Topic: Opinions on restomods or replica bikes

[Geeto67]

I thought resto mod meant you actually improve the bike? I'm busting your balls a little because those tires are a joke as is the 2LS drum and the lack of any stiffening device on the forks (fender or brace), but the rest of the bike is very clean and it is clear you are detailed.

You have a K0 that needs paint. I don't know why you want to clone your 74, when you can actually have a red K0. but that is just me. It's a candy paint you know, one of the reasons it looks so great is how candy glows in direct sunlight. Have the bodywork for your K0 painted and use it on your 74 until the K0 is ready to ride. then swap it over. problem solved.

FWIW, when you say replica or clone I think you mean accurate in parts but the numbers aren't right since that is the standard definition when it comes to muscle car clones (has the right parts but not the serial number or pedigree). It sounds like you just want a ruby red paint set on your K4 which isn't really a "clone" or replica but just a paint job.

[Bootlegger56]

I remember when I first got my K5 out of wood shed covered with dirt and wood slabs.  It was all stock except for bars, mufflers and seat which were changed out when the bike was new because the owner wanted to be Peter Fonda and some idiot told him the 4-2 Jardines would make it run faster.  I swapped a cheap .22 rifle for it.  I have not changed it, just preserved it in its past state of machofucation.  It was the bike that got me interested in these old CB's.  The price I paid was probably average for the time.  There were a lot of hundred dollar Honda's around then.  That is not the case now.  People want five times that for a no titled junker if you can find one and the price for a running legal bike continues to escalate.  I intend to maintain mine to as close to stock as possible so that after I am no longer able to enjoy it perhaps someone with the initiative and wallet will be able to restore it if they so choose. 

[greenjeans]

That orange one was my first stray from pure stock bikes.   More of a styling exercise.  The 4LS definitely is night and day over that 2LS brake.

I'm going to tear into that K0 motor this weekend and see what I really have.   That may make the decision for me.  If it really is hot-rodded up,
I'd be very curious to see what it could do.  The K0 frame also has the rear mounts for the exhaust cut off - I'm not opposed to welding a piece back on from a donor.

I do like the idea of having interchangeable body parts and tanks.   Still have to find an early oil tank - that's the only part I'm really missing to make a good run at a K0.

[Geeto67]

I'm going to tear into that K0 motor this weekend and see what I really have.   That may make the decision for me.  If it really is hot-rodded up,
I'd be very curious to see what it could do.  The K0 frame also has the rear mounts for the exhaust cut off - I'm not opposed to welding a piece back on from a donor.

Even if it is a piece from a donor frame, someone will always be able to tell. And that someone is going to be the person who nitpicks those things because they value stock unmolested bikes. When I worked in the corvette hobby, we used to plasticweld and glue date codes cut from old pieces of weatherstripping on new pieces of weatherstripping just for show cars. Believe me it mattered to these people. We also used to have templates for overspray depending on the year of the build so we could match the pattern to what appeared on original cars. My boss routinely bought sets of NOS tires from the 50's and 60's and made up sets based on the tire's date codes.

I get a 100% numbers matching accurate restoration is another kind of challenge in this hobby and some want to be there. If that is the route you want to take you can find a better donor (heck if you were close I would trade you my unmolested K0 frame straight across). Anything less than that isn't a restoration in the strict sense but more of a cosmetic freshining. If you are worried about value, your K0 will never be worth more than what a hot rodded one in similar condition would be worth, so why not go for it. Since the frame is already cut, why not install one of ILBikes's frame kits so you can work on the engine without pulling it, and why not do upgrades so the bike is more enjoyable to ride. 

[greenjeans]

yeah, I was just thinking how nice it would be to have one of those frame kits.   I'm constantly looking for better starting points - the CBs are really
picked over down here in Texas.  Haven't found a good original unmolested bike in any condition in over 2 years.

[Geeto67]

You have to go to farm country and talk to the locals. One thing I have learned about living in Ohio - these things almost never come up for sale in the usual channels but everybody has a barn and most have a bike or project car and more space than they know what to do with which leads to no sense of urgency to sell. Most don't have an attachment to the stuff either so if you are right place/right time with cash it's yours. You get in the right "good old boy" network and the stuff will become available to you again. Basically the internet has mostly become the electronic version of the buy and sell and you have to go back to the old fashioned way of hunting to get the good deals again.

[Bootlegger56]

We have a "Home Ads" show on the local radio station in Statesville.  You just call the radio station and your live on the air advertising your buy, sell, trade items.  Its always good for a couple of callbacks but GTO is right about one thing.  The supply is drying up quickly.  Partially due to bobber's and brats but mostly because of the price of scrap metal.  Around here people ride around in trucks hunting dead vehicles and other metal scrap.  Most will split the proceeds with you and that is attractive to Farmer John who has that old pile of Jap junk in the way in his barn or shed that hasn't been moved in 20 years.

[754]

I have to disagree here...
 Resto can be (as simple as) putting it back to new-like.
 Mod is any modification,as long as it is approved by owner..not others..
 Restomod.. Your definition. May vary wildly from the next guy..

[chewbacca5000]

yeah, I was just thinking how nice it would be to have one of those frame kits.   I'm constantly looking for better starting points - the CBs are really
picked over down here in Texas.  Haven't found a good original unmolested bike in any condition in over 2 years.

