Topic: My first 750: '76 CB750F

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

The lighter version of that color looks similar to a metallic version of Candy Sapphire Blue.  (at least on my screen)

Yes it does. I'll be looking for the darker blue as my primary color

Nice shade of blue.

[Bankerdanny]

Someone from CB750group page on Facebook posted a picture of his F/K mashup café bike yesterday with a paint scheme similar to what I am thinking for mine, but different colors. Then another member commented on it with a picture of his bike and what I am going to do with mine jumped right into focus.

I had to head back over to the Roth Flake site to order a 3rd color, but now I know what I will be doing. All the paint will arrive next week and Sunday 5/26 is painting day. Can't wait.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Looking forward to seeing your painting skills and the final outcome Danny 

[Bankerdanny]

Looking forward to seeing your painting skills and the final outcome Danny 

Me too, LOL

[Bankerdanny]

I had a nice productive Sunday.

The new brake lines got installed but I couldn't find my bleeder setup so that will wait another week. I took care of a few small detail items: got my center stand stop set up, painted the taillight and front brake splitter brackets, and replaced the female spade style taillight ground connection with a bullet to match the connector on the light.

I spend a lot of time on prep work on the tank and tail. Sanding the filler I applied last week to a couple small dents, glazing putty, more sanding, primer, more sanding, and more primer. The lines of the tank look good, It still isn't as perfect as I want it to be, but it's 90%. Thanks to the upcoming 3 day Memorial Day Weekend I should have time to complete the prep and paint.

[Bankerdanny]

The tank on this bike will give you an idea of where I will be going with my tank scheme.

[Bankerdanny]

Base coat and primary color delivered today. Stripe color scheduled for delivery tomorrow or Friday. I need to swing over to Eastwood to pick up a couple cans of 2k Clear and I am still on schedule to paint Sunday/Monday.

[Bankerdanny]

Paint all applied. I need to wet sand and polish, but for a first time attempt using spray cans I am pretty pleased. The color and stripes came out pretty much exactly as I hoped. I am still up in the air about the side covers. The blue border isn't a uniform size. I am ordering new cover badges (I really wanted the F3 style, but can't find new repops of those) and I will decide when it is together what I think. I have plenty of base coat and blue left over so I can repaint a solid blue in an afternoon if I want.

The paint is Roth Metal Flake Rattle Bomb spray paint, the colors are Bad Azzz Blue Pearl and Tweeka Sunrise Pearl, both over Skidmark Black base coat. The clear is Eastwood 2K.

There are definitely flaws and nobody will be hitting me up for a paint job any time soon, but the colors just pop in the sun and I will be very proud to see it at the bike nights and bike shows I go to.

[Bankerdanny]

Continued forward progress.

Got the tank, tail, and side covers wet sanded, cut, and polished, installed new side cover badges, and reassembled the body work. All that is left now is to finish repainting the tank badges and the bodywork will be complete for now.

Not all puppies and rainbows though. While on stage 2 of cutting and buffing the tank I managed to cut through the clear and color down to the base coat. I also got down to bare metal in a couple spots at the very bottom of the tank right at the seam welds. I also over tightened a nut on the side trim bolt and cracked the paint. Fortunately that is only visible if you look really hard. I replaced the chrome trim around the back of the tail piece. it's slightly smaller than the original so there is a little black line in front of it. I'm OK with it though, it looks kind of like an accent line.

On the mechanical front I re-bled the rear master which got me decent pedal back. I tried and tried to get my front brakes to work properly, but I just could not get more than token feel from the master. I ended up re-installing the OEM master for now, which gives me terrible feel, but at least actual working brakes. I am going to see if I can source a modern master locally from someone who is parting out a bike.

Then I put gas in the tank, started it up and took it on its first ride since I put it in storage back in December. The new Delkevic exhaust sounds great, no exhaust leaks, and it ran well (I had a float stick for a short bit, but that seems to have solved itself). I planned to ride up to Kalamazoo for the Gilmore bike show this weekend, but right now between putting 0 miles on the new forks and brakes and potential rain I am 50/50 about that. On the one hand a few hundred miles of riding over the weekend is good shakedown opportunity as I have a 2 week trip planned at the end of the month. On the other hand, brakes failing 200 miles from home would suck.

[seanbarney41]

Danny, my van snatches up cb750s quite easily and there is plenty of tools, parts, and knowledge here in michigan for the asking...just let me know

[Bankerdanny]

Danny, my van snatches up cb750s quite easily and there is plenty of tools, parts, and knowledge here in michigan for the asking...just let me know

Thanks Sean. I was planning to reach out this week. Right now I am leaning towards borrowing the brother-in-law's Suburban and enclosed trailer and hauling the bike up. A fresh set of eyes on the brake setup would be worth while.

[Bankerdanny]

I made it up to Gilmore on 6/9 and had great weather and got in a nice 60 mile ride with Sean Barney. Unfortunately as you might have seen on my thread at the main board, the night before my tank fell off a table and scratched the crap out of my clearcoat and made a couple large dents.

[Bankerdanny]

The weather sucked Sunday so I bailed early to head back to Illinois to get working on repairs. I stopped at Harbor Freight for a dent repair stud gun and headed for the garage at my sister's house. I used stripper to get the paint off the dents for pulling

[Bankerdanny]

Sunday I got the dents as pulled as I could then applied body filler to deal with the rest. About 10 hours of filling sanding, filling a little more and repeat as necessary I am here. Next up is a new coat of base and hopefully by Thurs next week wet sand and buff. The Motoblot MC weekend is the 22-23 and then I leave for a 2 week trip finishing at Vintage MC days at Mid-Ohio Raceway. Lots to do and not enough time to do it.

