Topic: Trad's 74 CB550 K0

[Trad]

I’ve been into vintage bikes all my life. Having a father with a CB750 and growing up riding a CB125, CB400/4 and an RD 350, it’s always been around. After owning, riding, and doing some resto-mod work on this CB550 over the past few years I’ve decided to to a full rebuild that's simple, refined and stripped down. It will be heavily modified but still be easily distinguishable as a CB550. Incorporating surviving patina but contrasting it with a lot of new, custom and NOS parts. I hope you enjoy the photos and progress. THIS WILL BE A SLOW BUILD AS IT ISN’T MY DAILY MOTORCYCLE.

Here's the game plan.

Exterior:
-Strip, shave and repaint frame
-NOS 1974 CB550 gas tank in “Freedom Green Metallic” with NOS petcock, cap, and latch
-Custom alloy café seat from with genuine leather upholstery from Blue Collar Textiles
-Woodcraft Clip-ons
-Moto GP stainless 4 Into 1 exhaust
-Shaved, filled, and powder coated triple clamp
-OE style steel headlight bucket, stripped to bare metal and zinc plated
-Bobbed, stripped, and zinc plated CB500 front fender
-Shortened and filled headlight ears from Kott Motorcycles
-Just keep it super minimlistic and replace everything from the big down to the little nuts and bolts.

Engine:
-JE 60mm Pistons (572cc)
-Rebuilt, ported and serdi cut cylinder head by Mike (Mrieck). Original valves, guides, NOS seals, KPMI valve springs, port matched intake manifolds
-All NOS rocker arms and 1980 CB650 cam
-Full carb rebuild with all OEM brass
-Mainly factory Honda seals and gaskets
-NOS Honda cam chain tensioner
-NOS Honda cam chain
-Fully rebuilt bottom end with all oil seals replaced
-Factory Honda cables through out
-Andrews Motorsport tappet cover
-Press fit tach plug
-Starter delete

Braking, Handling & Suspension:
-Hagon 2810 Dampening Adjustable Shocks
-Rebuilt CB500 forks with Franks tubes, NOS hardware, and Progressive springs
-Bronze bushings in swingarm
-Rebuilt brake caliper with new piston, stainless braided line, and a CBR600 14mm bore baster cylinder
-Reconditions and dilled brake rotor from True Disk
-All Ballz tapered headset bearings
-All Ballz sealed wheel bearings
-NOS rear brake cam and slotted drum brakes
-Avon Distanzia tires
-Rebuilt wheels with NOS rims and spokes.

Electrical:
-Custom harness using MotoGadget M-Unit 
-All LED lighting throughout, including LED headlight and MotoGadget M-pin indicaters
-Modern Rick's Reg/Rec Combo
-Starter delete and plug (Kick Only)
-All connections soldered and using Vintage Connections bullet connectors and clips
-Motoscope mini tack/speedo
-Antigravity 4 cell battery
-Cognito Moto electronics tray
-Dyna S Ignition with black 5 OHM coils and Dyna wires

"UPDATE: Jan 3rd, 2016

I finished designing and fabricating the rear bolt-on "Multi-Brace". I made it by hand out of 6 pieces of 1/4" stainless steel. Just cut, clamped, mig welded, ground, and drilled/threaded. This piece supports the rear end and replaces the higher, factory brace which I cut out of the frame. It also mounts the tail light below and the M-unit above (under the rear seat cowl). Lastly, the brace will hold the small Motogadget turn signals just below the fame tube. So many functions for one piece.

I'm going to look around at prices for powder coating around here for the Multi-Brace, seat mounting pieces, and motor mounts.

These shocks will be put on the 78 and I got a pair of Ikon shocks that will be going on this bike. The tail light to the tire is 3.25" with the 13" Progressives. The Ikon's are 12.5" long and total compressed length brings them down to 10.2". This means I'll still have over 2.4" of travel before the
The crank case is st waiting my turn. Once that is back from him it's time to assemble the top end and go.

While the lower end is in Mark's care, I'm going to start on the wiring harness."

