Long time lerker, first time (substantive) poster
I bought a CB500 with the intent to make a cafe racer, but I wanted to make sure it had some character and detail that wasn't like anything else. My concept was to make a bike that didn't have any bolt-on stuff that most people are using, so instead I hand built most of the part with no more than a angle grinder, drill, and simple hand tools. I did use a welder and metal lathe but those are more out of necessity.
SO, stated with a standard barn find CB500.
I wanted to reuse as many things as possible too, in order to keep the original feel. I moved the rear foot peg tabs down on the frame. I'm 6'3" and just mounting rear sets on those make it a really tight ride for me.
I re-used the rear foot pegs and want to make some foot controls that would work with them so I made a rear mounted double fulcrum gear shift and a matching style brake. This took some creativity and machining on a lathe to make all the parts but it turned out surprisingly well and actually works really good.
The chain actually was a little too close so I recently have flipped the middle tabs opposite of each other and it works fine now.
I made handle bars and head light mounts next
I've cut them down to size now, and have mounted the hand controls, running the wires thru the bars like stock.
I then looped the frame from three different sections.
Then I started crafting the seat cowl. I made it from a bunch of triangles that required a whole lot of funky math.
I know it still needs some work, but like I said, all I have is hand tool, so I am going to have to hand planish the whole thing with just hammers and dollies.
I then worked on the exhaust. I started with what I think is an old school set of Jardine pipes and blended them to make a low clearance 4 into 2, then blended that into a single 2.5" pipe. Again, it needs finishing work.
I have since decided to go with a 550 motor, which I did a basic rebuild/refresh with just a hone and some rings. I also redid the wiring since the 500 and 550 electric plugs don't match, the handle bar wires were excessively long, and I added a reg/rec. combo and moved it all under the cowl.
I JUST got it to fire up and run after having it and working on it for almost 2 years now.
Thought I would just share the progress and hope that ya'll enjoy.
