Topic: 1969 CB160 Cafe/Tracker Project - a.k.a The "Apartment Bike"

[Cowboy]

Cool project, as usual Joey!

I've been working on a CB160 resto-mod. I'm adding trials tires and a skid plate, and plan to use it in the forest.  Here's the hateful condition when I brought it home:



And here's the current state:



Having recently spent a weekend stripping paint off that frame, your recent work on the Apartment Bike looks all too familiar!

[ProTeal55]

Progress looks good on your 160 Cowboy.
I had to go get a mask from Home Depot becuase I almost puked inhalin all that paint as the flapper wheel knocked it off the frame ! Not gonna strip ALL the paint off, just the spots where their is more surface rust then paint. Alittle bondo here and their (bike isnt going to see the street so I can use bondo )allot of primer, and allot of paint and I should be good. Going to paint the frame bright gloss red, and the wheels and other bits gloss black...

[phactory]

Looks great! I fully understand the "need" to have a bike inside! Below is a pic of my 1959 BMW R26 in my living room. I am on the hunt right now for a CB160 or a CB72/CB77.

Phil

[HondanutRider]

Ah, restored bikes inside over winter make such good companions.  I feel sorry for my last-winter companion as she now sits shivering in hibernation in my garage with other members of my fleet.  This winter all I have to fiddle with is the motor off the SL100.

[Ecosse]

You guys are making me feel just damn mean for storing my 550 in a shed! I live in a second story apartment and there's no way I could get it up the way my stairs are.

ProTeal, too bad The Hard Rock isn't the Juggernaut it once was. You could make a killing taking too far gone heaps and make dandy wall/ceiling art.

[ProTeal55]

I have seen people make killer looking bikes outta worse heaps then this thing was when I got it.
Personally, I would rather buy a running bike and then make it what I want they literally start from scratch (my own opinion).

Need to get crackin on the bike. Need to sit down and order some tires, seat, and dig into the front end.
Anyone have any CB160 shocks they wanna part with ?

I live in a second story apartment and there's no way I could get it up the way my stairs are.

I live on the 2nd floor of an apartment as well (I will have to get you a pic of the stairs one day I had to lug this thing up...)

[Ricky_Racer]

Since everyone here seems to have the same addiction, here's some of mine...     RR

[547]

The frame looks nice Cowboy. Is it powder coated? I'd like to know how you painted it 'cause I will be painting mine soon and want to do it on the cheap end. Here is what i am working with. It started in the living room but the wife couldn't stand the smell of dirty grease anymore so I moved it to the basement.
Ecosse- i don't know if you know about old Michigan basement stairs but you should see the pinhole i took this bike through.
YOU CAN DO IT, PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT

[Ecosse]

The frame looks nice Cowboy. Is it powder coated? I'd like to know how you painted it 'cause I will be painting mine soon and want to do it on the cheap end. Here is what i am working with. It started in the living room but the wife couldn't stand the smell of dirty grease anymore so I moved it to the basement.
Ecosse- i don't know if you know about old Michigan basement stairs but you should see the pinhole i took this bike through.
YOU CAN DO IT, PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT

547, you just deleted that last picture of a whole bike didn't you? Tried to enlarge but no go.

I shoulda never brought up the motorcycle roommate idea. As it happen I do have a lousy back and nosy, complaining, neighbors. But, if it was a tear down I think I'd do it. Y'all are gonna shame me anyway though...

Nice wheels RR!

I can't believe you weren't wearing a mask before inhaling paint powder ProTeal55! I still remember the taste of airborne asbestos brake dust. Tastes like cancer.

[DME]

Well, naturally the "good" bike gets to come into the livingroom for the winter 





The daily rider just get to stay in the heated garage.... 




Cheers and good luck with the project, PT 

Dan

[Joksa]

You guys are making me feel just damn mean for storing my 550 in a shed! I live in a second story apartment and there's no way I could get it up the way my stairs are.

Ride it upstairs.

[ProTeal55]

You guys are making me feel just damn mean for storing my 550 in a shed! I live in a second story apartment and there's no way I could get it up the way my stairs are.

Ride it upstairs.

Make the bike as light as possibile (pull the tank and whatever else you can) and call over a few of your bigger buddies and you can get anything up a flight or two of stairs. It took me and two other guys to lug the "little" CB160 up two flights of stairs with a locked up back wheel.

PROJECT UPDATE 1/20/09:

Not too busy here at work so I found myself on Ebay looking for misc. CB160 crap. Came across a allen headed bolt kit for the motor, so I ordered that up. Looks like I will be dropping the motor outta the frame and tearing into it to make it lighter as originally planned. Now that I have pretty allen bolts to put it back together with. Plus it makes no sense to have all that stuff making that bike heavy as it sits around. I also plan to either beadblast or sandblast the motor and powdercoat it either black or clear.

What you guys think:
Gloss Red Frame - Gloss Black Motor -Gloss Black Wheels - Gloss Red Tank and seat ?

The frame is going to get torn apart (just need to remove the front end) and brought over to the Half Fast Chicago "garage" for some welding and more grinding. Powdercoating is looking more and more like it's going to happen on this project. Also need to ditch the old tires, clean up the wheels the best I can, order up new tires, get them installed, and then mask the wheels off for paint. Also need to order up some shocks, headlite, cafe seat, figure out what bars I am gonna run, start messing with the "toaster" tank I have to fit the way I want, etc...

[Cowboy]

The frame looks nice Cowboy. Is it powder coated? I'd like to know how you painted it 'cause I will be painting mine soon and want to do it on the cheap end.

Ha!  My frame is definitely not powder coated!  If you want to do it on the cheap end, you'd appreciate my project. I stripped the frame down, then sprayed it with a rattle can. (Duplicolor engine paint, if I recall correctly. Someone on another forum had recommended it as a frame paint, though I don't know why.)

