Topic: 74 Cb550 Budget Bobber (completed)

[Juice!]

I really really wanted to document this entire build with photo's but due to me smashing my camera in a fit of manliness, I wasn't able to. I do, however, have before and after shots.

So basically I was trying to build the cheapest bob possible. I picked up the bike with it in crappy shape, cleaned it all out good and had a hay day with the sawzall. I have a back injury so I decided to keep it a soft tail. I wasn't sure if 50ft of exhaust wrap would cut it so I bought 100 feet.. well that was more than enough so I wrapped the living hell out of the pipes. I still think I'm going to cut a foot off of though. Questions/comments appreciated.

[Juice!]

Its a sportster tank, or something similar. I got it from a guy who had his entire house filled with parts and it was lying around. I got the seat off of ebay, I have no clue of its origin but it looked so unique I just had to have it.

[rayray2316]

Hey nice bike, hows those shocks work? Did you just cut the frame back to that cross member then mount the shock bolt. I like that look.

[bucky katt]

badass bobber you've built! i like it ALOT. and yes, that is a sportster tank

[750four]

That turned out real nice. Did you stretch out the rear end or lower the front at all? What kind of frame fab did you have to do?

[Aaron Richard]

+1 on the shocks. Do they really work at that angle? They look like they might snap or bend over a good bump.

[Juice!]

I pretty much just chopped the frame from under the tank, to just above the motor mounts above the swingarm. To be honest with you I was going to do it differently but I bought the wrong size pod filters so I figured hell, might as well chop it a little more. I didn't stretch the rear end at all, although I wish I did. I'm 250 and look like I'm on a bmx bike when I ride this around. The rear shocks work great actually, but I need to find some stiffer springs because the rear fender is bottoming out on part of the new frame. Anyone have any ideas on what would work? I did about a 40 degree rake on the front without lowering it at all. The welding on this bike is incredibly crappy, I used a 110v arc welder and it didn't weld for crap so I used my dad's neighbors arc welder and had to redo it all in a very limited time period, but the crappy welds kind of go with the look I think.

I'll have to get a better picture of the tank though. We had this ingenious idea of spraying Pam on my brothers foot and doing a footprint on the tank before I painted it. After it dried I just wiped off the Pam and it left a footprint, lol. I'm not sure if thats cool or not but its on there. My brother was telling me to name it the "Foot Fetish", but I'm not too sure if I want to mislead anyone as I'm not really into the feet.