***** Edit, Being in night school with a limited income and bills to pay, This bike as has been deemed Project "It ain't pretty but she runs" to be improved and renamed at a later date. This means that the order of operations for parts acquisition will be:
Get it for free
Trade for it
Make it
buy it
That being said, it will be a safe (new tires, chain/sprockets, fork seals etc) and reasonable reliable (wear items purchased new) quasi-daily driver. It just will look a little strange with some parts old and haggard looking and some fresh off the mill. But it will be something that I can improve upon so that's good. So with that out of the way, here's the thread as I originally started it.********
Hello all,
Picked up a '72 cb500 from a fella at work recently. This was his bike back in the mid 70's. He did a full cafe treatment to it then, rear sets, body work, lester mags, etc. Then one day out on a ride he was at full lean in a turn and hit a fist sized rock, went down on the low side, flipped to high side... well you know how it goes from there. He had this 6 gallon aluminum tank with about 5 gallons in it that just broke open like a split egg when it hit. A shame 'cause that woulda been sweet. Anyway, after the wreck he got freaked out, parked the 500 and bought a harley.
Fast forward 37 years and we were shootin the poop about bikes we've owned and what our first bike was. Upon hearing that my first was a '72 500 and that I miss it have been looking for another one, he tells me about his and says come on by with a truck and it's mine.
That was several months ago now actually, but at the time I had way too much on my plate with work and night school. So while I'm still working, and still in night school, I just had to make some progress.
Anyway, enough chitchat, here's some pics,
What it looked like when I went to pick it up,
He had the stock tank in pristine condition, been sitting in a shed since 1975 with very light surface rust on the inside and not a dent on the outside. He had the stock front wheel still in good shape, but no rear wheel except for a 16" spoked rim that I don't think was original.
Here's a pic of the seat which I like. Since the frame has already been modded for it, it's easy to keep and it wasn't damaged in the crash. Even has the original small tail light mounted.
As you can see in the first pic, the PO started to rebuild the engine, or do something with the engine anyway. He pulled the valve train apart and, unfortunately, left it apart for the last 35 years so the entire valve train is a very uniform rusty brown
and beyond salvation. I figured that meant that the motor had to be toast as well, but when I pulled the head off, the cylinder walls were actually quite pristine... aside from the mud dauber wasp nests of course
So I stripped the bike to try and clean the frame up some since it's waaaay dirty and has rust in places. If I had the money for a strip and powdercoat, I'd do that, but since I don't I'll just wire brush and rattle can the piss out of it. This thing is destined to be a working bike so I'm not overly concerned with shiny cosmetics. If I try and go that route, it will never get finished.
The front end was a train wreck. Severely rusted and not salvageable.
Rather than spend money I don't have on a new front end, I opted to graft on this mid 90's CBR front end I happened have in my closet. What doesn't everybody keep spare motorcycle front ends next to their wedding/funeral suit?
I did a test fit and the stem on the triple tree is compatible with the frame. It will just be a matter of fitting some sort of bearing setup that works. The CB bearings are a mm or two smaller in diameter than the CBR's. I'm going to try and find some tapered roller bearings that will fit the bill. If I can't, then I'll do what others have done and grind of the weld for each stem, press out and swap since i know I can get bearings for the CB setup.
That leaves the front wheel. I don't like the look of mags, I much prefer spokes. If I did I'd have kept the Lesters. I did some investigation and found that the CBR and CB share the same bolt pattern for the rotors. The CBR rotor however, fits onto a hub that is 2 or 3mm bigger in diameter than the CB. So I'll be making an adapter to fit the CBR rotors on the the CB hub. So that just leaves centering the wheel and spacing the calipers to fit.
Here's a pic of the axle and the tester adapter. This one is made out of bronze (I just happened to have an appropriately sized piece around) but I'll likely make the real one out of aluminum.
Sadly, I'm missing the speedo housing on the wheel so I can't measure for the axle spacers yet. Once I find one of those, I'll figure out what size of spacers I need and make those.
Here's a pic of the bike with the front end,
So that's the progress so far.
Next step is to make this a rolling chassis. To do that, I need to pick up some items:
I found a rear wheel from a '77 at a local shop, but it had no brake hub. I thought the one from the 16" wheel would work, but the wa wa trombones say otherwise. So I'll be needing that.
Also need a rear axle, or at least the appropriate spacer(s) from a '77 to complete the rear.
I need to get that speedo housing for the front, then measure the hub thickness compared to the fork spread to come up with the spacer sizes I'll need to make.
That should get me rolling. Next up will be to make some clip-ons. I have a few ideas so I'll muddle those out and decide on something. After that it will be wiring. The harness is in pretty bad shape so I'll see what is salvageable and replace what isn't.
Well that's enough typing for now, my fingers are tired.
More soon!
