Topic: 76 CB550 Cafe build

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

If you are completely tearing down your motor and splitting the cases to at least re-paint it, there is no reason to not vapor blast it.

[tshrey]

I'm not, cases are done. I'm not happy with the powder coat on the jugs and was hoping to avoid chemically stripping them, but I read that vapor blasting will not take off powder so I guess I'm buying some aircraft stripper.

[tshrey]

Put the front end all together with clipons, going to bolt on the rear sets and get to work on the rear hoop. Seeing it look like an actual bike is getting me pretty excited. Ordered the carbon fiber cloth for the seat and tail section.



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[Godffery]

You can glass bead blast the powder coat off. Far easier than Aircraft Stripper.

You can also have that baked off by the powder coat shop.

[tshrey]

I hope when it's time for the final build that you install your forks correctly. They're reversed in the picture 

I'm trying to be authentic - the cb brakes were in front of the forks   I honestly didn't even notice that, I was so excited get stuff bolted together.

[tshrey]

After way too much time, a heater install in my garage and wrapping up a basement finish I'm back on the bike.  I had the rim stripped and recoated and did the same to the hub and managed to lace it back up without scratching the #$%*e out of everything.  I finally detabbed the frame fully last night.  Some of my first cuts on the welds were a little deep and there are gashes in the metal after all the cleaup.  I used high temp lab metal to fill in some problem areas on the rear swingarm but the frame is too big to fit in my oven.  What is the best way to clean them up?  Just fill them with a little weld?

Also, I ordered a truing stand to true up the front wheel.  Never done this before, but it can't be that hard.  Do I get things as close to perfect as possible before having the tire mounted or just get it close?  Not sure how much things will shift from the tire mount.

[Godffery]

 A little weld should fill those gashes nicely, then finish with a file.

 The most important aspect of truing wheels is applying a generous dose of patience...!   
Start with the side to side run-out,  when you have that within a 1/16", then move your focus to the up & down run-out and get that within 1/23" before going back to the side to side run-out.  Ideally you should be able to dial it to a minimum of .0500" in all directions.  (there will be a dip in the area of the rim where it was welded together, you can ignore that little blip)

 BTW; you also will need to use Spoke grease or Anti-Seize on the threads & outside of the nipples.

[tshrey]

Thanks.

Anyone know what kind of steel the frame is?  I going to go buy filler rod today; all I have at home is stuff for stainless and aluminum.

[tshrey]

Need some help with truing.

I laced up the front wheel and slowly snugged all the spoke up by hand to the point that they were reasonably hard to turn with a flat head screwdriver when done from the inside of the rim.  Just got a truing stand and went through everything.  Up/down was spot on, had a little side to size wobble.  Fixed that to less than a mm everywhere.  I also got a spoke torque wrench.  When using that I noticed some of the spoke are considerably looser than others even after truing.  The youtube videos I found said to do all the truing and then torque the spoke 'to the recommended settings'.  Uh huh.  So question 1, what torque should I be using for a Cognito Moto front hub, 18" Sun rim and stainless spokes?  Question 2, if some of the spokes are tighter than others when trued, won't I pull it out of true if I make them all the same?

[SF]

Get torque #'s from the spoke MFG


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[Flexia]

I think I saw somewhere ghat Buchanan's spokes are torqued to 4lbf.  But now I can't find it and going off memory. 

I had the same question about torquing every spoke the same.  I still haven't found the answer.  It does seem like if they are all the same tension it will pull the rim out of round.  That may be needed to be a email to Buchanan's

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[tshrey]

So it just kind of worked itself out.  I set my spoke torque wrench to 53 in-lbs and started tightening every 4th spoke 1/4 turn at at time, one rotation then move to the next 10 spokes, etc.  After two rotations the torque wrench started clicking, if it did I stopped, if it didn't I went the full 1/4 turn.  By the time I was done I had clicking on every spoke and my dial gauge shows I'm good to about 10 thousandths, so I've very happy with it.

Ordered a 90/90R18 Avon Roadrider today.  What kit does everyone recommend for making the wheel tubeless?