Multi Brace 4 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

Multi Brace 6 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

Multi Brace 1 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr





















Rocker Box Far by tradart101, on Flickr

RockerBox CLose by tradart101, on Flickr

NOS Rockers by tradart101, on Flickr


 Fender Whole by tradart101, on Flickr

Fender brace by tradart101, on Flickr

Headlight 2 by tradart101, on Flickr

Headlight 2 bytradart101, on Flickr


Headlight 3 by tradart101, on Flickr











UPDATE June 4th/2015

Pulled the bottom end and got the headlight bucked installed with the shortened fork ears from Kott. I decided to run the ears inside out essentially so you can see more of the fork tube. I really like how it sucks the headlight bucket into the triple clamp.

CB550 Kott Headlight Ears by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

CB550 Cockpit by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

[Damage Inc]

Hey Trad.
 
I always love to see shinny new bits for a project. I like the black motor with some polished aluminium. All the projects look cool, and I'm envious of that Cuda. Looks like a F series project happening as well. Are you staying with a similar paint scheme on the engine? In regards to the "Rust Brown" I think it's hard to be sure what a colour will come out like until you see it, if you like the colour your off to a good start. Sometimes a second colour make the main colour look even better. ie Brown/Gold( off the top of my head, may look crap).

[Trad]

Hey Trad.
 
I always love to see shinny new bits for a project. I like the black motor with some polished aluminium. All the projects look cool, and I'm envious of that Cuda. Looks like a F series project happening as well. Are you staying with a similar paint scheme on the engine? In regards to the "Rust Brown" I think it's hard to be sure what a colour will come out like until you see it, if you like the colour your off to a good start. Sometimes a second colour make the main colour look even better. ie Brown/Gold( off the top of my head, may look crap).

Thanks for the reply Damage Inc.

I hear what your saying on the two tone. There are so many nice and clean two-tone cafe bikes out there. On the contrary, for this build I want a scuzzy look yet dialled mechanically. It's hard to describe but i've used paint stripper and raw'd the bars and a few other steel parts, I soda blasted the top end of the engine (which I am leaving raw), I got rid of anything polished and gave it a brushed look. The only thing shiny will be the rims and the fork tubes. (minus bolts here and there). That's why I think a matte of satin rust brown would look fitting. Maybe even an olive green?

[Stev-o]

Subscribed, looks like your off to a good start.  Olive green sounds good, considering that for my 550.


PS. Like the 'cuda....I had a '70 model ('68 is better).

[Trad]

Subscribed, looks like your off to a good start.  Olive green sounds good, considering that for my 550.


PS. Like the 'cuda....I had a '70 model ('68 is better).

Thanks Steve-o. This is my first SOHC-4 build. I had a single cylinder Enfieild that I tinkered with a bit before this bike. I've never done one from the ground up like this so it's a bit of a learning experience. I will say, it's far easier than working on cars since everything is so scaled down, obviously.

Thanks on the Cuda too. We just removed the roll cage and are in the process of converting it back to a street car after 5 years as a track only version.  Shedding a bit of a tear after not quite breaking into the 10's. We did have some strong low 11 pulls though 

[goldarrow]

hey Trad, got you pm.  post some photos of your cyclinder head. 

[Trad]

New indoor salvage yard opened. Pulled 2 cb650 cams today.

Also installed my shaved swing arm with brass bushings. What a tight fit in the frame. Big ordeal getting it in!

[goldarrow]

Did you pill the tach gears off the valve covers also? The past 2  of 650 cams that I got both measure 35+ mm

[Trad]

Did you pill the tach gears off the valve covers also? The past 2  of 650 cams that I got both measure 35+ mm

I don't run a tach so I didn't pull them. I could pick them up not problem if you need one. The wearable tolerance on these cams are 1.4" intake and 1.3" Exhaust. Thats just over 35mm

Did you swap the 650 cam in with you original 550 rockers?

[Trad]

Made some progress this weekend. New headlight bucket and I rewired the horn and headlight switch and mounted them in the bucket. I am going to get a nicer switch for the horn. This is all I could find for now. I'm liking how it's ultra simplified. Nothing on the bars besides a clutch lever and brake cylinder.

