Topic: Blood, Sweat and Beers '73 CB500 Bama Cafe Racer Build

[will46r]

Hi guys/gals.  New here, thought I'd start a build journal to help me track my build and hopefully get advice and/or whatever.  I would normally rebuild the bike back to running condition then modify but that wasn't possible with this rolling collection of stuff. My friend is an experienced bike builder (although Harleys) so I'm confident about ability to get it going. I got big boy pants and can accept or ignore any comments I disagree with

Sooooo here goes.  Been talking to my best friend for probably a year about building a cafe racer.  I haven't ridden in 20 years and well heck I want to but I don't want to just buy and ride.  February my friend calls me over, says he needs help.  Hands me bill of sale and key to a trashed 73 CB500.  He's also got a 94 Zuki GS500 to strip stuff off of.  The CB turns over and has nice compression but parts missing and a lot of rust... A LOT of rust.

Oil leaks and stuff indicate need for new seals and gaskets.  We need to see how much rust is present and how much is missing from the bike.  So we strip the bike down, good stuff into buckets and after a few beers bad parts are flung around the driveway.   







Feel free to fire away....
(I'm going to break up my posts in blocks of progress or frustration.)

[will46r]

Did a bunch of research on mating CB500 with a GS500... I'm a student machinist and have access to big boy chip making toys.  More toys than experience but what the heck.  Took the GS500 triples, ordered an All Balls bearing set for the CB500.  Ground the welds out and pressed the stem out of each set of triples.  Filled, milled and drilled the Zuki triples.  Bored to clean weld slag and for CB stem fit.  Removed the GS ignition switch ring, ground it down near flush, welded in various pockets and the radius from the ignition switch.  Milled stuff flat well flatish.

Flycutting top flat so I can clamp it for boring operations.



Indicating holes in for boring.... 20 minutes of set up for a 1 minute operation...



Boring bar.... doing boring....




Semi-finished, gonna bead blast then use Scotchbrite belts on it for a brushed finish.



If I'm doing wrong by posting like this or y'all don't want to see machining pics then let me know.

As always feel free to comment.

[will46r]

Well I'm a medically retired Soldier so I can't buy nice billet items... I do have access to 6061 and machines and time....  Looked around at various rearsets and stuff, drew up some prints, mixed some Redbull with coffee fired up NCPlot and went to coding.

Wax prototype... stupid G43 machine coding error made it make weird paths on first pass, next passes were fine.  Grrrrrr but at least it's wax and not aluminum.




Aluminum getting a Haas massage.




Post massage, still in fixture.



Comment or critique.

[will46r]

Things that were holding us up were carbs, tank, seat and bars to set rearset brackets.  Talked to the guy that he got the bike from, dude was like, "forgot this"  carbs still in return shipping package from the rebuilder    Finally found a tank, got a pair of 69? CB500/550 tanks from a guy for $80.  Got Legendary Cycles Phat seat pan and Tarozzi 105mm offset bars coming from DCC.  Should be here tomorrow... well beers were flowing, we mocked it up various ways before semi-settling on a design.

 Gotta clean parts and de-dent the tank but kinda where we are with GS front, wheels and swingarm.






Newly machined triples with GS wheels/forks.




Moderately sober pose.. just waiting for mail delivery so I'll have seat pan and bars to do more beer powered thinking.



The original paint under that black mess is Candy Blue Green... I really like it, probably gonna use it on seat and tank after repairs.

Got gasket set, waiting on engine oil seals and new bolts.. gonna work on engine soon.

That's where we're at on the build.  Hope y'all like, either way feel free to comment.

[will46r]

Well I was like a kid checking USPS tracking and finally waiting outside by the mail box 

Legendary Cycles "Phat Seat" and Tarozzi 105 offset adjustable clip ons.

DCC box well I wanted to memorialize the box



Peek inside, seat and Tarozzis:



Inside the Tarozzi box 



Seat and bars on the bike.  Gonna fine tune bars after we get closer to finish.  Need to notch seat, fab up loop and mounts, detab frame and prep for paint.  We're going to go with paint because there's some stuff we want to do that won't work with powder coat.



