I'd love to see some sort of service available for an exchange type basis, which takes any and all of the OEM peg-brackets on period Hondas, or Kawasakis for that matter -any type of peg-bracket or passenger-peg-bracket from any and all period bikes, where you send the things in and they machine them or weld them up for new pivots or adjustable located brackets, such that all of these bikes could have rear-sets. I think a very simply common mount could be built for ALL such bikes which would use the commonly available reproduction pegs that are all over fleabay. Could you see it? The value of second hand brackets would see a spike, but the turn-around would be really quick if the brackets were located in a jig for each model/type, and then milled with a flat or insert, and then a standard common block with a pivot in it could be bolted into that block. And if such a block were made as a two-peice, it could use a grid of holes or better still a "HIRTH" joint such as Honda used on the Hawk/SuperHawk and which Ducati put on all of their old bikes, and then these rear-sets could be very quickly adjusted over a good range of movement. It would just take building a jig for each type of bracket, buying up a shit-load of brackets if you could do it for quick turn-around -maybe they could all be soda-blasted for a standard finish which is easily polish-able, maybe some finish options could be offered down the line for a premium price. It just seems to me that these Honda plates were intended originally for just this type of option, they copied the period rear-sets available on the aftermarket, but they were left as a blank slate for the owner to modify as he chose to. Otherwise, why wouldn't they all stick to the steel mounts? Many of them are one fuck of a lot heavier than the given alternatives, such as steel triangles. I've got a set of cut off passenger peg triangles from a SOHC Honda, which I'm sticking ONTO an '82 CB750F frame, and you weigh the two parts and it's freakin' RiDONKulous how much heavier they are. There's a reason they were put on the bikes, but few people have realized what it was! But yeah, this is just one of my little small business ideas. If there's anybody with a love of building rear-sets and a good machine tool around appropriate for such a job, well they could take this idea and run with it. Just think of how easy it would be to make the jigs, when the brackets themselves are already MADE to be located with very heavy bolts! They could probably even fit into a CNC machine in a fucking heart-beat. Whatever sort of abberations are in the units themselves, you'd want the cuts made relative to the bolt hole locations anyway. One could visualize the "Hondaline Sport-Kit" set for the DOHC CB900F, how the standard plates are modded in just such a way - the sport-kit had a different pivot and pedal for the brake, plus an additional shift linkage pivoting on the left side, and a pivot-plate lug with two bolts which located straight through to a hole in the frame for extra strength. The earlier SOHC supersport brackets also have a third bolt-hole in them for the triangular mount strength. But I think with judicious design of the mount holes the aluminum itself could be used. Especially if the standard Titanium hex bolts which Hondas been using for their late model brake rotor mounts, the little fuckers that go on all of the CBR floating disc brakes and which fleabay for less than a buck a pop, well with such a careful method of mounting and a flat ground into the bracket itself with a depth of as little as a 1/16th of an inch or less even, with such a light touch the brackets would be just as strong as before and yet not need the through-bolt onto the frame to hold the rider's weight. As for the pedal, there are quite a lot of pedals out there with similar splines. I've found, for instance, the same spline on the GL1200 is also on the VF500F which uses a Tarozzi style pivot lug on the back-side of the pedal, with the spline shaft on the pedal itself. As such, the lug from the VF could be used to make Tarozzi style rear-sets. The point being, there are loads of pedal substitutions which just need to be experimented with and then cross referenced for suitability. For my own DOHC custom rear-sets, I've cut the end off the pedal and telescoped a new tip on it using a C70 passport pedal end because it had the same pad with a better angle of weld under it. So, I suppose the pedals too could be shipped in for modification, if you really wanted to get crazy with it. For shift linkage, any one of the pivots out there, the GS500 has a really simple pedal and link - the point being, any type of commonly available cheap shift linkage could be designed into the system, or perhaps the reversed shift pedal and "race shift" method would suit a lot of folks. Any which way, people could send you the brackets and ask for one of two or three optional services. With a jig made you could then service that model of bike. As for the pivots and lugs you could have them batch made -cast perhaps- or on a scale where they're so freakin' cheap it's bonkers. I suppose a few hundred bucks would be required to invest in that part of it. But yeah, the machine work would be exactly the same each time so you could train a chimpanzee to do it - or your kids if child labour laws don't interfere - and all of the extraneous parts other than your lugs would be the responsibility of the bike's owner to collect together after the fact, whether they be the brake rotor bolts or the shift linkage or the similarly splined brake pedal or what have you. It might also be possible to adapt drum brakes using a different brake pedal altogether seeing as you needn't allign to the master-cylinder so closely as with disc brake units like on the DOHC fours like mine. Standard CBR type rearset kits could be used on original bracket plates using a lug again which would replace the triangular mounting system of the original CBR pivot, master cylinder, pegs etc etc mounted to the new lug. Obviously, each bike's plates would have to be examined for the best way to do them individually, but the main thing is relocating the foot pegs and then changing the pedal. I think that's the simplest way, and the separate shift linkage pedal of the GS500 type vs race shift would be the primary difference, with additional options being powder-coat or soda-blast finishes. For the tolerances involved in such things, I'm sure you could use wooden jigs at first, and maybe even use busted up crashed rearsets off CBRs and the like to cut down for their peg pivot lugs. Anywhere you could get some cheap unwanted peg brackets with the built-in peg pivots, such as the VFR's and the like, or any of the bolt-on passenger peg brackets from late model sport-bikes, well right there you've got a donor lump of aluminum with a proper si pivot on it which takes a standard mass produced peg of some type. If you've got a friend who runs a large E-bay bike stripper business, maybe you could get such parts at a volume no-pissing-around price! Then you just take all of those CBR pegs and cut out the pivots into a similar shape, triangular I suppose, sand the back of them flat drill a hole in each corner and whammo. The important thing would be working out the geometry so that the OEM Honda brackets you're fixing get the bolts into the thickest parts of the alloy. With those rotor bolts used for mounting, the holes would probably fit into just about any of the thick slabs on the back-sides, and you could get away with one size of tap for cutting threads. I'd bet that a drill-press could be used to cut the flats in the brackets. I've seen ways that people have cut custom off-sets onto cush-drive hubs for wheel swaps, such that the hub spins around and gets a flat cut on it as it goes around. You'd just have to work out a system. But yeah, no way in hell you'd absolutely have to buy a CNC machine to do it all. Hell, with a round lug and flat, and proper jigs of course, you could probably do the whole fuckin' thing on a LATHE! Ha ha. And if you were into the TIG welding type of thing, perhaps even use AEROBRAZE from TinManTech, you could stick the fuckers on there for GOOD.
