Honda CX500 Custom 80's Plastic Maggot gets a Cafe facelift

I have an extra set of 79/80 CM400 ComStars if you need, 18" Front & 16" Rear, but I think my CM's are different than the CB Hawks and different than you have on your bike.
 
Frankenfe, I'll take the front one =) How much? I am assuming that what you are refering to is that it is a regular smooth silver comstar. The comstars I have on the bike are the "reverse" comstars, basically the spokes are stamped, and Honda decided instead of making them all the same, they'd flip the stamped spokes around. I'd really like to keep the reverse comstars on as 95% of the cafe CX's have regular comstars and I want to be different... But I haven't found any reverse's in 18" front. I have a connection for an 18" rear, but it's going to cost me $100 just for shipping from Europe and if I can get a regular CX from Bob's in PHX I think it will be much more cost effective. I'll just have to paint them different than everyone else.

Oh BTW, if anyone needs any CX parts, I still have the front end (trees, forks, bar clamp and fuse block) along with new fork seals I bought. The comstars that are on there will be going away, and I have a chrome rear fender and the stock handlebars. I also have a set of wheels for a GL, dual disk rotors 19" front wheel with an ok tire on it & 17" rear with rotor and ok tire on it as well these are in the background of some of my pics. As well as a NICE Chrome GL rear fender with stock tailight assy intact. PM if anyone needs this stuff. I'd rather not ship wheels but if you pay I'll ship.
 
Ya' know....... if you decided to keep the "Z" stripe on the tank, it would look cool with the clubman bars at the same angle..... just sayin'....
 
CUNNINGHAMMER said:
Frankenfe, I'll take the front one =) How much? I am assuming that what you are referring to is that it is a regular smooth silver Comstar. The Comstars I have on the bike are the "reverse" Comstars, basically the spokes are stamped, and Honda decided instead of making them all the same, they'd flip the stamped spokes around. I'd really like to keep the reverse Comstars on as 95% of the cafe CX's have regular Comstars and I want to be different... But I haven't found any reverse's in 18" front. I have a connection for an 18" rear, but it's going to cost me $100 just for shipping from Europe and if I can get a regular CX from Bob's in PHX I think it will be much more cost effective. I'll just have to paint them different than everyone else.

I think the Honda CM400 automatic came with an 18" front reverse Comstar? Not all years but I think I saw one once upon a time?
Most of the Cafe CX's I see have reverse Comstars but with the Harley-esque 16" rear, and 19" front. I have 18" front and rear on my CX 500. BTW a single rotor can be made to work fairly well with a CX 650 dual piston caliper and bracket it's a bolt up. That and a braided S/S line and a drilled rotor would do pretty good work. The CX master cylinder is too large for a single piston and that gives the brake a "wooden" feel so the extra piston from the 650 caliper will improve the ratio of M/C to caliper piston area and give a better feel at the lever. Two cents.
Cheers, 50gary
Click to expand...
 
dewjantim said:
I think I will keep that little mod in mind when I do my Honda 750 cafe........
Click to expand...

It's definitely a cool idea and I really wanted to keep the clubmans, but when I had the forks way up in the trees it wasn't feasible to use handlebars without dogbones/risers. I got my clipons off Fleabay for $50 and gave the clubmans to a friend in exchange for a tank that i'm using for my seat cowl. I was trying to figure out a way to make my own clip ons by cutting the clubmans, it's doable, I just went with the easy solution. Im still trying to figure out what I want to do for paint... bike isn't really close enough to worry about it anywho.
 
I liked the paint job on the CX 500 which was on "Cafe Racers" a couple of weeks ago. It would look good with a Honda red tank and silver frame with red comstar centers. If you want to add a really trick look "Carbon Di-Noc" covering is pretty neat. It is a film similar to a decal, you peel off the backing, heat the film, and stretch it over your part. It looks just like carbon and you can get it in diferent colors. I have used it on a couple of bikes so far, it is a little difficult to use at first but anyone can do a good job if they take their time and follow the directions. I got a couple of bigger sheets for my Ducati 900 project, one in red and one in black. A little expensive but actually cheaper than getting a professional to paint your part, and, as I already said, it looks really trick.
 
Cunninghammer, what rear shocks are those? I saw some on ebay like them for $118.00 the guy shipped from France. I'd say for that price though they're from Asia. They lock pretty cool and I was thinking of buying them as well? I mention this because the ebay shocks are ride height adjustable so you could lower the rear a bit that way. If you can remove the lower eye you can always make a shorter eye.
Cheers, 50gary
 
Thanks for the link I may try a pair on my next build. Right now I have my ZRX shocks re-worked and sprung to my weight so I should be good. Price is super cheap for a reservoir shock.
Cheers,50gary
 
Hey guys, I have done quite a bit on my build. I now have 18" comstars front and back, my rear frame hoop is welded in and I will be wiring tonight. Still working on the seat pan, but it's getting very close. I will try to post pics asap. I have a Nissin caliper for the front that I still need to make a bracket for (my rotor is about an inch smaller than the Triumph one) and I'm still trying to figure out rear sets. I don't think this bike will be comfy enough unless I set my feet back a ways.
 
PS. Dualcab, I'm a huge VW nut, I owned a '62 ragtop bug when I was in high school (2005) traded for an assed out '67 beetle (scraping beam is fun!), and a '72 ghia. I don't have any vdubs at the moment, but will own another one eventually. My dream dub is a tie between a type34 karmann ghia and a custom oval ragtop, but I love them all. I want to do a build with a type 4 engine too, like a mean baja.
 
Re: Honda CX500 Custom 80's Plastic Maggot *(New Pic! 2/17)*

Some eyecandy I promised. Notes... Front wheel will be stripped soon, and working on electrical. I have some parts ordered to make a one off tail light, I'm pretty psyched about. Other than that not much of an update. I hate the stock kick stand, and I removed all the extraneous brackets and center stand, I may make my own center stand that is somewhat hidden. Still need to work on my mufflers as well.... It keeps adding up! haha.

mycx500progress17.jpg
 
Cunninghammer, I also disliked the side stand plus it's Honda heavy. I removed the center stand a year ago and mounted spools (for a paddock stand) right off the lower shock mount, all you need on the left is a longer bolt the right is a bit more work not not too bad. I removed the nut on the right shock stud made a coupler and then mounted the spool with the same size (8m) bolt easy as falling down and you don't have to drag around the centerstand. The cool way to go on the side stand is to go to a rear disc brake. That way you can remove all the crap linkage and extra tube, brackets that mount the drum brake linkage that has to go from the right side of the bike to the left. That saves a lot of weight and really cleans up the underside of the bike. Next I mounted my new self-made side stand off the horizontal main frame tube. I made my side stand out of chrome moly tube it's also much lighter than the stock.
Cheers, 50gary
 
Yeh 50Gary Thanks for the advice, that BS drum brake linkage needs to go. I might have to scour the local yard for a cx with rear disc and see how it goes together. I took the rear end apart and checked everything over, and lubed it all. Everything looked great, all the splines looked good etc. Ridding of the drum linkage would also alleviate my problems with rear sets, as it's going to be a pain to make the pedal and linkage work correctly for the drum setup. It will be much easier to have a plunger and resevoir instead of all of that crap. I wonder if a Goldwing swingarm would transplant, as they were shaft drive and rear disk..... More parts and work I suppose!
 
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