Topic: 1972 CB500 "An Inherited Basket Case"

[RAFster122s]

Very nice, that is a very nice Suzuki fastener indeed. May wish to antisieze beneath the head when installing as it is often the heads that have the corrosion with time or the part that seemingly welds itself to the aluminum case casing trouble removing years later. But, then again you may never face this issue because that often happens after decades and we may not be around or care at that point...

I hade a chassis a few years back for a small RC pan car I was racing from some colored Kevlar carbon cloth and had a shop autoclave two different colors together for me to give me a red-black twill on one side with blue black on the opposite. It came out nice but that Kevlar was a Royal pita to trim everywhere I routed the chassis slots for batteries and cut the simple chassis out. It is pretty but was much too stiff. The chassis needed the bit of flex the standard thicker colored G10 we were using for the chassis to perform better.  It definitely looked trick and no one had another like it.

That is a nice first section. Glad it is coming together quickly. Stalled projects are not fun to mess with when pulling them together takes forever. The investment in the bigger nozzle will pay for itself in energy savings and speed as well as the ability to do other things in the future of similar scale.

That sounds like a lot of fun working with the new material. I always enjoy learning new stuff and planning the details on a project. I haven’t had the pleasure of working with basalt yet.  Easy enough to build a construction foam cure oven for the layup with foil HVAC tape adhering panels together.  You can use a heat gun or series of incandescent lamps or a heat lamp with a set of thermo switches to control relay to regulate your oven temps turning lamps on and off as needed within the enclosure.  Just keep the bulbs far enough from your foam board as you do not want the risk of a fire.

Are you going to vacuum bag or two part mold the layup?

An inexpensive vacuum pump can be built using a aquarium pump inside a metal coffee can siliconed to a board with couple brass tubes soldered into the can to pull the vac. It really pulls a decent amount of vacuum and you cannot beat the price if you don’t have the need for an expensive vacuum pump. Imagine you have one already or access to them easily.

I guess I wasn’t thinking about it much huh?  Using a highly fuel resistant epoxy from the getgo would be the smart move in the construction rather than risk a liner epoxy doing the deed...

Enjoying watching this one come together...

[fantino]

Those dyed hybrid kevlar weaves really do look trick, but you're right, they're a real bear to cut or sand.

I've let this project stall out for far too long, so I'm with you - anything to get this moving along is definitely worth it, keeps me more motivated when the progress is steady. I've been printing all weekend, I'm about 1/6 of the way through the upper half mold now. I think once I get the new nozzle installed tomorrow I will be able to have all the sections printed by the end of the week.

Clever idea for a DIY vacuum pump! At work, we use a 100gal shop compressor hooked up in reverse to a big quick connect manifold, so fortunately I don't have to worry too much about rigging anything special. I'm planning to do a vacuum infusion for these.

As far as the oven curing - the developers who own the house I'm renting are tearing it down in a few months, so I'm just using the kitchen range in the vacant basement apartment for the time being Probably not very food safe but I'm pretty certain it's destined for the dump, haha.

[fantino]

Halfway through printing the upper tank mold! There's some ugly areas because I'm not printing supports for overhangs, but overall it's very workable and more importantly going FAST.

Taped the pieces together for my own satisfaction, but I'll be bonding the sections together by mixing up some epoxy with fumed silica and clamping the flat faces to each other.

After that, the mold surface will get filled and faired with a brushed on layer of epoxy, glass microspheres and fumed silica. The silica makes the epoxy thixotropic so it doesn't sag or run and the microspheres act as a filler to make sanding easier (sort of like bondo, but provides a more robust and less porous surface - added bonus to not have to deal with the nasty smell of styrene from the bondo).



I'll put up something in the classifieds soon, but in case anyone reading my thread is interested - I was going to clear out a few parts that I've been holding onto:

OE (TEC) points plate assembly, a set of 5ohm Dyna coils and red Dyna silicone spark plug wires - all brand new, never used or mounted! I was thinking $140 + flat rate shipping in the US, which is 20% off the cost of the Dyna stuff plus a free OEM points plate.



CB500 swingarm which has been refurbished with bronze bushings and the axle zerked by HondaMan himself. The felt washer is definitely gone, but I should still have the cup washers and phenolic pieces. Zero miles on this since the refurb, has been mounted a few times $75 + shipping.



