Hey fellas,
Some of you may know me, most have probably never heard of me. I have been a long time member of SOHC4 and this is where it all started for me. I haven't been all that active as life has been pretty busy for me since I was an active member. But I would consider SOHC4 "Home" and I would like to get back into the community the way that I used to be.
For those of you that don't know me. I am Justin. I started my company J.Webster Designs in 2012 and have been growing it steadily since. I designs and manufacture aftermarket goodies for motorcycles and I currently specialize in the vintage Hondas. I will be growing my product line and branching out to universal fit and other brand specific parts. If you want to check out some of the stuff that I make, check out my website at:
www.JWebsterDesigns.com I tend to get excited when I post build threads and want to document everything that I am doing. But I tend to burn myself out trying to share everything that I am doing. So I am committing myself to posting pictures and information once I get to the final assembly stages so that I can let you all see what I am up to.
SO. Without talking much more...
This is a customers bike that I am building for him. The customer came to me and asked to have a bike built that he has been wanting to own for quite some time. He wanted a customized CB750 of his dreams. He gave me a few guidelines, but left much of the creative aspect and design up to me. Obviously being a business owner, I have financial constraints that I must abide by which puts the axe to some of the things that I would like to do personally.
In picking a "project name" for a build, I ask my customers to name their projects. After all, It is their bike... I ask them to really think about it and not make a brash decision on a name. In this instance, my customer thought long and hard about it and eventually came to the realization of the name "Hitch." I will not go into the detail of why my customer chose this name as I am not posting this build thread on his behalf. But suffice it to say, it is a nod to a person that helped him with an important realization in his life. It means something to him and that is what matters.
So, Meet project "Hitch"
I was tasked to build this bike start to finish. He did not have a CB750, So I was tasked to find one for him to even get this project rolling. I found this 1978 CB750K in Illinois. It was a runner and relatively clean. The previous owner had made a few personal changes to it himself, but ultimately I chose it because it was mostly unmolested.
I immediately started tearing all of the stock items that would not be used off and chopping up the parts that would be modified.
I cut things, welded things, bent things and generally made things better.
First thing I did was ditch the original '78 K tank in favor of an earlier model.
And because I can not leave well enough alone... I made up some mounting tabs and welded them to the tank for turn signal mounts.
Here is the lower triple tree that I filled and smoothed.
I then made and added a pedestal to the lower triple to attach the pedestal mount Bates style headlight to the triple tree for a clean look that would flow well.
I also shaved the upper triple tree as I will be using clip ons instead of a riser mounted set of bars.
I then made a mount for the Motogadget "Tiny" speedo.
I modified the battery tray on the electrical side to house all of the new electrical goodies. This bike will be running a one piece Reg/Rec unit as well as a full Motogadget line up.
I then made the decision on the tail lights and made some threaded plugs and welded them to the ends of the frame tubes so that they would flow seamlessly into the frame.
Before: (excuse the bondo and fitment of the tail. I was making the mould for the fiberglass tail at that time.)
After:
I de-tabbed the entire frame and shaved the swingarm.
I then fiberglassed up a tail section for the bike and after a bunch of hours and work... I arrived at the final look and feel of the bike.
At this stage, The bike was ready for paint, powder coating and Polishing.
The Paint and powder colors were decided upon and the deed was done...
All of the shiny parts laying comfortably inside.
Of course, when you get paint and powder coat back, you cant help but do a "mock up" to see how it is all coming together.
So after getting extremely excited about how it is all coming together, it was time to start ACTUALLY putting it together...
And this is where we stand today...
There are obviously things that I have not covered. I will try to showcase the other modifications that have made their way on to the bike. But this at least gets the build thread rolling and on it's way.