[Bankerdanny]

A minor setback last Saturday, travelling for business Sunday and Monday and getting stuck in the office Tuesday until 11pm got me at least a day behind. Yesterday I got the base coat on the tank and side covers and color applied to the sidecovers.

Roth Metal Flake, who is the paint supplier, recommended I let the base coat cure overnight before I mask for the stripes, and given the experience I had with the tape lifting basecoat the first time I did this I decided to take that advice.

Tonight I will mask off the stripes and shoot the blue on the sides then a couple layers of clear as a mid-coat then Friday I can reverse the tape job to shoot the gold stripes then clear the whole tank.

Motoblot is this weekend in Chicago, I might have time to wet sand and buff, but if not I am not too concerned. It will at least be shiny and dent free.

Besides the paint I have 2 more items on my checklist (1) replacing the right side control and (2) installing a new front master. Problems with the starter button wiring were the cause of the short that kept blowing fuses, so I ordered a repop from 4into1, which will get delivered today. I also have HondaMan's run switch relay kit, but I am not worried about installing it before Friday, but I will get it in place before my roadtrip starts next week.

I also broke down yesterday and ordered a modern Nissin radial front master. The cheap conventional one I had bought didn't work, and the original single disk MC didn't work well. I already have so much time and effort in the paint, forks, brakes, and wheels that it seemed stupid to cheap out on the master. I ordered it from Part Giant via Ebay. They are located in Grand Rapids so even though I didn't pay extra for express the part is being delivered today.

By Saturday morning I will have a shiny freshly painted bike again with a new right side control and upgraded modern brakes. I plan to ride The Dragon on my trip and will be spending almost a week in the mountains of Tennessee and the Carolinas, so good brakes seemed worthwhile.

Sometime before the trip I need to install new latches on my Shoie bags and get them mounted.

I'll get fresh pictures up sometime this weekend.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Keep up the good work Danny!

You MIGHT have to deal with the wiring on that right control    Hope it is an exact match for you. If it is an exact match please let us know or how you overcame any issue. 

[Bankerdanny]

Both my new right side control and the new front master cylinder were delivered yesterday (the master in just one day even without special shipping, Amazon has really made UPS step up its game for short distance shipping).

The control looks to have the correct wiring colors, I didn't hook it up, but I will do that tonight along with the HondaMan starter button saver relay kit I got a few months back. I put the new master on the bars and screwed in the hose, but didn't have time to bleed it. That is on my list for tonight in between coats of paint and clear.

Speaking of which, last night I got 5 coats of clear on the side covers and 5 coats of the blue pearl on the tank and a couple coats of clear as an intercoat. I did have one minor mishap when the tape I was using to mark off where the gold stripes will go took off some basecoat and primer along with some glazing putty that apparently hadn't cured properly. I will have to fix that issue first thing before I can re-tape and add the gold stripes.

By the end of the day today I will have added the stripes and cleared the tank, installed the starter button kit and hooked up the control wiring and fully bled out the front brake system. At that point all I need to have a rider is to reinstall the tank. That I will do late morning Saturday. I may wet sand and buff first, but it depends if I think the clear has cured enough. If not I will deal with that on Monday.

Saturday is the annual Motoblot show in Chicago and my plan is to take the bike up for it, but that depends on the weather since, like almost every weekend since March it is supposed to rain.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Congratulations. Your bike has been nominated and seconded for BOTM. Please post that you “accept” the nomination in the following thread:  http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,176614.0.html

[Bankerdanny]

Wow, thank you. I didn't even see that.

I will except with the caveat that my 2nd paint job didn't come out well and I will probably have to paint it yet a 3rd time. But hey, 3rd time is the charm, right?

[scottly]

Wow, thank you. I didn't even see that.

I will except with the caveat that my 2nd paint job didn't come out well and I will probably have to paint it yet a 3rd time. But hey, 3rd time is the charm, right?

You logged over 1900 miles before the second paint job had a chance to fully cure, so go to the nomination thread and accept, dammit!

[PeWe]

With perfect paint you'll find other things to change anyway, right?
It is very difficult to stop doing things on the bike, even if the project mainly is "completed".

When it look much better, the standard will be raised and next wave of improvements can start.

[Bankerdanny]

With perfect paint you'll find other things to change anyway, right?
It is very difficult to stop doing things on the bike, even if the project mainly is "completed".

When it look much better, the standard will be raised and next wave of improvements can start.

No doubt. Something always pops up to be the 'over the winter' project. Right now I am leaning towards pulling apart the K7/8 motor that came with the F3 roller that provided my front end upgrade (don't know why the original engine in that bike was replaced) and having the head done and barrels bored for an 836 kit in anticipation of a future upgrade to the engine in my bike now.

I plan to do a full repaint (same colors and scheme) sometime the next couple weeks, fix the leaky tach seal, replace the fork seals (which were already replaced last year but started leaking during the trip) and I think a simple polish of the valve cover and engine covers. The Evanston Motorcycle Classic in in September and I would like the bike to be a little shinier for that.

[PeWe]

There is often something that need a test ride. Carbs, ignition, other exhaust or another mod.

My friends with newer bikes have most of the time nothing to test, less reasons for riding the bike. Must be boring.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

With perfect paint you'll find other things to change anyway, right?
It is very difficult to stop doing things on the bike, even if the project mainly is "completed".

When it look much better, the standard will be raised and next wave of improvements can start.

These bikes are never truly completed but for purposes of nominating one for BOTM, it has to be in a state of completion and running (if it's a rebuild or restoration).