Project Gretta....seat action.....

What color for the Mono Shock spring on Gretta?

  • White (to match skins)

    Votes: 15 32.6%
  • Black

    Votes: 9 19.6%
  • Yellow

    Votes: 9 19.6%
  • Brown (to match skins)

    Votes: 5 10.9%
  • Silver

    Votes: 6 13.0%
  • Chrome powder

    Votes: 2 4.3%

  • Total voters
    46

Kanticoy

Mad Science!
DTT BOTM WINNER
Okay, well, I suppose it's time to start a build thread on my new project. Picked up another 1974 CB360T for a few bones. The starter of course was fried, but a couple of spare coils and some timing, and she was running in about 30 minutes. 150 psi dry compression. Good to go on that front. First thing I did was completely disassemble her. Did the typical modifications like removing tabs from the frame, and grinding crappy 35 year old welds. Gonna complete the spine elimination the next day I'm off but I started running out of time. The motor was pulled, and has the typical broken cam chain slipper (which I need one of if you guys have some sitting around). I've gone through almost 2 sprayer bottles of Simple Green, and though there is progress, the motor cleaning business just plain sucks. But it has to be done. I have a black por-15 engine paint kit waiting for it when it's done. This project has a few goals. I am going to really clean the lines up on it with an undecided tank and a custom seat. I have a 1997 CBR600 swingarm with monoshock that will be grafted on using (probably) custom swing arm mounts and lots of new bracing. This means that the majority of the factory tail section will be removed and a new seat frame will be constructed accordingly. The reason that this swing arm idea came into fruition is that I have a nicely built set of wheels using the drum front and rear with excel rims laced with Buchanan's SS spokes. The drums were powdered satin high heat black, and the rims are powdered gloss black. Looks great. The front rim is a WM3 running a 100/90/18, and the rear is a WM6 running a 130/90/18. While these tires fit the stock swing arm, I feel that I can truly make the handling on this bike stellar with some upgraded suspension, and it will make clearance issues not so close. Plus I am of course going for that "cool" factor. I will see this build to the end and post as often as I can in as close of intervals as possible, because simply put, you guys have inspired me, and I want to return that favor, however meager my attempt may be. So here are the first progress pics!

The day she came home:
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Frame mods...well the start of them anyway:
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The Bi!t#$ A$$ motor cleaning process:
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A very poor excuse at what is to tentatively come. Done on the Hobo CAD system a.k.a. MS Paint:
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And the swing arm:
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Let me know your thoughts and ideas, and I will be here as much as time allows. Thanks to all of you who make this look easy!
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Glad to see you got the build thread started. I think this will be a very cool project and I look forward to following along. Nice start so far. Is that what I think it is under that brown tarp? It looks like the grim reaper with its arms spread getting ready to pounce, lol. I really dig the outline of that bike under there!
Troy
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Yep that's black betty under there! She was a great learning tool to help me know where to go with this next one. I love this stuf man, so I'm totally looking forward to making it happen!
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Should be fun. One ? Are you planning on running a tail and fender or will it have only the seat back there?
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

There will be a hump style seat back there, but it'll be tricky to make it all work out...tricky but fun. And the fender will probably be a floater fender that is attached to the swingarm...but it will be hella bobbed...just enough to keep the road grime away. Well see as she comes along. I really listen to the bike as she comes together to see where to go next.
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

That will be insane! I really like when the rear fenders are attached to the swingarm nice and tight to the tire. The hump back there will finish it off. I know you'll be able to pull it all off. It'll be sick.
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Love where this build is going. Ill keep checking for updates for sure. This is almost the same direction (kind of) as my KZ440 Build
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

This bike is gonna look great!!!
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Okay, been a few days, but I do have some updates!

I decided that I didn't like the look of the cbr600 swing arm because it is made with boxed tubing, and it just didn't have the feel that I was looking for...so off to the metal yard I went! I bough several feet of 1" DOM tubing and some 3/4" as well and I decided to build a fully custom arm from scratch. I'm glad I did because it turned out really well, and the round stock just flows so much better than the square did. It's just more old school. I built it fully braced because it will be supporting the monoshock suspension. I haven't built the perch for that yet, and I still need to fabricate the wheel forks for the end to eliminate the stock shock mounts and clean things up on the rear. It seems plenty strong now that it's fully welded. I still need to grind some of the welds down for aesthetics, and sand the whole thing down. I used flux core because right now my shop has wood floors, and the sparks would wreak havoc on that. The last thing I need is to burn my shop down. So I went gas-less so I could weld outside. Flux core is a slightly stronger bond as well, so it should work out well. So Friday I will finish all of that up so I can mount the rear wheel and start cutting the frame accordingly and building shock mounts. I got a Showa rear fully adjustable shock from a Ducati 999 off of E-bay that I am going to use, simply because the reservoir is attached to the shock body instead of being divorced...makes for less crap dangling off of what I want to be a clean frame. I got my tapered bearings for the head tube in today, so I can mount up my front forks and have a rolling chassis up and going to really get into the fab work. This project is moving right along, thank goodness!

