Topic: My CB550 Project - Updated. Finally.

[Staggerlee]

So after bombing around town all summer on the CL175 that I restored over the winter, I decided that what I really needed was something with a little more poop.  The little fella is a blast, but I'd like to at least be able to keep pace with traffic on the open road.

So, after a week or so of scouring CL, I picked up a '76 550 to fiddle around with:

  
I paid a little more than I was hoping to, but it was in pretty good shape and looked to be pretty much unmolested.  Plus, anything on CL around here with "Cafe Project" in the title seems to be commanding a premium these days.

First order of business was to box the tail section to make room to relocate all the electrical junk.  I don't have a mandrel bender at my disposal so I improvised and chopped up a couple sets of bars to make a rear hoop:




Turns out that the 7/8" bars is a perfect fit for the frame tube ID.  That pleased me greatly.

Wrapped the whole shebang in painter's tape & laid up a fiberglass seat

Didn't document much of that process; iphones & epoxy resin don't really play well together.

Getting there:

Clipons & rearsets fitted, all the nasty little brackets for sidecovers & etc shaved off.

And closer yet:

Finally have the seat shape figured out although she still has a bit of a fat ass.  Not much to do about that other than start all over.  Also fitted up neat-o 4-2 Tri-Y header that was for sale in the classifieds.  The cans were toast, so I had to come up with an alternative plan.

The junk in her trunk:


As done as she's gonna get until winter gets here and I retreat to the garage for a full teardown/rebuild:



I do need to paw through the local wrecker's bins to try and find a longer replacement for the sidestand; with the CB900 shocks in the rear she's got a wicked lean to her.   Other than that, she's tip-top.

[sangyo soichiro]

You've done a fine job here.  Looks really good.  The seat and boxed in frame look great.  What are you going to do for a tail light?

[Staggerlee]

Thanks!

I ended up using a 2" LED marker lamp for a taillight mounted directly into the seat like so:



I made a dual circuit harness so it would work on both tail & brake light circuits.

[Cvillechopper]

What did you do with the 4-4 pipes?

[Staggerlee]

I cut the worst of the four up to salvage some of the 1.25" tubing; the rest are hanging from a rafter in the garage.

[Roach Carver]

that is a nice lookin scoot.

[sangyo soichiro]

Thanks!

I ended up using a 2" LED marker lamp for a taillight mounted directly into the seat like so:



I made a dual circuit harness so it would work on both tail & brake light circuits.

That's a really nice looking tail light Staggerlee.  I saw one like that at an Autozone, but I had already mounted a different one on my bike.  I like those round ones that are not too big, and mounted into the seat like you did.

[Staggerlee]

Thanks fellas!

I'm on the fence a bit about the light; I wish it was a little brighter on both circuits.  I'm going to experiment with different resistors as well as different manufacturer's lights to try and get a little more oomph from the thing.

[IndyFour]

I really like the brown seat.  Looks cool.

Whatcha gonna do with those old 4-into-4 pipes?   

[Staggerlee]

I really like the brown seat.  Looks cool.

Whatcha gonna do with those old 4-into-4 pipes?   

Thanks!  It was my first attempt at sewing anything more convoluted than a seam on a pair of jeans and aside from turning the air in our living room blue for about three hours last weekend, I'm pretty happy with the results.

The pipes aren't in that great of shape; unless somebody was local and could see 'em firsthand, I'd hate to sell them and risk having someone feel like they got the poopie end of the stick.

[Industrial Cafe]

where's the pics?

[Staggerlee]

Oh hell's bells; I organized my photobucket account and now the links are all dead.

I'll try and get 'em fixed.

[Staggerlee]

O-Tay; I think I have all the links fixed and now that the winter rebuild is nearly complete, I'm going to try and get this thread updated. 

I'll apologize in advance for the shatty iphone pictures; I try to keep my dslr safe in the house when I'm banging away in the garage.

So with winter officially here, I grabbed a buddy and a half-case of Pabst and started stripping 'er down:









While it was torn down to nothing, I went ahead and finished shaving the frame & swingarm of all the unnecessary brackets; center stand, chain guard, etc.

Shortly after that last pic was taken, I was sitting in urgent care having a metal sliver pulled out of my eye.  You'd think one of these days I'd learn...

