am really scared to take the clusterf*** of wires out of the headlight bucket.

??? ??? ??? ??? ??? Use this as a less from one beginner to another, be more organized than me


Does anyone know, can I disconect the wires up inside the throttle assembly instead, and then pull them out the bars?

As for the engin paint, I got 1200 degree paint so I dont think heat will be an issue.

I stripped the frame w/ aircraft stripper.

I didnt acutally make the guages, I bought them off of a guy on ebay for 21 bucks shipped. His name was anubis_cycle, he has a website you can get them off of but they're 10 bucks more, so just wait until you see some on ebay (the cb500 ones also work).


Dan

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

The wiring for the hand controls all connect at the other end from the controls - in the '74 550 I believe they route to the headlight bucket and become part of the clusterfuck in there.

Do you have the wiring diagrams / manuals for your bike? The official Honda Service Manual for your bike is available for free download on our site - nice high quality PDF format. Includes wiring diagrams for all models of 500/550's.

The wiring is all color coded - green to green, black with yellow stripe to black with yellow stripe etc. Do yourself a favour and clean the connections as you do it - nothing major, just make sure there's good contact.

Stretch the harness out with the headlight, bars etc. in their logical positions - this will help. The whole thing is really only made up of a few major sections.

Disconnect the handlebar controls first - open up the headlight and just disconnect everything. Don't be shy.

Gently pull the wiring out of the bars - you'll need to lubricate and push O) while you pull the wiring - don't haul on the control pods or the connections up there will break and then you're into repairing them.

Did the electrical all work before you tore it apart?

The control pods (left and right switch sets) are likely not 'notched' for external wiring - the newer cast housings had openings to allow for external wiring outside the bars. A dremel tool will take care of that. Then the wiring just zip-ties to the bars and goes back to where it came from.

Later model 550's and the 550F had the handlebar control wiring terminate in a box under the gas tank presumably to reduce the mess inside the headlight.

Again, don't sweat disconnecting every connection inside the headlight bucket - I've done it many times on the 550. Your fingers will be sore putting it all back together, but its worth it.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

BTW - I think the headlight mounts are upside down - I know they work that way, but I'm pretty sure they were originally intended to mount the other way so there's not so much upsweep. All a matter of taste.

I much prefer Tomaselli style ones, which give the added benefit of rubber mounts for vibration control. Best place to buy that kind of thing is www.mikesxs.com - your forks are 35mm. The Tomaselli style ones are the first pic - another option in the second pic. $30 US for a set and free shipping on $35 orders.

Right at the bottom of this page: http://www.mikesxs.net/mikesxs-electrical.php?category_id=2.5

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

BTW - like the xB. Still would like to buy one, but not officially carried in Canada and they charge a huge premium at the dealers here for them. Think they want $25,000 Canadian, which is about $22,000 US or so.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Thanks for the help tintin, Ill take your advice and just go for it. (worse comes to worse, my brother is an electrician and can probably help). As far as the wiring working before I tore it apart, that is a hard question to answer. My girlfriends parents actually gave me the bike, but before they did they installed the battery WRONG. Switched the terminals and needless to say alot of the wiring on the electrical plate by the battery got fried (not completley their fault, the idit before them must have made a new ground cable and decided to use a red wire, who does that?). Thus the headlight and turn signals didnt work when i got it, but they said they worked the year before so I am guessing everything was in tact, and I bought a new electrical panel off ebay that came w/ a solenoid and rectifier and all that stuff (which I dont really know anything about), so I think the wiring should be fine.

Also, how dangerous is ride w/o the front brake, I know a lot of chopper guys do this, and I dont think there is any way I am getting the master cylinder to fit on the bars.


p.s. 22,000 for a scion is insane. My was a special edition w/ tvs, full alpine system, the works and it ran me 18,000. Base price here is only around 14,000.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Your bars look cool and I found some just like them today.

Also found myself a mechanic at the same time, so he is going to do a full mechanical job on my engine while I attend to the polishing and the rest of the bike. ( He knows his Hondas and does great restoration work)

Mechanic has access to a huge Honda parts resource so thats cool as well.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Lookin' good dminner! The transformation is impressive, and I love the frame color. Any idea on what you are doing for wheels?

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

DO NOT RIDE WITHOUT FRONT BRAKES

Seriously, unless you mean up and down your back lane at 10mph. No front brakes = death. The only choppers without front brakes would be show bikes not meant for any sort of street riding in the general public.

Re: New to forum, 550 cafe project and first bike

Riding without a front brake on a cafe or standard bike is really dangerous. Choppers can get away with it because there's more weight on the rear wheel. Riding on a cafe would shift the weight towards the front wheel where you need braking power the most.