Comments or critiques are welcome.   

Gonna try to blast the frame, swingarm and wheels today.  Gotta work all weekend and have a knife to finish for delivery Wednesday for a customer.

[calj737]

Looks really good. Great use of a donor GS for the steering and wheels.

Before you bolt up that front end for good, you'd be well served grabbing some cartridge emulators to improve the suspension in the those forks. Neither the originals nor the swap have "great" forks, and cartridges make a vast improvement. And definitely service the fork oil...

For your top clamp, before you put away your mill, give some thought to gauge mounts or a bracket location. Easier to mill or tap while she's on the mill.

Following your progress with great interest.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Looks really good. Great use of a donor GS for the steering and wheels.

Before you bolt up that front end for good, you'd be well served grabbing some cartridge emulators to improve the suspension in the those forks. Neither the originals nor the swap have "great" forks, and cartridges make a vast improvement. And definitely service the fork oil...

For your top clamp, before you put away your mill, give some thought to gauge mounts or a bracket location. Easier to mill or tap while she's on the mill.

Following your progress with great interest.

Great start!  And, yes, we love the machining photographs.  The rearset bracket looks like a nice piece and the and work on the triples was solid.  Nicely done.

[will46r]

Thanks!

Yeah... just couldn't stand to see the stuff sitting there so I mocked it up to look like a bike.  Haven't decided on gauges yet.  Well I kinda think I know but with the way my ideas change every time I look at it who knows?  I've got a smaller mill at my house that I can chuck the triple tree on for drilling/tapping operations.  My table doesn't have enough travel to do the machining without moving the triple tree up and down the table.

I was planning on running Racetch or Progressive springs up front and doing full replacement of seals and oil.  Do you recommend something else for the front shocks?  I'll hunt around for emulators...

Was looking for internal fork stops for the bike.  Can't seem to find them for this bike, guess I can machine some unless someone can tell me why they won't work on a CB500 hybrid thingy I'm building?

Thanks again.

[will46r]

Well my buddy, James and I were both off Friday soooooo shop time!  Gasket Kit was in from DCC and Oil Seal came in from another vendor.  Engine needed to be cleaned and stuff replaced.  Needed cleaning in anticipation of painting and other cosmetic love.  Well picture time.

Pulling the engine apart.  We decided not to split the case because everything looked really good.




Coil Cleaner... worked wayyyy better than Purple Power and Gunkoff Engine Degreaser.  Spray on wipe off, scrub really thick stuff. 




Doesn't look too bad though, owner said he'd ridden it about a year before we got it.




Not sure what the name of these Craftsman sockets are but you can pass bolts through them, worked great removing plugs because I was too lazy to grab a plug socket.




James blasting as I degrease... no pictures of me degreasing because it ain't sexy at all... don't ask about the step ladder. The table we normally put the cabinet is occupied by 4 cylinders of oily mess and beer bottles.



Oil pan and drive sprockets post bead blasting




More stuff post bead blasting.



Well Mother's Day and family stuff will interrupt painting but at least a lot of the nasty work is done.   We picked up  Indian ME 100 and Bridgestone 125 Enduros to restore, I'll post pics later.

Feel free to comment, critique or sling crap.

[Stev-o]

First off, Welcome from Texas.   Looks like you are off to a good start.  I'm currently bringing a CB500 back from the dead too.

[Gman]

Welcome!  Love the pics of the machining - I wish I had the toys/experience to make my own stuff.  Alas, I just have to watch others have all the fun.  Keep it up and keep the pics coming.  You seem to have a good wrenching:beer ratio.  My kind of shop time! 

Cheers,
G

[will46r]

Thanks guys!  It's slow going because of our work schedules and spousal demands 

Gotta remember that 50% of the time  2/3 of machining is figuring out how to hold a workpiece.  I don't have a lot of machining experience but I have a lot of experience at making things... it's a good marriage of talents and love.

We have a lot of beer in the fridge and bottles of Jack and  Makers 46 leftover from last weeks 4 day Gulf Shores trip....  we spend a lot of time holding beers and just looking at the bike.  Seems to help a lot.