I'd like to start off with a BIG thank you to the entire community for the nomination. Monday marked the 1-year mark that I've had my first motorcycle, the CB550 shown here.
I had been searching on and off for a Honda CB---, and found this one two hours North on Craigslist. It had been battered, had an "attempted" cafe hack job, was running no front brake because it looked cool to the PO, and the pegs were on the front engine mounts like a cruiser
Brought her home and almost immediately began tearing things down. My goal was to only have it apart for a day or two at a time, and to get it mechanically sound over summer. Being my first bike, I had no idea what I was doing and spent countless hours digging through SOHC4 and asking questions.
After getting tired of looking at the brushed on bedliner on the tank all summer, I decided to make the bike look a little nicer over winter. Well...life happened and it sat from November until late January! My plan was to take off a few pieces here and there to fix a couple oil leaks, which lead to "maybe if I just remove this cover too..." and "ooo, I should get this powdercoated..." Very quickly I had torn most of the bike apart and had a powder coat bill nearly what I paid for the entire bike
For the paint, I originally wanted to go with GM Sunset Orange Metallic - I have always lusted for this color but once I found out what it cost per pint and the implications of laying it down properly, I came up with some other ideas. Ended up sticking with a Honda color, although a few decades newer than the bike's original offerings
The color is Orange Burst Metallic from the 2012 Honda Fit! And that is suiting to the bike, because it seemed every time I turned around to reassemble parts, it would give me a fit and something would break or not go back together as planned. Once I started piecing it together, it really began to look like the bike I always wanted. Since I took the route of just tearing everything apart instead of planning out what color I wanted each piece beforehand, it was extremely difficult to "map" what it would look like assembled.
Just this past week I FINALLY got it completely back together and able to be ridden - this is after 3 rounds of getting the "correct" parts after swapping my wheels to an earlier year, necessitating the earlier drum, and then requiring an earlier brake arm... Definitely glad it is back together; the weather is beginning to warm up and I will be able to enjoy it all season!
Thank you again for the nomination, and hopefully many votes for my '78 CB550, my first bike and ticket to the wealth of information and good people on SOHC4! Here are some of the pictures from the past year...
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