Making progress... CB650

[jdub]

My bike doesn't really have a unified theme like Cafe, just whatever I thought was cool at the time.

This is what it looked like when I got it. Pretty much your standard neglected CB650 nobody ever gave a shit about.

[jdub]

More of how it was when I got it... It looks a lot nicer in the pics than it was. Tank is dented, paint was cracked, it's leaky, dirty, etc. I didn't "ruin" a nice bike, though I'm sure I'm less likely to get in trouble here.

Inverted Clubman bars by previous owner. I think I'm in hell...

[jdub]

Making some progress...

[jdub]

Since taking all of these I have lowered the headlight to pre-metric cruiser era levels with ebay brackets. I also got rid of the googly gauges. In fact I pretty much rolled the bike into the garage and did all that right after I took the shots. Wish I would have waited.

On deck is a MAC 4-1 exhaust and I plan to paint the wheels so they're all black. Remove the crash bars too. Probably won't take pics again until then.

Eventually I would like to rewire the entire bike and move all the electronics under the seat hump. I also can't decide if I want to lower the front by pulling the forks up through the triple tree and switch to clip-ons. CB650s have fucking long forks compared to my CB500 which looks tiny next to the 650 (it's also lowered a bit).

But for now I'm going to do little projects and ride it. Because we're supposed to ride these sometimes, right?

[jdub]

It needs new tires and I need to fix the choke cable. It is cold blooded pretty bad. It does not warm up and run right without the choke unless you actually ride it for awhile. I've been using the throttle stop to keep it running so of course by the time it's warm my idle is 4000 and I have to back it all the way out. After that it rides fine. But I need to fix the damn choke.

It also sometimes will not start at all. Push the starter button, headlight dims, nothing happens. I replaced the battery with a true gel cell that cost me an arm and a leg and it kicked right over. I did some other stuff, came back 20 minutes later and jack shit. Then another ten minutes later it starts. I then replaced the ignition switch. Nothing so far. I'm thinking it's the starter relay at this point. If not then it's something stupid like dirty battery connectors.

[Scott84]

That thing is pretty sweet did you ever do anything else to it?

[jdub]

What the pics don't show is the removed gauges and lowered headlight. I can't convey what a dramatic improvement this is for these late 70s-early 80s Hondas. Then after fumbling around with electrical issues I took a break from it to work on my 550 and now I am working on my 500. I'm not exactly sure when I will get back to the 650 but hopefully soon.

Here's what I plan to do in the not too distant future though:

Remove the crashbar
Put the battery under the seat, clear up the area behind the side covers
Fully strip the tank, lightly polish it and put a coat of clear on it
Make the wheels all black and get new tires
Put reverse cone mufflers on

I was going to use the MAC 4-1 exhaust but I think I will sell it and just put different mufflers on the stock pipes.

I've considered shortening the seat by about 2". Not sure on that one.