CX500 Cream Cafe *Updated tank and seat*

Hello everyone! this is my first post on DTT as well as my first build thread, and my first motorcycle. I got a 81 cx500 custom about a year ago for my 19th birthday and have done some customizing on it, and got it to look alot better imo. I'm going to post the progress that i've made over the next few days till this thread is all caught up.

so first thing first, i picked the bike up in the middle of january and it was a decent runner, but needed some maintanence done ie all cables needed replaced, oil change, cleanup, carb cleaning, just basic stuff to do with a used bike. i dont have a picture of the bike when i got it but it looked just like this picture i got off line, plus a big old windshield and a luggage rack/back suppourt.



so like i said i got it and played with it for about a year and suffered some fuel delivery issues and my tank developed a leak. I bought a cx500 deluxe tank and fitted it on to this bike. it was rusty and used so i had to seal it. I got it sealed and painted and about 2 months later it started to leak! i then used oxy aceteline to fill in the leak and that held fro about another month and it started leaking worse than before. This time i busted out the welder and in the process had a small explosion and created a bigger hole in the tank. Btw when i was welding the hole the tank was full of water and I had rinsed it out and even let the fumes burn for about ten minutes before welding.
Anyways those leaks ruined my paint job on most of the tins so i am going to have to re paint it and thought i would start to document my build from now on.

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

I decided to abandon my old tank and come back to it later on when i have better metal working skills and can fix it. I bought another used tank off ebay and with shipping it was about $89 and was in worse shape than my original. Seems like the cx500 deluxe tanks are becoming more popular. The ebay seller gorillamotors "forgot" to mention that there was already a failed liner in this tank! It has proved to be a pita to remove.
Here is a picture of the tank. Surface rust on the outside, kinda bad on the bottom but not terrible.


Here is a picture of the inside of the tank. As you can see it has a flaky liner and pretty bad surface rust. I bet this bike had rust all over in its carbs.

also there was no pre filter or straw for the petcock, and the guy probably wasn't running a fuel filter. No wonder this bike got parted out.

Now to get that old liner out. The liner was in way bad shape and what i could reach with a screw driver would come off. So i decided to try a technique that i have seen on other forums.
what i did was fill the tank with lots of nuts and bolts and shake it around... Well doing that by hand its a pita so i put it in the drier.


What you need to do is wrap your tank in some plastic and then some old towels/blankets and tape it all up


Then stick it in the drier and fill in the empty space with other blackets, towels and other clothing.



WARINGS: put your drier on no heat, or you will have bigger problems than a rusty tank.


WARNING: Dont do this if you wife/girlfriend/mother is home. Women do not understand the need to use the drier as a shop tool.

I put it in for about 40 minutes and i was less than impressed by the results, most of the liner was still attatched to the walls and i couldn't see any improvment. I rolled the tank around by hand and got some better results but didn't get a picture of it. Also i just bought a tank sealing kit from my local auto paint store and will be using that in a few days.
Anyways i got some more progress to post but i'm going to call it a night. Stay tuned for more of my winter re-build.


here is a picture of the bike before i put it up for the winter. Note the thruxton style two up or one up seat cowl!

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

Welcome to the site man. Glad to hear you survived the tank dilema. Somebody mentioned before about running a car exhaust into the tank for about 30 minutes to dry out the gas. It's a shame that dryer trick didn't work out! Kinda had my hopes up on that one

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

been getting a little bit of work done on this but don't have any new pics yet. I think i am going to buy a professional one up seat to replace my home made removable cowl seat.

Has any one bought from neuxstone on eBay? I know he has a good feedback on eBay, maybe if someone has used his seat and has a pic you can post. I like his Manx style seat shown here http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cafe-racer-SEAT-PAN-Yamaha-Honda-Suzuki-Kawasaki_W0QQitemZ190371949217QQihZ009QQcategoryZ34284QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I also like his phat tail seat, but I'm going to have to do a photo shop mock up before committing to buying one. Also roccity's seats look like they're pretty amazing, there just a bit more money

I'll post some updated tail light/blinkers pics tomorrow when it is light out.