[Trad]

Well, I ditched the Lossa Clubmans and have some Woodcraft clip-on's in the mail.

I got around to shaving the factory seat mount bracket. I got a little low in a couple spots with the grinder so I filled it in and reshaped it from there. I'm pretty happy with how smooth it turned out.

[Trad]

Rebuilt my cam chain tensioner with a new OEM guide, blade and hardware today.



Closer shot of where the seat bracket used to be. Have to work on the rear loop next.

[DustyRags]

In. Looks like a cool build.

On the color subject- thought about doing a flat main coat and a glossy second color? Say, a flat rust with a shiny yellow stripe or something? It would give it some nice pop, without wrecking the look of the bike.

[Trad]

....

[Trad]

In. Looks like a cool build.

On the color subject- thought about doing a flat main coat and a glossy second color? Say, a flat rust with a shiny yellow stripe or something? It would give it some nice pop, without wrecking the look of the bike.

Thanks DustyRags. In all honesty I think a stripe would look great. For ease of simplicity I am going to stick to a single color though. With how stripped the final product is going to be I envisioned the paint job to be very basic.

Hopefully I'll get more work done soon. Feels pretty daunting at the moment.

[DustyRags]

Thanks DustyRags. In all honesty I think a stripe would look great. For ease of simplicity I am going to stick to a single color though. With how stripped the final product is going to be I envisioned the paint job to be very basic.

Hopefully I'll get more work done soon. Feels pretty daunting at the moment.

Yeah, that makes sense. I did a stripe-over-bare metal on my 550 build, and it was dead easy- just some masking tape and psst psst and done.

Take it one step at a time and take your time, and it'll be a lot easier. It's worth it to do these things right, even on the cheap, and even (especially?) on rat bikes. Everyone expects them to fail, so it's all the more rewarding to have one that's dead reliable

[Trad]

Thanks DustyRags. In all honesty I think a stripe would look great. For ease of simplicity I am going to stick to a single color though. With how stripped the final product is going to be I envisioned the paint job to be very basic.

Hopefully I'll get more work done soon. Feels pretty daunting at the moment.

Yeah, that makes sense. I did a stripe-over-bare metal on my 550 build, and it was dead easy- just some masking tape and psst psst and done.

Take it one step at a time and take your time, and it'll be a lot easier. It's worth it to do these things right, even on the cheap, and even (especially?) on rat bikes. Everyone expects them to fail, so it's all the more rewarding to have one that's dead reliable

That's just it. Bare, simplistic, but with premium components, and things built/done right.

I've seen so many bikes slapped together half assed and claimed that's the look they were going for. No direction, just a grinder and spray paint. IMO that's just laziness and a final product dubbed a rat bike. haha

Thanks for the input.

[Trad]

....

[albertaboy]

I feel like it’s starting to take shape.

That's a good feeling. Kinda like the fog lifting and you can begin to see what you envision.  I have snow blower envy btw....

[Trad]

I feel like it’s starting to take shape.

That's a good feeling. Kinda like the fog lifting and you can begin to see what you envision.  I have snow blower envy btw....

So true. The fog has lifted and I can see some light......not as much as I'd like to albeit. haha

I don't even use that thing. 

[Trad]

So I purchase a NOS 74 550 tank in the original color this bike was! WHAT A SCORE! I'm going to be selling my BRC set up and running the NOS tank. I am now undecided on the seat.



In other updated I shaved some more brackets, brushed a bunch of engine pieces and pretty much been slacking. 

[DustyRags]

Wow, that's pretty!

[Trad]

Wow, that's pretty!

Thanks man, it does have 40 years of shelf life scuffs here and there, but I'm damn excited to rock the factory paint and clean as a whistle interior.

[Trad]

So I decided not to run a rear loop. I chopped the fender bridge and shaped the rear.

[calj737]

Yes, you do need to reconnect the two sides with a cross brace. You can do it anywhere from the shock mounts, back. This will restore the lateral stability and rigidity that has suffered with the removal of the fender brace.