Whaddya think, guys? On all of the CB and KZ forums, the DOTHETON and SOHC4 forums, how many people are pissing around with building rear-sets for their bikes? Or would LIKE to? I think it's viable, and I certainly don't think it has to be rocket science. The main thing is that the pool of exchange parts and donor parts OR mass-produced lugs would have to be invested in, not to mention the time. I might even consider doing this myself, if I could get a shop location. I'd bet that I could get some kind of loan, being that I'm on disability now. I could probably hire a bunch of other gimps to work on it too. Hmmm, you know if I worked it out simply enough, the gov't here allows people to pay mentally handicapped people as low of a wage as they'd care to pay them. Which is fuckin' sick as far as I'M concerned. One type of handicap is the same as the next, as far as a person's HUMAN RIGHTS are concerned.... But yeah, seriously, with a well thought out process you wouldn't have to get out the fucking gauges and tape measures and shit like that at ALL, you could just stick the things in the jig and run the tool in a triangular shaped cut. A router table would be yet another way to cut the flats into the brackets, by the way. the Jigs would bolt up such that the bracket goes upside-down, and the router or jig could set limits to how far the router cuts. This is obvious if you have a router and KNOW HOW TO USE IT - standard practice for using a router in a commercial shop. So yeah, if you're back-ground is in carpentry and your shop is set up as such, well then with some new bits you could get into cutting the aluminum with the same gear.
I wonder what the turn-around costs would be, on making such rear-sets for people? I mean, once you've invested the time and effort into turning it into a batch process and you spend minimal time fucking around with it? Probably less than a hundred bucks a side. The goal being to offer it for even less and sell the things in volume. Maybe you could sell the lugs with a stencil style visual jig for people to cut their own brackets? Hardly seems worth it, when with a volume discount deal you could have the parts powder-coated in clear or black, soda-blasted etc etc, for part of the whole package. Nobody would want to do their own, once they figured out what money and time would go into doing it at home. I also wonder if most of these brackets would qualify for shipping in a very reasonable bubble-envelope type of thing. Based on their thickness of course. Now, as for the pedals, that's a similar investment of time, and it would involve welding and brazing type of stuff. But of course, I don't see why THAT would have to be exclusive to just these types of bikes. Conversely, aluminum pedals could be mass produced with the right spline cut into them. OR, for that matter, pivots reproduced which take a different type of pedal. ME, I like the chromed steel with the classic foot-pad of the original Hondas, it's part of the whole CB750 slash SOHC4 schtick. An aesthetical consideration, to be sure. But then, there's something to having rear-sets which would slip past some of the most well educated concours inspectors, if only for the first few glances. The type of thing where if you put a picture of the bike in a magazine, people would have to look at it with a magnifying glass and only at the right angle, to tell that it's been modified. Sort of like fitting superbars on your Sand-Cast, the look is still "correct" and yet the ride is sportier. You should be able to do the same with your pedals, just as was available in the "sport-kit", or on the Canadian and Euro-spec CB900F and CB1100F. You don't notice the difference unless you're looking for it. That's a hell of a lot better than drilling your frame to stick un-GAWD-ly looking CBR shit on the bike that sticks out like a sore thumb!!! The original Super-Hawk and Hawk had the two Hirth joints, just as did Ducati 750 and 900 supersports, where the whole peg and pedal relocated to the "race" position. The Hirth has the round splined face, such that the whole thing could be rotated on the axis too. Brilliant, really. I think this was what was intendead for all of the later model Hondas with alloy plates on 'em. But maybe the budget people shut 'em down, said they'd be offered as "sport-kits" which never made it off the drawing board. Using the common "universal rear-set" means you've gotta drill those huge-assed holes. Which means you've got to reinforce the things to mount them where you want on the bracket. Using lugs and smaller screws, using the original pedal pivots, the original look is retained and the original rubber peg covers are retained. Without changing the look you would get a far broader customer base than the people who don't care what the bike looks like, just the function. Yeah, that's why they've got a classic bike in the first place, ennit? Just fooling themselves. It's a compromize 'cause they couldn't figure out how to do it as easily. Well, give 'em that option, offer it at a reasonable service, and quick turn around exchange basis more to the point, and there will always be people seeking out your services! Just look at how many custom handlebars are sold, look at how many places you can drill brake rotors (and yet few for a great price, like here on the Forum as opposed to the e-bay services!) It's a wonder to me why this doesn't already take place....
'Nuff said.
-Sigh.
am I to give up and look at alternatives?
