Cm400/450 overdue project

JGHiggins1

Been Around the Block
I picked up an 81 cm400 from the back room at my local Honda shop about three years ago. This bike when finished is intended for my wonderful fiancé. The going has been slow as I have been in school and time and cash were tight but now I am finished with school and working. So hopefully I finish this project up in a timely manner. I have been keeping progress shots from the course of the build. Here is the bike as it sat when I picked it up for $200.
 

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Here are some shots of the progress. First the new tank rough up then the frame cut.
 

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Here are some shots of the tank stripped and rough shaped and some cardboard drafting to get an idea of the look I wanted.
Also a cm450 engine that I rebuilt from bottom up for this project.
 

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I took a couple of shots last night after I got everything moved into my new shop space. The frame on the bike has been stripped and painted the engine is installed. The frame is welded and de tabbed. It is still in pretty rough forme but it is headed in the right direction. I am taking advantage of the new abundance of space and laid out all my parts.
 

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I still have a lot of work to do I need to fill sand and paint the tank. The seat pan still needs cutting bending and apolstery. The wiring harness needs constructing and I want to pick up an anti gravity battery for it. As far as style I am leaning towards dual sport type handle bars with small gadges and leather wrapped handles. Paint is going to be some variety of black with a bronze racking stripe. I have looked at a few different dark Browns for the seat but am not committed to one yet. I have a buddy of mine welding up my exhaust right now. It is going to be 2-2 with upswept shorty mufflers. Head light is still up in the air but I'm likening the look of the two side by side street fighter look. I have some nice bullet blinkers for this build. I will take some picks of the new parts as they come in.
 
It has been a busy month! I got married went to Iceland for 10 days and then moved all of my wife's belongings from California to Oregon. Now that I'm back I hope to be making some more headway on this project.
 
Here are the exhaust pipes and headers I picked up from the welder. The headers still need to be wrapped and some of the welds Ned a bit of a final clean up.
 

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If those are emgo shorties you may find them loud and they may effect your jetting. I used a couple of b&s lawnmowers mufflers and screwed them in mine, then drilled just a few small holes in the centers to quiet the pipes but keep some flow. Made them much better.
 
I am currently running a set of the 16" shorties on my cm450 they are a bit loud. As far as jetting goes I have filed in a pretty good combo for the mikuni vm32's I'm running. I am going to start at the same place jetting wise for this bike and work my way around until I'm happy with it. I may need to quiet down the pipes a bit once all is said and done. What size/style mower muffler did you use?
 
So I fitted the front wheel today and the tire barely clears the fender mount. The mount is one off an old gl500. Before I start hammering cutting and drilling to make a mount that will work. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Any after market company's any stock parts I can go pull or any clever ideas I can use for building my own. No bad ideas here!
 
Did some sanding on the tank to get it ready for filler. As you can see this tank has been bondoed at a previous point in its life. As I stripped the paint off I also discovered it has been at least 3 colors.
 

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First round of filler and sanding. More fill and sanding to come.
 

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I like the tank, my CM400a has the rectangular chrome cover that covers the filler cap, I like this style better. What tank is that?
 
Headight came in the mail today!
 

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Did a second round of body filler and then a coat of glazing pudy. Still need to do a fine grit sand and probly another round of finishing pudy. This is my first time using filler I feel like more filler ends up on the floor than on the tank.
 

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playing around with the new light. The speedo and bars are just place holders for now. Also the tank is just about ready for final sand and first coat of primer.
 

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