Hi all,
I have been a long time member here and have had the pleasure of having been awarded bike of the month with my first cb550 build going on 8 years ago haha. Unfortunately, most of the build pictures that I documented over the last 4 years building this bike are now gone (thanks imageshack).
About 4 years ago I started this project as a surprise gift for my brother. I finally made a final push to get it done as a gift for his wedding day. Here's a little bit about it, and please feel free to check out the more current pics on photobucket.
Life began as a broken, pieced together 76 super sport. I quickly tore it down to pieces as most was not salvageable. The frame has had a lot of work put into it, and all of it was done by me in my garage with my trusty tig. All tube was hand bent by myself including all the manual machined and cnc'd parts for upper and lower shock mounts, caliper brackets, rear set mounts, etc . The rear frame was cut off and the rest can be seen in the pictures.
The tank started life as a Royal Enfield. Most of it has been cut apart and massaged into what you see now, once again all done in my garage. As for the oil tank, it was built from scratch as well.
The front end is a gsxr with a harley hub that i machined to fit, just like my first build way back when. However, thanks to Cognito, the front steering stem conversions made it much more of a simple transplant.
Once i had the raw frame shape ready, i shaped a foam seat to follow the rail lines. I must have spend a week's worth of hours hand sanding and bondoing the seat to get it ready for a female mold. Once the female mold was made, it was time for several more weeks of sanding to get a smooth, consistant shape. Finally, I laid it in carbon fiber and vaccuumed it to acheive what you see now. I made a seat pan from carbon fiber and then had it upholstered in buffallo (i apologize for forgetting the name of the individual that upholstered the seat for me).
I did a top end rebuild on the engine and complete carb rebuild and tune to get it on the road. I will leave it up to the new owner to build the engine if desired haha.
A big thank you goes out to Godffery for the rear rotor work and to Calj737 for providing me some awesome stainless engine bolts! Thank you very much gentlemen. And thank you to this forum for the knowledge and support.
I apologize if you have all viewed these pics in my build thread, but they are all i have left...
Underside frame showing shock mounts, added frame gussets, under seat pan sheet metal and brake lights:
Week's of work to get this far:
One-off underslung bracket and rod. Also, Godffrey's fine rotor work:
Home made tank and filler:
Thank you all,
Jens
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