Found a $300 CB550

That is a beauty. I didn't know they made a 750 twin. I figured all Japanese 750s and up were in line fours by that point. they makes it doubly cool. Thanks for posting that for us to see.
 
I bought a tracker style fender / seat from a European company and it's good quality and looks good. It requires fabricating a mounting system. I ended up looking on Tuffside seats website to see how they made the mounts and was so impressed with their video on their development process that I decided to buy one that they make specifically for the CB550. It's pricey to change at this point but the Tuffside version is a lot better. Perfect fit and obvious jump in quality. Spend and learn. I'm starting to get excited because now that I'm seeing my plan coming together, I can see it's working. The people that have seen it are really liking it. This is turning out to be big fun.

BTW. I lost 35 LBs and had to buy light springs for my shock and forks. If I had just kept eating I could have saved myself $300.
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That seat pan looks good, Im interested to see how you set up your mounting system. Big grats on the weight loss
 
It comes with the mounting system. It has to bolts which go directly into the existing holes in the rear frame section. I the front it has a tab that goes under the gas tank mount. It's so obvious and yet I didn't think of it. It comes with 2 wing nuts so it's easy to take off and access the electricals. It's reinforced with a piece of plywood and then another layer of what looks like carpet over the plywood and rubber mounts. This is a well designed piece.
 
chesterburnet said:
It comes with the mounting system. It has to bolts which go directly into the existing holes in the rear frame section. I the front it has a tab that goes under the gas tank mount. It's so obvious and yet I didn't think of it. It comes with 2 wing nuts so it's easy to take off and access the electricals. It's reinforced with a piece of plywood and then another layer of what looks like carpet over the plywood and rubber mounts. This is a well designed piece.
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Nice man, could you please post some photos of all of that? I am interested for one of the little bikes I am building atm.. Thanks!
 
It looks really sharp. I say build it however it pleases you. You'll make the proper decisions to compromise style for comfort for looks for YOU. At the end of the day, that's who has to pay for it, work on it and ride it!
 
I’ve been out of the vintage bike scene for several years now since I bought my ZZR600, just could t say no to walking out and pushing a button and it firing right up. But I still have hope one day I can do another build. I’d say she’s coming along great, and for a $300 starting price you can’t beat that.
 
Thanks for the compliments. They mean much more when they are from people on a dedicated custom motorcycle site as the people here have experience and know what they look like. As far as the the $300 starting price, that's about the only thing that wasn't expensive. I've spent ridiculous money on this build but I keep seeing all of these incredibly cool builds and parts and I can't help myself. For the record, I'm in my 46th year of recovery from heroin and alcohol addiction, I don't gamble or cheat on my GF and so I use that to rationalize spending too much. It would really suck if I got off track and it looks and / or performs like a dog.
 
Luugo86 said:
Nice man, could you please post some photos of all of that? I am interested for one of the little bikes I am building atm.. Thanks!
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I remembered to take a few photos for you. The mounting bolts, front tab and where it goes into the rear frame. The 2 tabs are for a removable strip (velcro) so you can paint the rear section if you wish.
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Worked on it for a bunch of hours today. The front wheel was bound up and I spoke to to Jeff at Godferry's Garage and he recommended that I switch the caliper to stock front facing position. Because he's got so much experience and builds these for a living, I took his advise. It turns out that when they are rear facing, you have to flip the wheel and axel and mount the tires in the opposite direction. It took me 2 hours and the front end was spinning freely. I try and buy parts from him because he is so generous with time and advise. I got a really nice set of levers and master cylinder from him and he machined my calipers to take modern banjo bolts. Very cool guy to do biz with.

I also got a set of Rox 2" risers so my bars will clear the preload adjuster caps. I was just about done and was looking everything over and picked up the old handlebars to get an idea of how they would sit and Amazon pulls up with the risers at 9:00 on a Sunday night. They are a quality piece and give a lot of adjustability. I have long arms and it's still a reach so I adjusted them back and they feel more comfortable. I also got my Antigravity battery delivered today from Revzilla. I've reached a milestone - the only large part left to buy is handlebars. The stock set look pretty weird. Here's a picture of today's progress.
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Thanks for the photos, that seat pan looks like it wouldnt be too hard to mount up, some require a lot of fabrication. Progress looks good
 
Go on their website and watch his video. Pretty cool company. I have another companies version of that seat that requires fabricating all of the mounting hardware if you're interested in a tracker style seat.
 