I'm planning to use this bike on forest roads, so it will predictably get chipped up from small rocks. No sense spending lots of dosh on fancy paint.  Most people would also say there's no sense stripping the frame down to bare metal, in that case. I did it because I have a hangup about paint chips with several colors of previous paint showing through. This bike started out white, like Joey's, then someone painted it pale green metallic, then black.  Every paint chip on the bike showed all three colors, and some of them showed primer underneath, too. Ugh. In the future, they will just show rust, if a chip goes right down to the metal. I can deal with rust.

[ProTeal55]

My frame is definitely not powder coated!  If you want to do it on the cheap end, you'd appreciate my project. I stripped the frame down, then sprayed it with a rattle can. (Duplicolor engine paint, if I recall correctly. Someone on another forum had recommended it as a frame paint, though I don't know why.)

That "someone" was prob. me.
Every since I built my old CB750 I have been a HUGE fan of Duplicolor engine enamel.
It goes onthick (as you know) and it pretty durable. And the best part, it blends in perfect.
So if you do get a scratch/chip/etc the new paint will blend it perfect with the old...

[547]

mine has been black, red, and now is green. i see some white in there too. but i have seen a lot of these bikes repainted nasty green. maybe not nasty when it was fresh paint 'cause i've seen some nice green paint jobs. my cb450 was original green but this cb160 looks like someone dropped the engine then dropped a can of house paint. what is up with that?

[ProTeal55]

1/31/09
Had some free time so I spent it tearing into the apartment bike.
Not that this project should be taking this long, but with the winter taking it's toll on me and knowing the bike wont need to be done 4 summer really has me going at a snail's pace.
But, it will get done, eventually..

After a knock-out/drag out alley fight with two of the motor mount bolts the motor is outta the frame -->

Also got my allen engine screw kit in the mail the other day. So now I can get all the stripped screws off the motor and get it looking better. Not sure exactly what I am going to do with the motor,but it is getting sandblasted and then painted black in some sorta way, maybe file the fins after, who knows...Either way it will be looking better than it currently is ----->

The frame itself is pretty much done minus a few last things I need to take care of.

I am gonna take it over to the Half Fast Garage and have Danny weld up a few things and do some final grinding before the primer goes on. Need to also test fit the toaster tank I have and make up some kinda way to fasten it to the frame (not the right tank for this frame). Also need to put some time into the wheels and see if I can cleanup what I have, or start looking for replacements. Order tires, cables, cafe seat, etc, etc...

QUESTION:
Anyone have some stock CB160 shocks in good/decent shape they wanna sell ?

[Cowboy]

Joey, I never thought there would be any use for this tank, so I threw it in my recycle pile  . . .

I have a CB160 tank that is beat up, probably past the point of repair. If you could use the frame tunnel, I could easily cut it out of the beat up tank, you could tack weld it into the tunnel of your "toaster tank" and use it to mount the toaster tank using the stock Cb160 mounting points.

If you want it, just say the word.

[jaguar]

looking really good.

my vote is red frame, black wheels and black motor then file the fins.

i think i have a set of cb160 shokes that are in ok-good shape they should be good for what you want to do...got something cool to trade?

[ProTeal55]

i think i have a set of cb160 shokes that are in ok-good shape they should be good for what you want to do...got something cool to trade?

As long as the shocks can be smoothed out and painted I am game. The ones I have are pitted/rusted and would take way
too much bodywork to get them smoothed out..
Not sure what I have to trade that you would want, how bout some Half Fast Chicago stickers, a patch and T-Shirt ? 

As far as a color scheme goes, I am def. going with a bright red frame, red bodywork, black wheels, etc..
I will make my decision on the motor once it gets back from being sandblasted. I might just scuff it with a scotch brite pad and call
it a day. A scuffed motor aginst all the gloss paint might look cool...

[jaguar]

here are a few pics of them.  im going with new race shocks so i dont need the stock ones.  if you can use them let me know and im sure we can work something out

the last three pics are the same shock....just to show you the rust....but nothing a wire wheel cant fix

[ProTeal55]

JAGUAR:
I need to give a good look at the shocks I have to compare to what you have (i will let ya know). All I really care about is that the surface that needs to be painted isnt pitted (as I think mine are).

COWBOY:
No worries on the tank. I am either going to adapt this one to work on the simple side, or run another tank my buddie has lyin around. I am not 100% sold on the toaster tank idea.

QUESTION:
I am having a hard time figurin out if I should powdercoat the frame or just paint it.
I have a buddy that powdercoats, and I can get it done on the cheap (i mean like a case of beer and a hamburger cheap). On the other end it would be more work (and time) to get the frame ready to be coated, and painting would be ahell of allot easier to do (and quicker). So, Do I powdercoat the frame or paint it ?

Also, how the HELL does the front end come apart on this little bike ? I have all the bolts out of the lower tree, top nut, top fork tubes, etc.. Everything seems loose, but I cant get the front end off. I want to replace the head light ears with something cool, but I cant get the thing apart.. Also, Does this setup not let me push the fork tubes up thru the top triple tree ?

[Frankenkit]

paint the frame. you're not riding it so it doesn't need the durability of powdercoat.

[jaguar]

the forks should slide out of the trees.
the forks come apart by twising the lock nut off the lower legs

[Cowboy]

You're correct, Joey. This design does not allow you to push the forks up through the top tree. You're stuck with the stock height, unless you change the length of the front forks by modifying the innards.

[ProTeal55]

the forks should slide out of the trees.
the forks come apart by twising the lock nut off the lower legs

Wanna show me a pic of exactly what you are talking about ?
Call me slow, but I cant figure out how to get the front apart and off the bike for the life of me...