Honda FT500(ish) tracker!

[paddyshepherd]

Just picked up this lovely tracker/street tracker build based off an '82 FT500 Ascot after around a 12hr drive and a ferry to Northern Ireland and back!

This is a bike I've known of for a while, as the owner has machined some engine pieces for my own 500 engine being used in my cafe racer project (project is a bit of a stretch considering I've made no progress in the last 5 years or so!). I was offered this bike last year but the timing wasn't great having just bought another bike. I randomly reached out to the owner a few months ago and found he'd never ended up selling it, and now... it's mine.

I am still learning what's been done to the bike, as there's a lot! But here's what I know of it so far:

Engine:
FT500 single, converted to kickstart using XL/XR parts. Manual decompression lever added. Bored to 540cc. Head ported and polished. 250 flywheel. Balance shafts removed. 36mm Mikuni carb and allegedly dyno tuned at 47bhp.

Chassis:
Front end from a BMW F650GS with an upgraded ducati Brembo. Genuine Woods flat track seat, CG125 (I think) tank, matching rear brembo brake, rear seat loop hand bent out of stainless steel, lithium battery, trimmed loom etc.

Couple of immediate jobs to do - smaller headlight/indicators, preferably in a number board style, rear end tidy up (smaller plate, reflector etc) and it needs the headstock bearings tightening/replacing. It also needs the crankcase breather filter removing and a proper pipe fitting. The crankcase pressure on these engines is too much for those filters and they end up spraying mists of oil out of them all over your boots.

Eventually, I'll probably shorten the fork legs and fit some 19" wheels. It handles lovely as it is, but if I ever want to try it on the dirt... 17's just aren't the go.

 

[Tim]

Looks like a great scoot to run around the town on. Why shorten the front suspension for dirt tho? I don't think raising the front by 1" when you fit a 19" wheel to it will be noticeable. The fork brace may be an issue - those are pretty short lowers. You might end up wanting different forks altogether if you're going to convert from 'super moto' to dirt.

 

[paddyshepherd]

Looks like a great scoot to run around the town on. Why shorten the front suspension for dirt tho? I don't think raising the front by 1" when you fit a 19" wheel to it will be noticeable. The fork brace may be an issue - those are pretty short lowers. You might end up wanting different forks altogether if you're going to convert from 'super moto' to dirt.

Interestingly enough, the forks are actually off a BMW F650GS, so will have originally had a 19" wheel in them. However I think the fork brace has been made to sit on the underside of the mount where the factory one would sit above the mount, so that's something I'll have to look into. But yeah, it's a great wee plodder for running around the doors and not too bad on the open road either.

The shortening of the fork leg idea is mainly for the steering geometry on the dirt, short and stiff. It does handle great on the street at the moment though, so we'll see.

Already doing a bit of tinkering. Removed the ginormous headlight and indicators to start working out how I can go about fitting a number board. Some nice threaded holes on the yokes. Bottom ones will work, top ones would but are a bugger to get to behind the board, so I'd have to fit the board to the top yoke and then fit the yoke to the bike. But gives it a very tidy look by not clamping onto the fork leg. I'd just need to work out how to mount the indicators if I choose to keep them. Not strictly needed here in the UK, but without them you're expected to hand signal, which is a bit of a pain. I might get some fork leg clamps for the indicators, and use them as the upper pickup point for the number board at the same time.

However what I'd ideally like to do is fit a number board with a headlight. I found this picture which is exactly what I'm after, but from what I can see it's a custom one-off.

 

[Tim]

There are aftermarket headlights like that out there - to slap on old dirtbikes. Acerbis Elba for example.