New 73 CB200 Caff Build

Here she is everyone!

She is a 1973 Honda CB200, not very many of this year released in the states! Found her in a barn at a friend of mines house about 4 years ago. I got her running and rode her stock for about a year then she stopped firing. She sat for another 3.5 years in my storage unit until about 2 weeks ago when I decided that it was time to give the old girl a make over! This is how she looks at the moment, just got her back from the shop on the 3rd and she starts with the electric starter or on the 1st kick. Will be posting more pics as the bike begins to take shape!

like that tank!

Front brake must be a B***h to reach though ;D

Good thing the first thing to come off will be those pesky stock bars!!!

I just got a CB360 and that's gonna be my first upgrade too! I'm looking at club man's though. I think I'll try to run through the bar.

Looks great!

is that the original colour? I'm building a cb175 at the moment, I believe the 200 is just a bored out version with a disc brake front?
Looking forward to seeing what you do with this.

So I got impatient last night waiting on my parts to arrive from Old Bike Barn, so I decided that I would do some work on the rear of the bike. I cant decide if I like the rear fender on the bike with the new seat or if i like the rear fender off!! Let me know what you think.

P.S. thanks Tim for the idea on using the stock seat for the new seat!!! it worked out really well. Oh yeah, the tape on the seat is just temporary, going to have it professionally recovered by a friend very soon, I just wanted to get the "look" of the new seat design!

Cheers

my vote is almost always to lose the rear fender

Who needs fenders? My helmet keeps my face dry anyways.

dcmspikes said:

my vote is almost always to lose the rear fender

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I don't know, freakycody's small cc honda looks great with a rear fender:

http://dotheton.com/index.php?topic=4512.0

stuco said:

I don't know, freakycody's small cc honda looks great with a rear fender:

http://dotheton.com/index.php?topic=4512.0

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i knew i saw one with a fender that i liked. thats why i left the 'almost' in there. black does hide things well.

I think if that is going to be the final seat shape then I would keep the fender. It would be nice if you could "bob" it a bit though

I also meant to post this one. I think it's really cool what scott s has done with the seat/fender on his yamaha:

http://dotheton.com/index.php?topic=2953.75

hotfunk67 said:

I think if that is going to be the final seat shape then I would keep the fender. It would be nice if you could "bob" it a bit though

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My Hodaka just didn't look right without a rear fender of some type so I'm in the process of putting a chopped one on there.

Mine is going to be in-set/recessed into the rear tail section so it doesn't sit below the tail,but will appear(most of it) to come out of tail section instead.
My fender is chrome and will only stick out about 6-7" and is mostly straight with just a slight down curve.

I like the look of the old Manx racers style bikes and the vast majority of them have at least some sort of rear mud guard on them even if they and radically chopped like mine. The size,mounting angle,radius,color etc. all affect how it looks when it's done and little changes can change the whole look of the fender. ALWAYS mock up the fender with the rear wheel/tire on so you get an idea of how to mount/shape it etc.

Look at the site below to see what I mean about the Norton Manx bikes.
CAUTION: The bikes on the site below are absolutely STUNNING and could induce involuntary drooling. I take NO responsibility if said drool does any type of damage to your computer and or key board.

Norton Motorcycles:
http://www.vintagebike.co.uk/Bike%20Directories/Norton%20Bikes/Norton%20Index.htm

Also I would make the seat rails/side so they cover or sit over the seat/frame rails. Covered rails look cleaner than exposed rails on most bikes. Just depends on the bike and style of racer your trying to go for.

Have a look at Benjis 350, the rear fender on that is awsome
http://www.benjiescaferacer.com/home.html

Well, I have done some more wrenching on the bike over the last couple of days. I am STILL WAITING on my parts from Old Bike Barn that I ordered over 2 weeks ago, not there fault though stupid American Postal Service screwed up as usual!!! Anyway enough bitching!!

I decided that i wanted a flatter seat pan, so i cut the frame support on the tail end of the frame and flipped it upside down and welded it back into place. Its main function was to give the stock seat pan a place to rest instead of resting directly on the rear fender.

I also bolted on some new high speed low drag (Marine Corps term) directionals, but for some reason I can not get them to work!!! When I pulled the stock directionals off there was only 1 wire coming out of them that was plugged into the electrical system, the new ones that I have put on have 2 wires that come out of them. I am assuming (I know its a bad thing to do!!!) that one is the power wire (black/white stripe) and the other is the ground (solid black) but no matter how I hooked them up I could not get the directionals to blink! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I snapped some photos with my phone to show some progress! ENJOY!

Cheers!!

Had to post these seperate because they were rather large!

Cheers!

nice to see another cb200 getting the cafe treatment!

what all did it need done to it to get it up and running again?

Well, another weekend of work is behind me! made alot of progress on the overall look of the bike, but at the same time I took a few steps backward! In order to get the old Bars off, I had to disconnect everything in the headlight bucket and then pull the electrial out of the bars. I made sure to take note of what cables went where, but that didnt help!! Now I am gonna have to go sit with my wiring diagram from the 70's and try to figure everything out!! Anyway, here are the pics from the physcial progress on the bike that was made over the weekend. Enjoy

Cheers

hecklejk said:

I made sure to take note of what cables went where, but that didnt help!! Now I am gonna have to go sit with my wiring diagram from the 70's and try to figure everything out!!

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Aren't they all color-coded?