Also putting a feeler out for these new, never mounted MotoGPWerks pipes. Not sure what the going rate is for these nowadays or if Chris is even still making them regularly, but I'm guessing I can at least cover the cost of shipping for the new pipes if I sell these PM me if interested.

[RAFster122s]

That is some nice pieces you are letting go of... Chris has not been making the 550 pipes as the frustration of some sellers made him abandon them for a while. He was willing to do lots of 10, but, that is a tall order often. People flake on you unless you get a good deposit.
The points plate is worth at least $50 but more realistically they go for about $100-110.

Someone is getting a nice deal, imho.

[fantino]

Finished setting the megacycle cam tonight. Duration and open\close are a little different from the cam card, but the lobe centers are within 1/2 degree. I think this is close enough?

Documenting the numbers for future reference:

                             INTAKE                    EXHAUST
OPEN                 23 BTC (337)          48.5 BBC (131.5)
CLOSE               52 ABC (232)           20.5 ATC (20.5)
DURATION                255                          249
LOBE CENTER       104.5 ATC                  104 BTC

So I can set this easier later on, gap between notch in cam and cylinder head @ TDC: .060"

Cam card for reference:

[fantino]

I'm finally nearing completion on all of the printing. I've got all the pieces mated together for the tank molds and am only missing one section of the seat mold at this point, which should be finished by the time I wake up tomorrow morning



Next step is to stiffen up the molds by glassing the backside surface, and then I'll get started with coating the mold surfaces in an epoxy fairing compound. After that it'll be a lot of sanding, polishing and waxing to get the surfaces ready to pull parts.

In other news, just more small progress on the rest of the bike. The motor is all buttoned up and now just needs a home. I've been picking up controls, switches, and other peripherals so I can get everything laid out on the frame.

I made up a preliminary planning template to work off as I start building a physical harness - I'll fill in lengths between junctions once I have more mounted up to the frame, added grounding locations, add wire colors, etc.

[RAFster122s]

Very nice. How many copies do you intend to pull from the molds?

[fantino]

Very nice. How many copies do you intend to pull from the molds?

Ideally only two - a test part out of fiberglass and then the real deal, but that’s being a little optimistic. I suppose after that the molds will just go in storage in case I ever need to make a replacement.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

What price would you sell gas tanks for?

[fantino]

What price would you sell gas tanks for?

For the tank I'm building now, or a unique design? I haven't thought about it too much, I had always planned on this being a one off.

For reference - and in the interest of transparency for anyone interested in doing something like this, here's my costing spreadsheet for this project, including both seat and tank. It's definitely not a "cheap" DIY in materials or labor, and this cost breakdown doesn't factor in that I already own a large 3D printer, have access to an already well equipped shop for composites work, etc. The true materials cost is actually a bit less as I'll have some leftover fabric, epoxy and paint when I'm done, and the total labor cost is more than doubled by unattended printing time (I usually setup long prints before bed).

I think each additional set would cost another $300 in materials and 12–14 hours in labor.



By the time I'm done, I definitely could have bought a FG bodykit from Airtech or GFTP and saved a few hundred bucks at the end of the day (but that's not really the point, is it? ) On that note - I'm definitely going to buy a CR750 fairing from AirTech, because I don't have the energy or money to make a set of molds that big on my own, haha.

[fantino]

Had a pretty busy couple of weeks with work and needing to fix a few things on my daily driver, so I haven't had much time to get in the shop to work on molds, but I did get a little bit more planning work done for the harness.







This may seem like planning overkill - but I want to end up with a very clean, minimal and easy to follow harness by the time I'm done. Next step for wiring is to get the engine mounted with the frame and forks. I'll use lengths of rope taped together to figure out the section lengths for the harness, add appropriate excess and then I'll be able to fill in the cut-sheet and get started.

Sounds like my new exhaust went out for coating this week, so I expect to see some pictures of the finished product pretty soon before it ships out. Pretty excited for these.

[gmoss]

Been following what I can of your build and taking notes as to “things I might learn about eventually and come back to this thread  to reread”

I’ll take the 5ohm coils and spark plug wires off of ya don’t need the points plate though. DM incoming.

[fantino]

Enrique sent over some fit-up photos of the exhaust and so they are finally near to being completed and shipped to me. I am quite excited about this

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Beautiful.

[fantino]

I got a package in the mail today...



I think the cats approve. It'll be a little while before I can test fit, but I'm pretty excited to finally have my dream exhaust in hand.

