The bike started off stuck in 1st gear, rotted tank, wrong headlight, and didn’t run, and would not charge when it did finally run. Sounds about right for a first build right?
After a trip to Twinline’s swap meet, I came across DrD’s CB750F0 and the light bulb went off. Since I had bought the same year and model bike a week earlier, I had a “blueprint” for what I wanted to do, with a few changes.
The build was fairly common to most café racer bikes: de-tab the frame, rewire, strip off any unnecessary pieces, etc. one of the cool things I like about the bike is that all the lights and signals are present. It has turn signals, horn, indicator lights-everything that came on it in 1975, just in a different configuration. The following are the parts and pieces I think might be a little unigue to the build.
Headlight and bucket:
Since I moved the headlight down about 8”, I ran out of real estate for the gauges between the clip-ons. To fix this, I created a headlight bucket (and aluminum ears and mounts) with a singe gauge in it. I took a F2 bucket and grafted a bondo can lid on it. After some bondo and about 4 failed attempts, I had a pattern. A spilt mold was made from this and fiberglass/carbon fiber was laid up. A little sanding and trimming and it was ready for primer.
Seat:
The seat was made the exact same way. It features a slight raised stripe that matched the ridge on the tank. If you look at the bike from the rear, the ridge on both units match up in size and shape. The upholstery was done by Robs Upholstery in Portland.
Taillight:
Probably the most difficult part of all. Since no taillight exists that would fit, I had to make one. Being I am a paranoid rider, it needed to be bright. I made a pattern for the housing and formed carbon fiber over it. Some SpazStick paint, a little buffing and I had a taillight housing. Four, 45 LED 1157 bulbs were installed and with a little wiring, I had a full on turn signal/brake light/taillight. The lens was vacuum formed (homemade vacuum box), trimmed and coated with VHT Nightshades red. It’s bright!
Battery box:
I wasn’t thrilled about stuffing all the electronics under the seat so I made a battery box shaped like the oil tank. It is a two-piece clamshell fiberglass/carbon unit that houses ALL the electronics. I think it does a decent job of filling in the empty space. A solid state (Ricks reg/rect) reg/rectifier, no-load flasher relay, new started solenoid and battery round out the battery box.
Rims are 18” F/R Sun with monster spokes that Maury at Wheel Master laced for me.
Paint:
The paint was matched off of the original seat cowl. House of Kolor Tangerine orange with medium metal flake proved to be a dead on match for Honda Sunrise Metal Flake Orange. The stripes were painted on and 6 layers of clear applied, then wet sanded and polished. The frame is PPG Delfleet and tough as hell. My uncle did the paint for me and as an added cool factor; his last name (and mine growing up too) is Seeley. Our family is from Wales, wonder if there is any relation to the famous race team owner?
The rear controls and master cylinder are off of and 2008 Hyabusa. The rear set mounts were handmade and part of the shifter is from my garage door opener internals.
Clipons are Tarozzi and the top clamp came from Cognito Moto.
Dunstall exhaust is a Carpy unit with some creative mounting
That’s about it. Thank you for reading my ramblings and especially for the nomination. Right now there is a 1976 CB750F1 in tubs in the garage. I kept saying I could build one way cheaper the second time around, now it’s time to prove it!
Poll