I tend to like the OEM bar bend for the 1975 CB400F, part # 53100-377-000. It is unavailable from Honda, 4-1 lists a reproduction for $35. I also like to run replicas of the K&N Superbike bar in black, but they are also available in chrome.
As far as running the calipers either in front of the forks or in the back, there are advantages both ways. In front puts the caliper brackets in tension rather than compression and may prevent some theoretical chatter due to flex and in the rear it puts the center of mass behind the axle so it self centers better. I have raced a 550 with the calipers in back and a 750 with the calipers in front and I couldn't feel any difference. I think calipers in back looks a little more modern and in front it is more old school cool. Your choice.
 
I put them back in the stock position and I'll live with that. It's not that big of a deal and it's working well, plus I cut down the front fender and it will fit a little bit better that way. I decided to use that because it has a built in fork brace and this spindly 35 mm tubes need all the help they can get.

I took the gas tank, rear seat/ fender and the front fender over to the painter. This guy does show quality work. He's also going to reline the gas tank, strip the chrome off the fender and fix up the rough edges on everything. About $1700 for the work. I'm looking forward to seeing it all done.

I also dropped a 1930s bicycle at my powder coater that I am building for my GF. I'm squeezing that in between my full time job, doing home renovations and building the Honda.
 
chesterburnet said:
I put them back in the stock position and I'll live with that. It's not that big of a deal and it's working well, plus I cut down the front fender and it will fit a little bit better that way. I decided to use that because it has a built in fork brace and this spindly 35 mm tubes need all the help they can get.

I took the gas tank, rear seat/ fender and the front fender over to the painter. This guy does show quality work. He's also going to reline the gas tank, strip the chrome off the fender and fix up the rough edges on everything. About $1700 for the work. I'm looking forward to seeing it all done.

I also dropped a 1930s bicycle at my powder coater that I am building for my GF. I'm squeezing that in between my full time job, doing home renovations and building the Honda.
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Hell ya man, would love to see what the bicycle looks like.
 
The bicycle is a Mercury bike that I'm guessing is from the 30s. It has chain and sprockets that I've never seen before.....it skips every other link and tooth. It was sitting in my neighbors yard rusting away. I asked about it and he gave it to me. I managed to save the frame and the fenders which is mostly what makes it cool. I had to buy new wheels and almost everything else. It might be pretty cool. It's a lot easier working on bicycles than motorcycles.
 
They are called skip tooth bikes. Some manufacturers started using regular chain/sprockets as early as 1915 but skip tooth bikes continued well into the 1950s. Sounds like a very nice project.
 
I knew somebody would know about the chain. It's bizarre looking. I bought modern crank and sprockets as they all fit. I guess this stuff has been standardized for a long time.
 
Since I found out that the Cognito rear set that I bought doesn't fit my 77, I've been trying to figure out what to do with the foot pegs. I hate the bulbous big rubber stock pegs. I also rethought riding position and want to keep the stock location. I decided to see if I could find some old steel motocross pegs and found out they still make 98 YZ 125 / 250 pegs so I bought a set for $25. Tonight I went out to see how I might incorporate them with the stock mounts. I figured it was going to be difficult and much to my surprise, it's quite simple. The angle of the mount lines up perfectly and I had to grind the tube section that the bolt goes through by about 1/4 - 3/8 of an inch so it would fit in the existing mount. I had to drill the mount holes out to fit as 3/8 bolt.

One of the problems with building an old motorcycle is buying new bolts to replace the old nasty ones. It costs a small fortune to buy them from Honda, Bolt Depot and McMaster Carr. Today I found out that Tractor supply carries grade 8 bolts which I picked up and used to mount the new pegs. A small victory in a war of spending to much on this thing. Below is a picture of the result. I'm happy with the result.
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