The rear swing arm is 4" over stock to accommodate my 130/90 rear, and is much much stronger than the original as well. It's just dang beefy! But it really isn't too heavy at all. Good stuff. I am going to get a buddy of mine to machine me a custom brass bushing for the swingarm mount on his lathe, and I still have to tap the tube for a zerks grease fitting. I may even go with a needle bearing set-up if I can find one in the right dimensions. Who knows! Fully enclosed bearings sure would be nice!

Just so you know, any of us can bend tube, it just takes patience. My only tools were a propane burner, a sheet of 4'x2' 3/4" oak plywood, and a sawzall. The tube notches were all done with a bench grinder (pain staking, but effective), the cuts with a 4" cut off wheel on an angle grinder and/or the sawzall. The tube was all bent on jigs that I gut out of the plywood. I nailed the jigs to a wooden table outside, heated the tube to glowing with the burner torch, and then bent along the jig, nailing along the way around the edge as I did. It took a couple of re-heats for each tube to get the circumference right, but it worked great.

This just goes to show you, that ingenuity over-rules adversity.

Anyway, here are some pics:

Here is the cardboard template I used to mark out the measurements for the swing arm. I pinned this to the welding table and then welded each part accordingly by making sure to follow the template diagram. This ensured that the swingarm stayed true to measurement specs and didn't get all warped and wonky.

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here are the main swing arm "arm" tubes right after being bent to match the angle of the stock swing arm. To anyone interested, according to my angle finder from Harbor Freight, this is 29 degrees:

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This is just after notching and welding the 8" mounting tube to the swing arm "arms" These were hard to do just because of the angle that the arms mounted to the mounting tube. It took a lot of trips to the grinder to get this right. Notice the angle iron brace used to keep the legs from warping.:

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Here is some bracing I did with rosettes into the tube out of 1/8" plate. This was actually a huge piece of angle iron that I cut down to make the plates out of...this is about midway through finish grinding. grind....weld....grind....weld= strong welds with no weak spots.

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Each tube joint was notched like this for a good fit with no gaps:

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Sorry for the gaps, it got dark and the camera wouldn't get good shots, but this is how it turned out after the brace was fabbed up using the above method. Took some time, but the gussets will prevent warping under the load of the shock. The shock perch will actually be right in the "u" on the upper brace, right above one gusset. Like i said it still needs some finish grinding and cleaning up, plus the wheel forks, but I think it turned out pretty good.

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And here is a shot of the shock I am going with:

shock.jpg


Anyway, that's all for today. Thanks for looking, and thanks for the support guys! It's what keeps me going sometimes!

K.
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

haha i love it:
"i don't like the swingarm... i'll make a new one"
that's the right attitude.
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

sebatron said:
haha i love it:
"i don't like the swingarm... i'll make a new one"
that's the right attitude.
+1
For not doing that before you did an amazing job, just amazing! I do love that kind of attitude! Thanks for the good detailed info!
Troy
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

I am thoroughly impressed.
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Thank you guys. I think it turned out well. It was a really fun mod to do because I got to learn a lot about working with tube. I really had fun with this one.
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Does anyone know a good affordable place to get bronze stock? I need it to be 1" od and about 9" long. My local supplier can't get it for some reason...I may be going the bearing route after all....that could be just as much of a chore! Oh well, no success without effort, right? No progress today. I'll be back at it first thing in the morning. 24 hour shifts at work suck sometimes!
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

thats going to be sick :) i have been dying to see a small honda with single shock keep updating . are you going to have chain clearince with the bracing?
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Yes it does clear. Due to the extra length and the position of the arm it works quite nicely. It's close, but no binding. Believe me I worried about that too prior to building this thing!
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

I'm impressed and inspired. Nice job! is it heavy though? Can't wait to see it painted and mounted to the frame. -MBS
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

MBS said:
I'm impressed and inspired. Nice job! is it heavy though? Can't wait to see it painted and mounted to the frame. -MBS

actually it's not too heavy at all. More than stock of course due to bracing and a little beefier material (I wanted to make sure it could withstand the force of the monoshock), buy it's definitely no lead weight. I'll throw it on the digital scal and do a comparative weight between it and the stock one. I'm glad you like it!
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

Kanticoy said:
Does anyone know a good affordable place to get bronze stock? I need it to be 1" od and about 9" l

Have you tried either onlinemetals.com or Aircraft Spruce and Aluminum?
 
Re: A way to waste money: The evolution of a confused '74 360

I like the title of this thread "A way to waste money.." Is that what we call it? I had it wrong all this time. And here I thought I was wasting money on silly things like paying bills and food. I would still take a nice long uninterrupted ride on the bike over a steak. ;D
 
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