Long time lurker. - WNY

[McBrenner]

Hey all, I've been reading this site on and off for about a year, but registered fairly recently. I've been debating about making a build thread and fully introducing myself, so here is a step towards that.

My name's Mike, I'm from Western NY and am a college student. I have a fair bit of fabrication experience from work, mig/stick/oxy and learning tig welding. I've restored and rescued quite a few snowmobiles over the years. One of the best was a resto of a '69 Polaris sled, sweet lil' 317cc single engine.

Motorcycle wise, I've been riding for about 5 years, grew up on dirt bikes and am now finally taking the initiative to building up my own bike. I've always ridden another family members bike for rides. My canvas for the past 3 weeks has been a '81 Honda CX 500 that was last on the road in '00, so not too far gone, but needed quite a bit of motivation to get running. It sat in a dairy parlor from 86 to 98 until my uncle got it and ran it a bit, has 12k on the odo.

Here are a few pics of the bike. I'll throw up a few of the Polaris if anyone is interested.

First pic is where I started. Everything was there, mechanically fine, carbs didn't have any issues after a rebuild, strong runner. Fair bit of rust, nothing that can't be overcome.


I'll need to grab some up to date pics, I'll put them on this thread or just in my build thread sometime

Thank you for the great site full of great skill and inspiration, it'll be great to interact with you all and hopefully meet a few on rides in NY

Mike

 

[AlphaDogChoppers]

I love the CX500's.

 

[Cookie]

Welcome, Mike! Love the CX, just a cool machine with tons of potential .What's your plan for this beast?

 

[Narb1989]

Welcome to the show. Your bio sounds a whole lot like mine: college kid, fab skills(arc/mig/tig/oxy), been ridin since a little guy, etc. I also live in NY; the Syracuse area during the summer but the Utica area for most of my days. How far west are we talking? The Roc, or further?

 

[McBrenner]

Caf'd Out: I'm just west of Corning about 30 miles. I go to school up in Canton NY for Renewable Energy - wind, solar, it's pretty awesome. Going into jr year. What are you going to school for? I figured "WNY" would peak the people from NY lol

Thanks for the welcome guys, I appreciate it.


The CX has been a great project. It's nice building without constraints for a change. I've taken the build in a "tracker" direction I suppose. I fabbed up a lower profile seat pan, madeup the brackets, looped the rear cold rolled 1.25" steel 3.5radius, tucked up the wiring and components, coming up with headlight mounts now to lower about 4 inches, tabbed up for the new signals I'm running and stream lining the gauges with those 2.5" DCC gauges, tach and speedo; they are pretty slick. Picking up a set of bars similar to something of Renthal low rise, should look pretty good on here.

Tonight, I'm finishing up upholstery for the seat. Foam with then stretched to rivet into the pan just a tad over 3/8, maybe it was drilled 7/16" can't remember. But, it'll work I believe. I haven't seen too many other pan builds, but it's strait forward. Mild gauge steel sheet, bent 90` degrees 2 sided. There are actually 2 seconds on mine, I had 4 bends, 2 relief cuts. The front part angles in ever so slightly, not as much as I had hoped but it's there. Front piece added for the run up to the tank to smooth things out. Well the pics will explain







* Tank has been stripped, starting electrical - wiring in the 4 signals and interfaces. Pretty strait-forward.
** Don't mind the crappy "welds" on the pan visible in paint. The tank *75%,25% mix for MIG* was out and it I wanted to at least tack them regardless. It's getting permanently covered in foam anyway.

Mike

 

[Narb1989]

I'm at SUNYIT for Mechanical Engineering Tech. Thats not a bad ride from Syracuse really. The cafe racer scene is growing here in the Syracuse area. A couple guys opened a sweet bar with specialty brick oven personal pizzas in Manlius, NY. They have a vintage bike night on Monday nights. Two weeks ago a 1975 Kawi 500 Triple showed up all restored!

 

[McBrenner]

Oh sweet man, I've ran there a few times for XC team my freshman year, got a few friends that go there as well. SUNY Canton is a nice small school for myself, solid 4 hr drive, not bad at all. I'll probably be up that way in a couple weeks on the bike, got to meet up with some friends in Oswego and we'll be hitting the town in Syracuse I'm sure. I'll try and check out that bike night, would be great to see what everyone else is doing with theirs. Always cool to see someone else's take on a bike and their vision of it.

 

[McBrenner]

OP delivers.



Not final, just starting the outside pieces. Will be done monday probably, going mtb all weekend.