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

Ive heard a piece of chain works pretty good for that. Might be worth another shot with chain before you seal it. Keep it up

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I've been shaking the tank around a bit more. I put some chains inside, but progress is very very slow, and frustrating. I think i'm going to have to order the tank strip that por 15 sales to remove the liner.

I did however get on old 3/4th helmet that is sparkly red for $15 The fabric inside was pretty gross so i relined it with a virgin Mary print and some mexican blanket style fabric. I've seen alot of this type of relining on chopper sites, but not so much here. It turned out better than i thought, but isn't as nice as a Hellmutts relining.

I don't think i'll wear it much since it is so old and probable not safe, but its nice to have a project completed even if it is a small one.

without further ado...

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

Cool. I saw this guy on here with a 450 who was using a battery charger to remove the rust from his tank. I'm surprised your tank looks so bad. I bought a honda tank for my bike and its like new inside. in fact all the cb 500t tanks that were listed on ebay at the time were like new. Maybe it the cx tank I dont know. stick with it

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

Nice work on the helmet, I hear ya on finishing a project.

Do a google search on "electrolysis gas tank", you will find lots of stuff on how to remove the rust out of your tank.

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

msimm43 said:

Nice work on the helmet, I hear ya on finishing a project.

Do a google search on "electrolysis gas tank", you will find lots of stuff on how to remove the rust out of your tank.

Click to expand...

Great minds think alike...

I started the electrolysis process today. My hope is that it will of course remove all the rust but also weaken the bond between the failled tank liner and the gas tank making it easy to remove all the old liner.

I also took a chunk of the liner that i had gotten out and put some "ZIP STRIP" on it and it turned the liner to liquid so i can use that instead of the tank strip from Por-15 if I need to. I'm sure the Por-15 tank strip would work better, but i have ZIP STRIP already so it would be a bit cheaper, which is important when you don't have a job.


I think everyone is pretty familiar with electrolysis but if you need more info i would go to http://www.altelco.net/~jacil/clay/motorcycle/KElecSetup.html

Here is a picture of the anode rod I used(bent coat hanger with paint sanded off) with the spay can cap cut down to keep it from touching the tank.


I had tried shaking chains around in my tank to break up the rust and liner like thompsonmx100. Worked alot better that bolts/nuts and is 100x easier to get back out of the tank. So if your going to try it the old school way use chains for sure.

Here is a picture of the tank all set up doing its thing.

Now all i have to do is wait.

I'm a little nervous that the water will freeze tonight, hopefully it doesn't. I haven't tried to search this yet but could this be done indoors? or is it not safe to do that?

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

Big R said:

Welcome to the site man. Glad to hear you survived the tank dilema. Somebody mentioned before about running a car exhaust into the tank for about 30 minutes to dry out the gas. It's a shame that dryer trick didn't work out! Kinda had my hopes up on that one

Click to expand...

The exhaust gas is not used to dry out the gas! You wash the tank out good with soapy degreaser then dry it however you choose, but before torching or welding on the tank if you fill it with exhaust you will be filling it with a non-combustable gas, so you don't create a bomb! Nice touch with the dryer/household tumbler! I will be using this trick in the future! Sorry it did not work like you planned, but I still think I will give it a shot! Nice work!

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

tWistedWheelz said:

The exhaust gas is not used to dry out the gas! You wash the tank out good with soapy degreaser then dry it however you choose, but before torching or welding on the tank if you fill it with exhaust you will be filling it with a non-combustable gas, so you don't create a bomb! Nice touch with the dryer/household tumbler! I will be using this trick in the future! Sorry it did not work like you planned, but I still think I will give it a shot! Nice work!

Click to expand...

wrong......the exhaust gas creates heat and blows all of the fumes out of the tank. this is a trick i was taught by a guy i used to work with whos been doing it since the 70's on car tanks and bike tanks. you simply empty the gas then hang it from the exhaust of a car for about a half hour. it gets rid of all the fumes and dries out and residual fuel.

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

forcefanajd said:

wrong......the exhaust gas creates heat and blows all of the fumes out of the tank. this is a trick i was taught by a guy i used to work with whos been doing it since the 70's on car tanks and bike tanks. you simply empty the gas then hang it from the exhaust of a car for about a half hour. it gets rid of all the fumes and dries out and residual fuel.

