So, here we go, my first motorcycle build!
Bought a pretty nice 1976 CB750F with 17K a week or two ago and my desire is to cafe race/brat style it (I guess more brat style because I'd still like to ride two-up). Here is what it looked like the day after I bought it and took off the windjammer fairing, highway bars, and back rest.
You can kind of see the windjammer fairing in the right of this pic:
Anybody want it? I was planning on putting it up on craigslist. If anyone wants it, make me an offer... I don't know how shipping would work on it though.
Some of my inspiration:
I just LOVE the styling and the colors on motomucci's bike, however, I don't want to just copy his design as I want my bike to be pretty unique in itself.
To the build!
As I said, I started by taking off all of the ugliness and seeing exactly what I could do to the bike. After that, I decided I wanted to get it in good working order before working on the body (fabricating and welding a new seat pan, putting a hoop on the end, clubman bars, new gauges, lowering the front suspension, working on the tank etc.) When I got it, the back brake didn't work. At all. My suspicion was that it was of course something wrong with the master cylinder so my next step was to pull it apart and do some assessment. Yuup, I was right. Just take a look at the push rod, bent to crap and completely rusted:
So I ordered a rebuild kit online from powersportsplus.com and am waiting for it to come in. After I ordered that, I decided to take apart the caliper and inspect it. Getting the pistons out was an adventure. I don't have an air compressor so I had to wait until I could make it over to my buddy's house and use his. Wow, those things come out like a bullet! I figured they would so I used a wooden block to keep it from taking any of my body parts off when they finally broke loose.I was extremely surprised as both of the seals and pistons looked pretty pristine (sorry, didn't take any pics but you can kind of see them in the picture above).
So...being bored while I waited for the rebuild kit to come in, I decided to blow up the bike a little more and see what was going on with the carbs. Seeing as how I've never worked on carbs before, I dove right in. Naturally.
Seeing as how the guy I bought it from seemed to have no idea about the bike that he owned for something like 12 years, I expected to see the carbs in pretty rough shape, but again I was surprised to see that they were pretty clean. So just for kicks I decided to clean the jets and valves. Only one of the jets looked clogged. I decided that since they looked pretty clean that I wouldn't worry about doing a full clean with the lemon juice procedure or whatever. What do you guys think? Good idea or no?Oh, and what do you all think about rejetting them? I'm running the stock size for both the main and the slow jets, however, because of my high altitude (5,200 ft.) do I need to change out the jets?
I put the carbs back on (that was tough! The tubes just did not want to sit right). Which left me here:
Now I hit that point where I am just waiting for the rebuild kit to come in and so I decided to order some more parts for it from DCC:
Clubman Handlebars - (Gloss Black)
Honda CB/CL & Others 7" Sealed Headlight Beam (because I'm selling the original one with the fairing.)
2-1/4" Classic Round Taillight - (Satin Black)
Retro Brown Solid "Barrel" Style Grips
Lightweight Black Headlight Brackets
2.5" Chrome Mini Speedometer w/ LED Indicator Lights - (White Faced)
Oh! And I started taking apart the handlebars to prepare for the clubmans to come in. And like everyone that I've heard whose done it. The starter switch fell into a million pieces so I guess I'm going to have to think of a custom after market one, which is kind of exciting because I get to be creative as to the look and placement. Any suggestions?
Now...all I can do is wait, and clean up the bike a little. As you can see, I've polished the engine a bit (not sure if it's worth it with just using rubbing compound. That junk takes forever!) and I cleaned up the tire and rear sprocket cover last night.
More to come!
Bought a pretty nice 1976 CB750F with 17K a week or two ago and my desire is to cafe race/brat style it (I guess more brat style because I'd still like to ride two-up). Here is what it looked like the day after I bought it and took off the windjammer fairing, highway bars, and back rest.
You can kind of see the windjammer fairing in the right of this pic:
Anybody want it? I was planning on putting it up on craigslist. If anyone wants it, make me an offer... I don't know how shipping would work on it though.
Some of my inspiration:
I just LOVE the styling and the colors on motomucci's bike, however, I don't want to just copy his design as I want my bike to be pretty unique in itself.
To the build!
As I said, I started by taking off all of the ugliness and seeing exactly what I could do to the bike. After that, I decided I wanted to get it in good working order before working on the body (fabricating and welding a new seat pan, putting a hoop on the end, clubman bars, new gauges, lowering the front suspension, working on the tank etc.) When I got it, the back brake didn't work. At all. My suspicion was that it was of course something wrong with the master cylinder so my next step was to pull it apart and do some assessment. Yuup, I was right. Just take a look at the push rod, bent to crap and completely rusted:
So I ordered a rebuild kit online from powersportsplus.com and am waiting for it to come in. After I ordered that, I decided to take apart the caliper and inspect it. Getting the pistons out was an adventure. I don't have an air compressor so I had to wait until I could make it over to my buddy's house and use his. Wow, those things come out like a bullet! I figured they would so I used a wooden block to keep it from taking any of my body parts off when they finally broke loose.I was extremely surprised as both of the seals and pistons looked pretty pristine (sorry, didn't take any pics but you can kind of see them in the picture above).
So...being bored while I waited for the rebuild kit to come in, I decided to blow up the bike a little more and see what was going on with the carbs. Seeing as how I've never worked on carbs before, I dove right in. Naturally.
Seeing as how the guy I bought it from seemed to have no idea about the bike that he owned for something like 12 years, I expected to see the carbs in pretty rough shape, but again I was surprised to see that they were pretty clean. So just for kicks I decided to clean the jets and valves. Only one of the jets looked clogged. I decided that since they looked pretty clean that I wouldn't worry about doing a full clean with the lemon juice procedure or whatever. What do you guys think? Good idea or no?Oh, and what do you all think about rejetting them? I'm running the stock size for both the main and the slow jets, however, because of my high altitude (5,200 ft.) do I need to change out the jets?
I put the carbs back on (that was tough! The tubes just did not want to sit right). Which left me here:
Now I hit that point where I am just waiting for the rebuild kit to come in and so I decided to order some more parts for it from DCC:
Clubman Handlebars - (Gloss Black)
Honda CB/CL & Others 7" Sealed Headlight Beam (because I'm selling the original one with the fairing.)
2-1/4" Classic Round Taillight - (Satin Black)
Retro Brown Solid "Barrel" Style Grips
Lightweight Black Headlight Brackets
2.5" Chrome Mini Speedometer w/ LED Indicator Lights - (White Faced)
Oh! And I started taking apart the handlebars to prepare for the clubmans to come in. And like everyone that I've heard whose done it. The starter switch fell into a million pieces so I guess I'm going to have to think of a custom after market one, which is kind of exciting because I get to be creative as to the look and placement. Any suggestions?
Now...all I can do is wait, and clean up the bike a little. As you can see, I've polished the engine a bit (not sure if it's worth it with just using rubbing compound. That junk takes forever!) and I cleaned up the tire and rear sprocket cover last night.
More to come!