[Flexia]

How true was the wheel before you torqued it?  I sealed my rims with 3m 4412m tape. It worked great and is super sticky.  I cut dots out of some plastic to put on top my the nipples so I can still turn them without messing the seal up.  So far it's been holding air.  Haven't​ road tested yet

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[tshrey]

Very Didn't get a dial gauge until after I started tightening them, but I couldn't see any motion when I spun it with just the pointer against the rim.

Thanks, I'll look into that tape.

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[tshrey]

Got a set of 90 degree tire stems from KTM and installed them along with the tire tape listed above.  Mounted and balanced a 90/90R18 Avon Roadrider on the front wheel using black powdercoated wheel weights.  Just the sight of a piece of the bike fully finished got me excited enough to bolt things together.  It's a roller (until tonight when I take things back apart).  Finally got my TIG all set up, next step is to clean up the rear frame with some new shock mounts and add on a hoop.





One reason this is taking so long is that I took on this project in the middle of a garage renovation.  Installed a 45k BTU propane heater just in time for summer  and finally started drywalling the ceiling.



Once I started to blast/powdercoat a lot of stuff for the bike I realized I would be best served by a big compressor with really dry air, so this was a month of planning/installation.



The last part is the floor.  The chucklehead that poured the slab did a terrible job of floating it, so it is domed in the middle and all the edges and corners are low.  I have about 2/3 of the floor done after going through an entire 7" diamond disc to take off the high spot in the middle and 25 bags of self-leveling concrete to bring up the edges.  This pic shows the last section of pour, it is about 5/8" thick along the wall tapering out to a featheredge under the speaker.  The only upside of my floor is that the guy couldn't do math and gave me a quote based on 2 concrete trucks.  Wound up taking 3, my floor is about 10" thick so that will come in handy when I install the lift

[tshrey]

Ha!  I did that just for you.  As I was sliding them into the lower triple I figured I would see if you were still paying attention

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Forks are still backwards 

That's messing with my head.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

The 90 degree stems are so much easier to deal with especially with spoked wheels.

[tshrey]

Agreed, but the downside is how heavy they are.  The weights I'm using are steel instead of lead and they are 1/4 oz each, so there are five on either side of the rim (10 total) opposite the stem.  I bet if I had used a plastic push-in stem it would be more like 2...

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Agreed, but the downside is how heavy they are.  The weights I'm using are steel instead of lead and they are 1/4 oz each, so there are five on either side of the rim (10 total) opposite the stem.  I bet if I had used a plastic push-in stem it would be more like 2...

The ones I use on my sport bike are very light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EF9CAE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[tshrey]

Yeah, but my rim is already powdercoated and I didn't want to drill out the stem hole.  The only ones I could find were the ones I bought. 'WPS' or something brand.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Yeah, but my rim is already powdercoated and I didn't want to drill out the stem hole.  The only ones I could find were the ones I bought. 'WPS' or something brand.

WPS is a KTM affiliate brand that also makes/supplies their suspension components -- much in the way Showa components are used with Honda.  Too bad about sizing.

[tshrey]

Got all the tab and flanges removed from the frame that I won't need today.  Next step is to drill and tap holes in the lower triple to mount steering stops.  Also going to get the rear wheel done.  I weighed the stock wheel/tire combo.  Even without the brake shoes the damn thing weighs over 40 pounds.  Looking forward to seeing how light I can get this.  I'm assuming the stainless spokes will be heavier than stock, but everything else should be lighter - aluminum rim, no tube, going to mill out the brake cover and switch over to Sprocket Specialists aluminum 520 conversion like BLAC's build.  I would love to go with Devin's new disc hub but at if I'm going to pay that much it needs to be lighter than stock and I don't think that is the case.

[tshrey]

Damn.

I'm at the point where I want to remove the bearings but don't have a blind bearing tool.  Is anything holding the two halves of the hub together other than the rubber nubs from the cush drive?  If I can just pound the two halves apart removing the bearings will be simple.

[tshrey]

I've got the retainer out.  The two halves should just separate at that point?  There is probably some corrosion holding them together, just didn't want to be banging on the hub and damage something.

Thanks.  You must live on here, as soon as I have a question my phone buzzes to tell me you've responded