I'd just be glad that the tank went to mush over a sealant issue rather than cracking open in a collision and burning you horribly. I don't understand why so many people are selling fibreglas tanks in this day and age. And you know, between "flow-forming" and "nocolok flux" it really ought to be a hell of a lot cheaper to semi-mass produce tanks in alloy than it is in fibreglas. Sounds like a good business model the more I think about it. The main thing would be that you'd need moulds just like for fiberglas, after that point the process would change ... and stink a lot less. But it would be somewhat of an investment to produce them this way, I guess that's the clincher - yet the same fibreglas moulds would probably work for a while. Probably better in hard-wood.
But yeah, enough about gas tanks. What I wanted to comment on was your rims and tires. Looks like a five by sixteen in the rear? And the front is now an eighteen, where it was nineteen before? Or did you change the front at all? Me, personally, I like matched sized rims, hoop wise at least, not so much width wise. I've opted for eighteen on my DOHC wire wheels. But what I was thinking would look cool with that fat rear wheel, would be a sixteen 120, like thay had on the first Interceptors. That'd be an awesome wheel in wire spoke. I think I wanna whip one up for my little Kawi twin here, for the kid. Sixteens front and rear. I suppose you'd need much taller forks for that, unless you took almost all of the sag out of the suspension. Maybe with minimal sag, it would be easier to hop the bike over hill tops. That can't be such a bad thing. But yeah, a matched rim or maybe a seventeen/sixteen type of deal, maybe a fifteen/sixteen, or those crazy fourteen rims on the Van-Van ... that's getting a bit far fetched. It just looks a little bit too chopper-ish with the sixteen out back, so long as the front is tall and skinny. To each their own and all of that, but it's just one of those things. I went over all of the bike porn I've collected, trying to figure out what the one common characteristic of all bikes I just loved boiled down to, and it was the matching hoops. I suppose if you go with black rims then it doesn't show up as obviously, but I like that rim edge to be clearly defined as well, it's just one of the primary "lines" that the design people talk about. They blab about "flow" and #$%* like that, bikes that "look fast while sitting still" etc. I've decided I much prefer bikes that look slow while they're going fast, more so than bikes that look fast while going slow. Know what I mean? But yeah, fundamental to the whole drawing exercise which makes up a bike's "lines", would be the two hoop lines, inside the wheels. I suppose a lot of folks would draw the outside of the tires first, and I suppose that's a good place to start too, but when you look at tires and matching them up visually, the inner hoop is so much more ... visually impacting, than the outer circumference of the wheel as a whole. It's almost invisible, it makes that sudden of an impression on you, and it really defines a bike's purpose, character, etc. I suppose from that point the next thing would be the forks, the swinger - yes or no for some of the Luddites out there - the headlight vs fairing ie naked vs fairing vs half-faired or quarter-faired etc, and the backbone in conjunction with the engine lay-out etc, foot position seat position handlbars all ergonomics I suppose; but the first thing's gotta be the hoop diameter.
I'm quite the CB nut, my first bike was a CB, my sperm-donor took me for rides on a CB, that'd be some of my earliest memories of childhood as well as later years as well some of the more defining memories - punctuated you could say (see "Sperm-donor" definition ha ha) wrenched on a CB as a teen travelled with my first wife on a CB etc etc. But for the most part, I'm now a DOHC obsessed CB person, I guess that's what I'm getting at, is that I was a real SOHC-er before, until I realized that with a bit of work you can have all of that on a DOHC AND have an 1100cc motor right out of the show-room ha ha ha, but yeah, what I'm saying here rather than rubbing in in on you fellas what that second camshaft can do for you - is that the DOHC has this commonality to it but throughout the whole family, while you're still dealing with pretty much the same cases and barrels and head etc, basically at least, and if you unbolt the second trans from the shafty models ... basically they're mostly the same bike except for the wheels, the sizes of the hoops. And nowhere is that more evident than when you look at the Bol D'Or and Super Bol D'or, the Big Daddy 'F bikes. You can get your 900F with a nineteen inch front hoop, or an eighteen, you can get the 1100 with the seventeen inch hoop out back, etc etc. And you look back and forth at all of these different pics of the bikes and it seems like the engine actually looks beefier here than there, the forks look THAT much thicker rather than just a thirty-seven to a thirty-nine, and it all boils down to the wheels. While I love wire spokes to the point where I've blown an ungodly amount of money on it, and pissed off the 'F people with my rants about comstars, by far and away the most beautiful comstars on any Honda are the SILVER "boomerang" commies, on the Euro-spec 900's. 'Cause that's an 18" rear hoop, as opposed to the 17"-er on the 1100. It's a subtle subtle thing. Same goes for the front end though, it's a subtle thing, looking at the Super-Sports and figuring out what's got a Euro front wheel on it or who's swapped in a front commie from a Gold-wing for matched hoops AND widths (2.5") - better still when people spend a little dough and have the rear hoop widened out to about four and a half for a 160 spec tire. And the chain-line is nice and wide on 'em so that if you put a CBX sprocket on the thing you can fire a 190 spec tire in there no problem, that's a beautiful thing right there, whether you like the fat tire look or not it's a beautiful thing because even an ugly fat tire look doesn't have to be even uglier with some ridiculous lay-shaft contraption. Anyway, all I'm saying, is it's beautiful that it's a simple thing to do.
Ahh, but I suppose this is the wrong place to sing the praises of the DOHC, on the SOHC-4 Four-um. But still, you've gotta appreciate it, so far as it's not an XS or GS or a Zed! Ha ha. Some of YOU folks may not think of it as a CB, but hey it's not like I'm talking about the VF or nothing. I'll never understand this whole myth about how Honda STOPPED making an inline four 750cc bike. The press has certainly been saying it for years and years but on it's face, it IS patent bullspit, wouldn't you say? It's as though people would have loved it, if they continued making the original engine as it was, in chassis just further and further tweaked out with bizzaro post-comstar wheels and with body-work further and further off track from what the bike's vision had originally been intended as - I suppose that if they'd left the same SOHC engine, would people still have been happy with it if it'd been plunked into the CB750C and CB750F DOHC body-work? Hell NO. That's the REAL reason everybody was all "WTF is THAT?" When the DOHC hit the market in '79, NOT because of the extra camshaft or the comparatively fugly, I am sure we can all agree, valve cover - it was the STYLING that was the most bizarro thing about the new DOHC models.
I mean, hey. At least we can all agree that the DOHC supersport had a better swing-arm? Well, look at the rest of the chassis while you're at it! I mean, on the 'K model that is.
BUTT, I am gonna show the world just how beautiful the DOHC could have been, when my DOHC sand-cast tribute retro-fication is finally complete. I've even tracked down a set of chopped off passenger peg "triangles" from a SOHC 750, to weld up to the DOHC frame. 'Cause the one thing that puts a bug up my OWN butt, about the DOHC 'F models, are these here Dunstall rip-off rear-set brackets. They're heavy as #$%* too.
Oh, wait. I forgot that I'm on the SOHC forum too. And that leads me to the best thing going for us 'F-ers on the web, which would be the 1100F.net 'F-orum, where you can test the limits of internet obscenity. There's all sorts of Trolls and Billy-"Gotze" Gruff and everything. Gotta love it.
'Nuff said.
-Sigh.
