Recent content by Ringo

Man…I’m sorry I missed this! Congrats Zeke!! Barber is one of my very favorite places in this entire country. I’ve visited twice in the last couple years and am chomping at the bit for the next opportunity. One of my favorite memories on this site was seeing Zeke get into bikes here, and how...

Hey y’all if you’re in the Tacoma area, come check out the bike in person at Griots Garage the month of December. Kicks off this Saturday. Unfortunately I won’t be there—the bike is on loan to my buddy who lives near Tacoma, this was his idea.

Dennis, long time! I hope you’re doing well. Following this…I’ve been telling myself for years to move past a drill press and dremel!

I came up with a dash design I like, for the most part. First photo is the final mock up. Initially I was going to weld both pieces together, but I spent a fair amount of time welding similar pieces in a tee joint to see if I could pull it off, and I couldn’t. The gauge plate is .125”, while...

Just catching this, boy that sure came out great! What a beautiful RD you resurrected…I bet she appreciates the new lease on life, and the trophy collection!

I don’t think there will be an issue, but I can’t say for sure. Ideally I’d want to do it on a lathe, but I don’t have one. I used an arbor bit in a drill press and ground it down, cooling it with water occasionally to minimize losing the temper if there was one. If it was case hardened, it...

Much appreciated! The issue I found is in wanting an 18 tooth sprocket. I found many 520 sprockets that will fit, mostly from early 80s 500/600cc dirt bikes, but most top out at 16 teeth; possibly 17 on rare occasions, I can’t recall. With the 40 tooth rear, 18 teeth in front is the sweet...

Hey folks, kinda shit progress lately. No excuses, I’m just low on motivation. I did get the exhaust done. The Hindle system needed some modification. I moved most of the spring hangers, and adapted a portion from I believe a ninja 300 to get the final angle right. The muffler now clears...

Oh awesome, I’ll hunt down a copy, thanks. Hey I’ll be happy if it steers a little quicker, never mind much quicker. It was pretty funny riding it back to back with a KTM duke 690. Apples to oranges I know, but very similar weight. One felt like a toy, one felt like a 50 year old motorcycle!

Oof, forgot all about the disks. Yeah that was substantial. Thanks for the patience / going into the weeds with me here. I’ve never needed to play with geometry to this degree on other bikes! front tire circumference: 78” / diameter: 24.8” rear tire circumference: 79.75” / diameter: 25.4” I...

Those numbers line up with what I found on the sohc4 board. To me, they suggest inaccurate measurements on my part—losing 2 degrees shouldn’t drop the trail by more than 20mm I’d think. Also I’m not sure I clarified above, but the geometry for my “stock front ride height” is still using the...

The bike is mostly assembled now, just missing the gauges and a muffler, so I took last night to get the suspension set up. Doc if you’re reading this, here are the initial numbers. *Just going to note for anyone looking to apply this to your cb550- this setup is utilizing cb650 fork tubes...

What a cool birthday present. That D-box looks really neat too, I’ll have to earmark that for a future project.

Heres the rest of the progress pics- When I got the bike back there was some discoloration/yellowing in places in the clear coat, but one area was different. It’s darker, deeper looking, and has a bumpy texture. Since it’s at a joint on the tank, my first thought was a pinhole leak. I stuck a...

Thanks, February has been a scramble getting this thing road worthy. I’ve got another quiet month to tinker with it before work picks up and I think I might actually finish a little early.