After that, I loaded up all the bits & pieces and hauled it all down to the powdercoaters.

[dagersh]

Staggerlee,

Wear your eye protection Darnnit!  We all want to see this project completed!!!!  Seriously, though, great work!

Gersh

[yellowbirdrs]

Thanks!

I ended up using a 2" LED marker lamp for a taillight mounted directly into the seat like so:



I made a dual circuit harness so it would work on both tail & brake light circuits.

Can you tell me how did you do the dual circuit I want to use a 2" LED light but is a single funtion (on/off)

[Staggerlee]

Can you tell me how did you do the dual circuit I want to use a 2" LED light but is a single funtion (on/off)

Yeah, here you go:

http://www.bareasschoppers.com/dualcircuit/

[Staggerlee]

Staggerlee,

Wear your eye protection Darnnit!  We all want to see this project completed!!!!  Seriously, though, great work!

Gersh

Believe it or not, but this time I was wearing eye protection; I guess sometimes there's just no stopping those little buggers!

So with the frame & stuff out of my hair for a bit, I turned my attention toward the engine.  Since it only had 12,000 miles on it, my original plan was to just replace the rocker box with one from a later model 550 to eliminate the rocker shaft wear issue.

Projects being what they are though, I soon decided that while I had it that far apart, I might as well go a little deeper and replace the head gasket which had begun to weep a bit.

Once the head was off, I soon convinced myself that I’d definitely seen better cylinder walls in my day, and I should at least hone & re-ring.



Then I discovered that rings & pistons for these things don’t exactly grow on trees anymore…

Fortunately, FunJimmy came through in the clutch and supplied me with a set of OEM 59mm pistons (thanks again!) and was kind enough to upgrade me to a set of 3 piece oil rings while he was at it!

While the machine shop was boring the jugs for the new pistons, I busted out a quickie refresh on the head; had it resurfaced and I cleaned up & lapped the valves.


Once it was back together, I hit it with a few coats of Duplicolor engine primer & cast iron coat.

[traveler]

THANKS for sharing.

Love the way it is going.

It looks as though you went the way I am....you built it in 2 stages.  My stage 1 build is nearing completion....to be followed later by a complete teardown/rebuild which will be "stage 2".

~Joe

[yellowbirdrs]

Can you tell me how did you do the dual circuit I want to use a 2" LED light but is a single funtion (on/off)

Yeah, here you go:

http://www.bareasschoppers.com/dualcircuit/

THX!

[Staggerlee]

THX!

Anytime!  FWIW, I think I ended up using a 200Ω resisitor to get greater definition bewteen tail & stop lights.

Awright - with the frame back from the powdercoater:



...it was time to get down to bidness!

From the get-go, I had planned on running a USD front end from a Suzuki GSX-R and had ordered the necessary bearings from All Ballz well in advance:



I spent days searching ebay for the perfect set of forks, and finally settled on a complete setup, from axle to grips from an '04 gsx-r 600 for $240 shipped.  They showed up just in time for the long Thanksgiving Day weekend, and in between cooking the bird and getting ready for the in-laws, I got the forks fitted up:



It was pretty much a drama-free installation and there are a thousand posts on installing roller bearings, so I won't get into that.  I will say that I ended up using the thicker spacer that All Ballz supplied.  I *think* I might have been able to get away with the thinner one, but I didn't want to take the chance of having to take it all back apart again.  Better safe than sorry, I figured.

I also rebuilt the swingarm with new shock bushings and bronze bushings that I picked up from CBX Performance:



…and dis-assembled, cleaned and applied a fresh coat of paint to the 900F shocks and mounted up the swingarm:



And that’s how it sat for the next few weeks while I sorted out how to fit a front wheel to the thing...

[theofam]

That's looking great with the suspension mods!  I also loved your idea on hacking up some old handlebars to support the battery, electronics and cowl.  I haven't looked at my old bars the same since!

[Industrial Cafe]

Really nice find on the front end, but... thanksgiving?   are you in a time warp?

is this bike already done and you're teasing us?

[Staggerlee]

Yeeeeah.  Better late than never, right?

[Staggerlee]

I'm gonna jump ahead here for a bit, just because I'm so damn happy that the thing lives again:



I'll continue with the build thread after I've sorted through pictures & stuff.

[scooter1]

Sounds savage!!!!!