Just over 11 years ago in October of 2012, I joined this forum. I had been bitten by the Cafe Racer Craze that was sweeping the vintage motorcycle world. I was 22 years old, working full time as a Tool and Die Maker by day and an Adult Education Adjunct Welding Instructor by night. (I still teach at the school, but in a full time capacity, which will come into play in this build.) At the time, "Cafe Racer TV" was in full swing, and one of my night class students happened to mention that he had a cb550 that he would let go "cheap". A deal was struck and I became the proud owner. I messed with the bike for a few years. As it goes with so many projects from such an era of a mans life, kids, home buying, marriage etc. all got in the way and the project left as well.
Over the next decade, I have owned, modified, restored and built multiple other bikes and have remained a fairly active member here on do the ton. Yet the fact remains.... I still have never built a "cafe racer". I know.... the horror... the humanity...
I have decided that its time to remedy that, and hopefully in a spectacular enough fashion to atone for me sins.
A little over a year ago, I finished up my first bike with a frame that I had built from scratch. It was a simple piece as frames go. A Hardtail bobber designed around a 96+ Suzuki DR650 engine. I really enjoyed the build and have also really enjoyed putting several thousand miles on a bike that I assembled from a pile of steel that I measured, bent, cut and fitted by hand.
This led me to decide that it was time to build my next scratch built frame around another venerable dual sport engine. In this case it will be a (guessing to be) 1978 Honda XL500 engine. I wanted to build something that was on the same basic idea of the bobber. Bare bones, no frills machine with lots of torque. But on this one will be built in the cafe style with a real focus on an ability to eat up the twisties and handle like its on rails. It will end up with a set of GSXR forks, laced 17" supermoto wheels, and a hand built chromoly frame.
The engine came to me by way of a $100 swap meet score from Mid Ohio AMA Vintage Days. A quick side cover disassembly shows that the cam chain tensioner gave up the ghost at some point. I am hoping that it didn't end up bending a valve, but the engine will likely end up with a pretty full on top end refresh regardless.
As aforementioned in this post, my full time gig is at a vocational school as a welding and fabrication instructor. I talked to a few of my level 2 students who have a real knack for CAD and higher end fabrication work, and they are interested in being part of this project. If were being honest, it would be way easier just to do this solo, but man does it make me smile to see a group of young folks as jazzed up about a project, so I decided that we would do at least parts of it as a class project. The first part of the job was to set up the engine on a layout table with a few data points and lay out the engine mount locations. At home, this would've been done in a bit more rudimentary fashion, but doing it in here we decided to go less "hacky" with it than my normal style.
Ill keep posting as I go. Fair warning, the dr650 bobber was right at 3 years from first post to first ride, and there's a good possibility that this one goes the same way.
Over the next decade, I have owned, modified, restored and built multiple other bikes and have remained a fairly active member here on do the ton. Yet the fact remains.... I still have never built a "cafe racer". I know.... the horror... the humanity...
I have decided that its time to remedy that, and hopefully in a spectacular enough fashion to atone for me sins.
A little over a year ago, I finished up my first bike with a frame that I had built from scratch. It was a simple piece as frames go. A Hardtail bobber designed around a 96+ Suzuki DR650 engine. I really enjoyed the build and have also really enjoyed putting several thousand miles on a bike that I assembled from a pile of steel that I measured, bent, cut and fitted by hand.
This led me to decide that it was time to build my next scratch built frame around another venerable dual sport engine. In this case it will be a (guessing to be) 1978 Honda XL500 engine. I wanted to build something that was on the same basic idea of the bobber. Bare bones, no frills machine with lots of torque. But on this one will be built in the cafe style with a real focus on an ability to eat up the twisties and handle like its on rails. It will end up with a set of GSXR forks, laced 17" supermoto wheels, and a hand built chromoly frame.
The engine came to me by way of a $100 swap meet score from Mid Ohio AMA Vintage Days. A quick side cover disassembly shows that the cam chain tensioner gave up the ghost at some point. I am hoping that it didn't end up bending a valve, but the engine will likely end up with a pretty full on top end refresh regardless.
As aforementioned in this post, my full time gig is at a vocational school as a welding and fabrication instructor. I talked to a few of my level 2 students who have a real knack for CAD and higher end fabrication work, and they are interested in being part of this project. If were being honest, it would be way easier just to do this solo, but man does it make me smile to see a group of young folks as jazzed up about a project, so I decided that we would do at least parts of it as a class project. The first part of the job was to set up the engine on a layout table with a few data points and lay out the engine mount locations. At home, this would've been done in a bit more rudimentary fashion, but doing it in here we decided to go less "hacky" with it than my normal style.
Ill keep posting as I go. Fair warning, the dr650 bobber was right at 3 years from first post to first ride, and there's a good possibility that this one goes the same way.
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) is even close to as successful it'll be a real masterwork. You might even get me to donate that gray seat I've got if that fits your café bike motif!