In other news, making progress on the molds but I still have a lot of sanding in my future, I wouldn't expect to be pulling parts for at least a few more weeks at the current pace. I may speed up work on the tunnel section so I can pull a test part to help with wiring harness layout work.

All of my composite fabrics and resin arrived last week. I'm going to make a couple of small test swatches to make sure I'm happy with the layup schedule. I'll toss them in a bucket of gas for a few weeks after to see how they hold up.

The last of my deutsch connectors finally showed up too (so many supply shortages!), so I've got everything I need to start putting the harness together. I'll hopefully have the engine test fit into the frame next week so I can get started.

[fantino]

More harness work lately. Not the most exciting work to share, but I really do want to end up with a clean, reliable and professional looking wiring job at the end of the day.

Put the motor in frame and tossed some of the relevant parts on there and made a basic harness template out of some old cable I had laying around. This is the most assembled this bike has been in probably 30 years



This gave me a template to measure lengths off of. I did end up modifying some of the junctions from the original plan once I started laying it out on the frame. I updated my documentation for future use and also worked out the lengths for every piece of wire that needed to be cut into a nice tidy cut list.









Using the updated map and cut list, I was able to get all of my wire cut and the base harness built this evening



Everything is longer than it needs to be at this point. Next steps will be to get sleeving and heatshrink onto the base harness, then it'll be ready to mount back onto the frame for final terminations. I'll mostly be using Deutsch connectors with spade and ring terminals as appropriate.

I'm moving over the next week, so things will be a bit chaotic. I don't expect too much progress until July.

[fantino]

It's been about a month since I posted last! Between my move and a little heat wave here in the Northwest, I haven't been able to get much done. I am working on my molds when I have spare time after work, hopefully I can pull a test part or two in the next few weeks.

I also received the last electrical parts I needed for the build - a Chronoclassic tach and headlight. I actually ordered these quite awhile ago, but backorders being what they were only just received them now. I went with the sealed beam glass LED light from Revival because it's the only LED light I could find that wouldn't look super out of place on an older bike. I thought about putting an LED H4 bulb into a non-sealed assembly, but much like when folks add xenon bulbs to non-projector headlamps I presumed the light pattern would be awful, especially to oncoming traffic.



My garage is packed to the gills and a total mess until I have a chance to reorganize from the move, so in the meantime, I'm looking for some small, clean projects I can do at home while I get settled in to keep the project moving forward. Most likely that will be sheathing the harness and truing up my wheels so I can install the new BT46s.

On the plus side, the weather has been nice this last week, so I've been getting in lots of rides on my EX250

[Godffery]

 Just checked out this build thread.  Some Very impressive work here to say the least!

[fantino]

Just checked out this build thread.  Some Very impressive work here to say the least!

Thank you kindly!

A running theme with this build is it getting shelved every other year, haha. I picked up another big house project that has been taking up all my time since last summer. I have started to pick things up with the bike again, however. I'm laid up at home with COVID right now, so I've been dressing the wiring harness to pass the time.

The molds are really close to being ready to go as well, I just need to spend a couple evenings sanding and prepping them for a test layup.

[RAFster122s]

Hope your CoVID experience is not too rough. It affects everyone a little differently. Drink plenty of water, too easy to get dehydrated when you are sick.

Looking forward to more on the build.

[Gurp]

Love the detail in planning. I wish I thought like that. I have a idea then I just do. If not I forget. Lol

[rollypoli]

Just checked out this build thread.  Some Very impressive work here to say the least!

Thank you kindly!

A running theme with this build is it getting shelved every other year, haha. I picked up another big house project that has been taking up all my time since last summer. I have started to pick things up with the bike again, however. I'm laid up at home with COVID right now, so I've been dressing the wiring harness to pass the time.

The molds are really close to being ready to go as well, I just need to spend a couple evenings sanding and prepping them for a test layup.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you. I hope you are alive and well Id love an update on this build. It’s been amazing to read through

[Godffery]

Just checked out this build thread.  Some Very impressive work here to say the least!

Thank you kindly!

A running theme with this build is it getting shelved every other year, haha. I picked up another big house project that has been taking up all my time since last summer. I have started to pick things up with the bike again, however. I'm laid up at home with COVID right now, so I've been dressing the wiring harness to pass the time.

The molds are really close to being ready to go as well, I just need to spend a couple evenings sanding and prepping them for a test layup.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you. I hope you are alive and well Id love an update on this build. It’s been amazing to read through

 I'll second that.