Topic: 1969 CB450 cafe bike

[Chuck Hahn]

Guy brought me the above mentioned bike and is having trouble with rear tire bottoming out on the fender. I measured the eye to eye ( on the bike and center to center ) and see right between 12 3/8 and 12 1/2 inches.  I was wondering if anyone has suggestions as to if 14 inch eye to eye shocks are available for this bike.  Im thinking its a combo of these shocks being caput and he is around 185 lbs, so thus 14 should solve any clearance issues...yes???

[Robbo]

Can you post some pics of the bike?

Have the shocks been set at the stiffest pre-load?

Is the rear wheel/tire size stock?  What is the clearance between rear tire and fender?

Changing from anything other than the stock length rear shock may lead to other issues such as exhaust pipe clearance with the rear axle and possible chain guard clearance so keep that in mind if moving to a longer shock.

Might be an option available to use a heavy-duty shock in the stock size rather than a longer shock .


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[Bankerdanny]

185lbs is not very heavy (I weigh a bit under 250) and shouldn't bottom out the suspension unless he is trying to jump it over RR crossings or something. I never bottomed out the stock shocks on my 550.

What is the stock length? I think the 500/550/750 all used a 13.25" or 13.5" shock. I would expect that the 450 is something similar, so the shocks on it sound like they are shorties.

Has the back of the frame been cut off and replaced with a flat hoop? That costs a couple inches of wheel movement room and even stock shocks can bottom against a fender or seat on that kind of setup.

[02z06dave]

Stock is 12.5 inches. If the tire is hitting the fender, I would assume without pictures that something has been modified. At the rear to cause this. You say its a cafe bike. What has been done at the rear? I would suggest fixing whatever is causing the clearance issue over just slapping some longer shocks on there.