Hey everyone! I have some better quality photos to upload. I hope thats ok? I also wanted to give a quick background on my 78' CB550 cafe build. I have a more in depth write up on my build thread if your interested -
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=121580.0 -
Anyways, I bought the bike "running" in Oct. of 2010. Immediately stripped the bike and did some sketches, photoshop and even some 3d modeling and rendering to help me design the bike. Previous owner said the bike just needed a tune up but when I took the oil pan off, I found evidence of a blown gear. So I rebuilt the whole motor. Sonic cleaned and rebuilt the carbs. Dropped in a dynoman 592 big bore kit and webcam A cam shaft. Ported the intake/exhaust and matched/ported the runners. Only mild porting was done. just to cut some of the rough cast down. A friend modified and pressure tested the CB750 tank for me. That same friend also welded in my rear frame loop and hand formed my front fender. He's a very talented guy who was willing to work with me for very little money/booze
Next I Sent alot of CAD drawings over to the machine shop for them to machine some custom parts I needed made. Mostly spacers for the front wheel conversion. But I also had some headlight brackets machined up, parts for my shifter/brake linkage and some other small things made. Seat cowl is homemade from fiberglass with epoxy resin over a foam mold. Taillight is from an old ford pickup but in LED format. For paint I wanted to keep classic 70's colors (brown,white,gold). The logo on the side of the tank was handpainted, by a very close friend, along with the pin-striping along the bottom of the tank and cowl. Then I cleared over everything.
Once it was finally spring time here in Toronto, it was time to fire up the motor for the first (actually second) time. To my surprise it fired with no issues once we had the timing plate for the dyna set in the proper location. I could hear some clutch slap which indicated I would be needing carb sync'ing, but I felt it was running good enough to take it for its first 20mile blast to help set in the new rings. I have video of that first ride -
- After that first ride, I could spend time sync'ing and dialing in the fine adjustments needed. Ill try to post some video after this weekend.
That brings us to today. Where I am dieing to ride the bike every minute of the day. It was a dream of mine to build a bike just like this for a very long time. 20 years at least. Next weekend I am going to try to get the safety done and some insurance on the bike. Hopefully within 2 weeks of me writing this post, I can be riding it full time. Its a blast to ride and handles better then I thought it would.
I want to say thanks again to everyone on this forum. The information I got from this site was crucial in my build actually finishing.
Regards,
Kenny
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