Hello All, I've been riding for over 50 years, and bought my first CB750 in 1970- the coolest bike on Main Street! I kept that bike until 1997. It needed a rebuild that I never got around to, and when we moved to a smaller house, I gave it away - what a mistake. About 4 years ago I bought a '75 CB750 and began fixing it up (I'll post some pictures soon).
I decided that I was going to build the 750 I always wanted rather than restoring it to stock condition. I chose to do this for two reasons (1) a real restoration is too expensive (I just couldn't afford it and K5s are not the real classics). (2) I wanted to ride the bike, and I worried that if I did a complete restoration, I'd be afraid to ride it. What I like about my bike, so far, is that to the casual observer, it looks stock. But folks who know CB750s immediately know it's not.
I've ridden it from Atlanta to Daytona for bike week several times, and this past year took a couple of side trips on the way down, so ended up riding more than 1,800 miles. One of the things I love about the old "standard" bikes is that they can do anything. I have a windshield, tank bag and soft luggage I can put on for touring and all that stuff comes off in less than 5 minutes for around town and sport riding.
Oh, and here's another thing I really like about the old CBs - they're fun to work on. I've owned several newer bikes between the first and current CBs, - too much plastic to take off before you can get to anything and too much complexity. I just took the bikes the shop. I learned to work on the CBs when I was in college, and didn't have the money to pay someone else to do the work. One of my greatest satisfactions was the first time I tuned up the bike and synced the carbs, and the bike ran better then when the shop mechanic did the tune up - How do I know? because I had a friend with a Kawasaki Mach III who always won our drag races until I did my first tune up. From that point on, I always beat him. The good old days...
When I got the bike, I decided that rust is bad, and immediately began ordering stainless steel nuts, bolts and washers to replace rusted hardware. Then I had a friend with a lathe make a couple of specialized bolts for the clutch and front brake pivots. Then I saw some more specialized parts I wanted to replace, but felt like I couldn't keep asking Ron to make them for me, so I bought a small lathe and began learning how to use it. I've been gradually adding more tools - drill press, milling vise, welding equipment, and suddenly I have a lifetime of great projects ahead of me, gradually replacing parts that rust with aluminum or stainless steel. I'll post some pictures of some of that stuff too.
A couple of years ago an acquaintance gave me a 1974 CB750 with less than 7,000 miles on it that had been sitting in a leaky shed for about 25 years. This was perfect!! I decided I could fix up that bike while I ride my '75, and use the best parts from both bikes to build one really nice bike and then sell the other still pretty nice bike.
So, for the past two years I have been tearing the old bike down, polishing aluminum, making parts and saving my money for alloy rims, stainless steel spokes and engine modifications. No hurry. I have a bike to ride. This summer I'm going to take a welding course at a tech school - who knows where it will all end. The process is just as much fun as the riding, and I'm in no hurry.
Well, that's more than enough for now, and probably more than you cared to know, but I don't know any short stories.
Redrider969