All you need to do is team up your dog sled and head my way.  High of 13 degree today.

Family guy version of Syracuse winter just substitute alaska for Syracuse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_KOewIK4HY


The ridding season is so short lots of low mileage bikes to be had.  Just put down a deposit on a 75 cb750 all original with around 8k on the clock.  One owner since day 1 never beat on, the mystical number 2 pipe is in tack!  Tank and side are that nice blue that I like no dents in the tank.  Chrome will need some polishing, but should come back with care.

So what is this I am hearing about a K0 pavement shredding beast?

[Hon3ybadger]

Everyone has an opinion on just about any topic. I have done a couple of 750s now in my later years and the bikes that I bought didn't have enough parts to make them whole as a restoration. I also am not a fan of hacking the crap out of good frames, so I worked with what I had. What I do try to hold to is using parts off of other Honda bikes. Kind of like in the car world you don't put Ford moors in Chevy bodies.

One I have in the barn could easily be brought back to factory look if someone had the money to buy the key parts, 4 to 4 pipes is the big one, tank, side covers, seat would be the remaining pieces. Not far away but very pricey to get there. My other one has many parts from different generations of the Honda CBs. Frame intact but again what parts are available to bring to stock and at what cost.

Bikes have been modified since the beginning of motorized two wheeled vehicles. Most of the time to make them go faster or look different than everyone else.

Have at it make it your own. But my final thought is if it can be saved as a stock bike, it has original low miles, maybe it is worth saving.

+1

[Geeto67]

I have to disagree here...
 Resto can be (as simple as) putting it back to new-like.
 Mod is any modification,as long as it is approved by owner..not others..
 Restomod.. Your definition. May vary wildly from the next guy..

there is a trend in the automotive hobby called restomod where you take a car, restore it to look mostly stock, but then do a few modern upgrades so it is more reliable/performs better. Think restored stock bodies 1965 GTO with 2006 6.0L modern GTO LS2 and 6 speed trans and Qa1 coil overs at all four corners.

If you want to go to the literal definitions of things that's fine, I prefer the source material and in this case it is car craft/hot rod/popular hotrodding from 15 years ago.

Most of my definitons come from the automotive hobby since they are the larger group and usually drive the lingo. Properly in classic car circles a "restoration" aspires to be a factory correct restoration that is judged on a points scale for accuracy. A RestoMod is a car that looks (mostly) stock but is better than stock. A Hot rod is just that a modified vehicle.   

Craigslist uses it's own language and does more to solidify everybody is either a cheat or a moron when they sell something rather than advance the hobby.

Unfortunatly using this logic has it's down sides. A cafe racer is now a poorly amateur built differently shaped chopper owned by a 20-30 something, instead of the street legal road racers I grew up with, and a bobber is just a chopper without ape hangers instead of the flat track rigid race bikes of the 20's thru the 60's.

[754]

You are probably right as far as cars goes. Some bikes are hard to categorize.
 Some owners may reach for a term, thinking it is suitable.. But maybe it falls between the cataegories.
 That and some builds morph into other directions as time marches on..

[Geeto67]

You are probably right as far as cars goes. Some bikes are hard to categorize.
 Some owners may reach for a term, thinking it is suitable.. But maybe it falls between the cataegories.
 That and some builds morph into other directions as time marches on..

Honestly the idea of giving names to all of it seems silly to me....but apparently you can't communicate with people anymore unless you throw around a buzz word or just happen to be standing in front of the vehicle. I hada conversation with someone where we were talking about my cb750 and the first 5 minutes of the conversation was him asking me if it was a cafe racer, a chopper, a resto mod, a restored bike, a rat bike, old junk, etc....Honestly he was a new rider and he just couldn't wrap his head around my description of being just a nicely cared for old bike with a few upgrades for reliability and convience. It needed to have a name for him to understand it but then again he was kind of a new rider.

Original is the term that cheeses me off the most right now. In the car world an "Original" car is a car that is mostly stock and unrestored regardless of condition. This includes barn finds as well as really nicely cared for vehicles. It does not mean hot rodded the crap out of in 1974 and then laid up since then. But when you see car and bike adds these days - everything is "original" even if the frame has been cut the thing has been custom painted and every bolt replaced with allen heads.

[750K]

^^^hahaha, I get hat all the time from people when I tell them I ride a 70's Honda cb750.

Them:"What does it look like???"
Me:"you know, like an old Japanese motorcycle. It's mostly stock with a few cosmetic changes, let me just show you a picture..."
Them: "Ohhh one of those, yeah my dad owned one for years."

They always expect I ride the 2013 Dyna my coworker rides, lol.

[Don R]

Build it for yourself, if it's nice everyone else will see the beauty. If they don't, their problem.

[Geeto67]

Build it for yourself, if it's nice everyone else will see the beauty. If they don't, their problem.

I am 80% in agreement with this...the 20% reservation comes in with the new crop of motorcyclists that take this as rule #1 instead of a guideline and use it to justify unsafe and usually physically uncomfortable modifications and other less than smart decisions when they come to motorcycling. They see it as a method of personal expression rather than a learning experience and if you disagree you are a "hater". I'm personally ok with being a "hater" (mostly because I automatically deduct 50 iq points from anybody using that word) if it means I at least tried to give the good coherent advice that I otherwise had to learn through figurativley setting money on fire and sleeping overnight in hospitals.