Click to expand...

Well then I stand corrected!

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

try washing a tank out with degreaser and water then welding it and see what happens ;D

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I have many times, I just filled it with innert gas first! I works no problem, I have lost no limbs or digits!

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

lol and no tanks you can roll across the shop to your buddy?

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I still cant believe that it poped on me. I even stuck a light inside of it after i had washed it out and let it dry and it didn't light anything on fire. And then i had it FULL of water when welding it! I guess you can never be to careful.

On a side not. The tank has been going its electrolysis thing for a bit and i can already see some rust goo forming around the filler whole.

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

let it go for a couple days.....its takes a good while and make sure to add salt once in a while

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

we get tanks all the time for powder... i run a car exhuast through them for about 5 min before we put them in the oven... works

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

UPDATES

In today's installment of the cream cafe I will document the frame modification i have done in the past 4 days.

So let me just start off by saying that my biggest custom motorcycle pet peeve is when people put a cafe racer seat on one of those old Japaneses cruiser frames that have the dip in them. When done properly it will look fine, but most people seem to think that it looks alright to have a gap between the frame the seat. I hate that. So this week i have been trying to fix that problem in my spare time.

So the first thing i did was make a C.A.D rendering of the sheet metal i would need to modify the frame.



as you can see C.A.D stands for cardboard aided design in my case.
Side note 12 pack, or cereal box cardboard works better than this thick box stuff I found behind the fire station. Also in this picture it looks like a kept to much material on top. That is because it is hard to get a precision cut with this stuff so i just drew were to cut the top off at.

Then i transferred it to metal. 16 gauge in this case. Does $17 for a 1x2 1/2 foot sheet seem expensive?



You may note all the drill holes in the metal, funny story. Well i usually drill a few holes to help me get a better cut. Well i was in the garage and could not find the cutting wheel for the die grinder, a hack saw, the metal blades I bought for the jig saw, or even a sawz all (probaly best that i didn't find that one.) All I could find to cut with was a hack saw blade, and a broken plastic mini hack. There was no way I was going to drive into town just to buy one freaking blade I live about 20 minutes out of town, and I was in one of those moods where even if I had to use a screw driver they were going to get cut out. So I drilled about 50 more holes in each one and used the hack saw blade with my bare hands!



Well I got them cut out. It took about and hour after grinding them to shape. I could have just drove into town and bought a blade and been done in 45minutes. But oh well, it got done.

Then I had to venture up to my grandpa's shop were my bike is in winter storage for a test fitting.


The cx hangs out with this guy. Its my grandpa's 71 iron head sportster. I think its really cool, i'm not a big Harley fan, but i really like this one. He bought it as a basket case in the late 70s and put it together with a carb from a snowmobile. He rode it around about 20 miles and its been sitting ever since. 20 miles thats it! I've been bugging him to get it running and he finally bought the correct carb for it. Hopefully it will ride again this summer.


Seems like my bike has been picking up some bad habits from the Harley. Tsk tsk tsk
Oh well a table spoon of oil in 4 months, i don't think its to big of a deal.

Alright back to business. After some test fitting and bench top grinding I got the sheet metal fitting good. I tacked them in place and it looked pretty good.


No close up pictures cos my welds look terrible! I need to track down a angle grinder quick.

Question to all the welders.

I welding this 16-18 gauge metal (cant remember exactly which one,) to my stamped rear frame that a bit thicker. I only have access to a arc welder, and I'm using 6013 3/32" rods, welder set at DC- 45. I'm getting them to tack together but I have the problem where on the frame side it isn't penetrating super great and it will sometimes burn thru the sheet metal. Would the only solution here be to use thicker sheet metal?

Well thats all for tonight. I still need to post better pics of my old two up seat, and new tail light/rear turn signals but I'll do that some other time. The gas tank is still doing its electrolosys thing. I stop it ever night before i go to bed so i think it will probably take longer than normal.

Tune in next time, same bat channel, same bat time!

Re: CX500 Cream Cafe

I'm not a pro welder but you will probably have to aim your stick at the frame rail more than the sheet metal that should help that condition.