This fall I picked up the bike knowing that I would be bored all winter and needed a project. And as it goes, I haven't had as much time to work on it as I had hoped, but the wood burning stove in the garage is finally getting some use this year. With it sitting around 10 degrees in Minnesota, I've kept the garage around 55-60 while I've been working.
Anyway, here's the bike the day I brought her home with a leaky head gasket.
And this should explain why I'm not working on a car like I have every other winter since I was 16.
Within a couple days I got to work. Call it being stupid or being truly hardcore, I decided to weld the new tail to the frame instead of making it a bolt on affair. Here is a shot of the mock up, just using tape to check out the shape after welding on the tubing.
The previous owner informed me that the front forks were from a 750, and I really wanted to sink the front down a little. Instead of modifying the 750's, I figured I'd pick up this little rattle trap for $200 (no title, missing tons of parts, LOW compression).
Within 40 minutes of having it home, she looked like this.
Got the forks swapped over. And you can see the tail is done, along with the seat pan.
From the parts bike, not knowing it it would cross over from 500T to the 550, I went to work venting the rear drum. I figured, if it didn't come out, as least I still had the original 550 part to work with later on. I'm pretty happy with the results.
I wasn't a big fan of the bars and gauges sitting up so high. Instead of buying clubmans or clip ons, I decided to make some clip ons. I also ordered headlight brackets and gauges from Dime City. As a side note, Herm was a huge amount of help while getting going on my roommate's 72 cb500four and definitely stepped up with questions I had on this bike. I have a man crush on their shop.
Back to the clip ons!
You might also notice the CBR F2 brake leverl/MC. That came as the result of a planned dual disc upgrade....More on that later.
Obviously, I shaved the stock top triple. And please keep in mind, the gauges are only in place as a rough mock up. The top triple will be welded shut at some point, at which time I'll finalize mounting. I only have a mig, so any aluminum work is out sourced to a very busy machinist friend.
I ended up finding a set of Koni shocks for a GL1000 on ebay, just silly cheap. It turns out both are stripped at the bottom and I'll need to helicoil them. But, being an inch longer, I'm really hoping they help with turn in. If nothing else, the back sitting higher now just gives her a mean stance. You can also see the drilled drum in this pic. There will be a close up farther down.
Last night, this was the bulk of my work...
The stock rear wheel/sprocket setup is an eye sore to me.
By the time I was done with it, here's what the back wheel looked like. The stock wheel bearing cover with O ring is still in there somewhere. It just took a lot of creative cutting!
And I'll throw in the gratuitous welding shot.
I think I have about 10 days of actual work, including hours of staring at it, brainstorming, and actual wrench time. Like I said, it has a leaky head gasket, so I have a seal set waiting to go in. I also want to gusset the frame, get the dual discs going, and have a few other tricks up my sleeve. I've been modifying cars and riding LIGHTLY modified bikes for years. I just figured it was time to get a beast of a bike project under my belt and might as well do a build thread on it. I'll be back to post more as the build slowly unfolds.
