Hey everyone!
First of, huge thanks to all of you, basically everything I now know about building and restoring motorbikes(or essentially, and specifically My motorbike) I learned from here, so big ups!
Anyways, bought a cb500 in working but kind of rugged condition last august, with the intention of restoring it and making in look like the bike of my dreams
So this is kind of a recap of whats been done, a tale told in pictures! I do have i couple of questions, but saving those for future posts.
the day I picked up the bike, humbe beginnings!
Next was the whole teardown thing, skipping a few steps here..
some frame mods was made! Detabbing, fitted rear hoop, electronics tray, raised custom seat brackets to make room for electronics(i.e battery) an so on.
started taking the engine apart. I knew it was working, but it was leaky as s**t, and never having worked with an engine before, I was curious! so i took it all apart
but we'll get back to that later!
cleaned up the valves with a wirebrush, easy enough. Then tried my hand at some "light" porting, mostly because i was balls deep in cleaning 40y old dirt from the cases and head at the time, and got incredible infuriated and wanted to give up cause that dirt is awful and i hate it. so needed something else to do to, and porting seamed kind of fun! I think it turned out alright.
Didn't mention it before, but om doing almost no performance upgrades, just want it running reliably. Now you're probably thinking "what an idiot"(cuz the porting) but as i said, did it for the fun of it(also didn't read up enough before i started and found out about the minuscule and possibly nonexisting benefits of it until after, but lets stay with "hey, it was fun"
)
two neat tricks from this site! the "grind the edges of a thick washer then bang like hell" and " two sockets and a vice", thank you for that
later installed brass bushings in the swingarm. Cameo from my father!
didn't know a bike could look like ths!?
next up was some work on the wheels! the tires are actually almost brand new metzler tires, so dont feel the need to change those! and to get the bike going as soon as possible, I decided not to do that much work on the wheels. some sanding of the spokes, cleaning and a hack paintjob (that actually turned out great) i did install new bearings though. And those retainers was a true PITA. I think it took two or three weeks from my first try at the rear one until I finally got it out
yeah, retainer 1 - homemede tool 0
when removing the retainer, I apparently f''d up the threads in the hub, so had to grind the first three of four laps of with a dremel to get the retainer back in.. used threadlock and punched the holes to keep it in place.
time to paint the wheels. saw this great trick for masking of the tire instead of tape, which is hard to do between the rim and the tire. I would know because i found out about this trick AFTER painting the first tire..
this is how they turned out and i'm super happy with it!
condition of the spokes before sanding and paint, will hopefully relace the wheels next winter, and then powdercoat them to get it done properly.
some painted parts.
oh yeah, frame and parts sandblasted and powdercoated!
rebuilt the forks and fitted new rear shocks. in this pic there mounted with the rubbers that came with them. as you can see, they're way to short, and were also to tight and way to har to mount. ended up ordering oem honda rubbers and dome bolts, and worked perfect with them!
And THIS is how she stands right now, kind of mocked up with handlebars and headlight, and the wheels aren't completely done. missing an o ring for the front and the felt dust cover for the rear brake, and a couple of pins.
In the next post, a short story about how I made the seat!
