Who am I?
I am a 22 year old student studying web Development. I have had a passion for anything with a motor since I was a baby. At a young age I would know most of the car brands in the city. Granted there where not that many different car brands where I grew up. I lived in Ukraine until I was 7 years old then immigrated to America. Since I was an only child my parents where always a little over protective of me and did not want me to get a motorcycle. When I was 13 I started mowing lawns to save up money for a Zooma gas scooter. My parents where not to happy that I have got a scooter but they eventually got used to it. Next summer I have already saved up my first $1000 and I decided I wanted to upgrade. So I went online and ordered a pocket bike. I was not able to convince my parents to give me permition for a x18 (110cc 4 speed) but I convinced them that the x7 (50cc auto) had the same motor as my scooter except this was more safe because it has all the street legal lights. After buying that I was determine to get a motor cycle. But the answer was always no. So I knew I would have to go next step up. Witch would be to get a moped that I would have to register and ride on the streets. So I picked up a vintage Yamaha QT50 with was lots of fun. It was slower than my pocket bike maxing out at 25 mph but this got my foot in the door to be on the streets.
After driving for another summer I was finally able to get an approval from my parents on a motorcycle. I have zero tickets on my record so I could say I drive safe. So they finally where not against the fact of me getting a bike. So I quickly jumped on the search for a bike. I knew that I did not want to get a crotch rocket because frankly I don’t know if I could control myself on such a fast bike and it was such a common bike. I wanted something cool. I wanted to have a bike that’s different. So after searching the internet I found out what the café racer bikes are and this was it. This is what I was looking for. Bikes that sound great that looks different and that are still fun to drive.
Original concept for the build?
Originally I wanted to go all out. I wanted to get GSXR front forks and a mono sock for the rear. With bigger AVON tires. It that time I had a construction company and I could afford to spend some money on this. Sadly we had to close down the company and I now I had a broken CB550 that I would have to fix. So originally I got this bike from Copart (insurance auction) for $900. When I was bidding on this bike I knew nothing about bikes. So when I saw the damage to the stator I looked up the part and it was only 50$ to replace.
Build process.
Well the build process was interesting. Me not knowing anything about motorcycles I now had to fix one. So when I first got the bike it looked like only the stator was cracked, and the right peg was broken and the break lever was bent. So I decided to tackle the stator so that I could start the bike and hear it run. After taking of the stator I found the magneto. It looked fine at first until I wanted to see if I could manually turn over the motor. Once I started doing that I noticed that the magneto would wobble when it turned. So it turns out that the impact was so strong that it bent the crank shaft. When I figured this out I was so bummed out. A problem I thought I can fix in a day became the biggest project I have done to date. I knew that I would have to rebuild the motor. So with that in mind now I bought a crank shaft, gasket kit, and crank shaft seals. Once that came In I had already striped the bike down. That did not take long. I took pictures of everything and placed all the bolts in Zip lock bags with sticky notes of where they came from. My phone also had a tone of pictures. I was mostly worried about the wiring.
Now with the bike all in pieces. I cleaned out the garage and started tarring into the motor. This was the hard part. I had to make sure to remember how everything went and to be careful not to forget anything. So it took me about a week once to take the motor apart. Once I got to the bottom of things I noticed there was a crack in the block internally. So now I had another issue. So I ordered a used lower end from ebay. When that came in the guy did not take of the cylinder studs and somehow the package ended up being upside down at my front door. Once I opened it I had doubts that the motor came in good. And sure enough 5 of the studs where bent. Now I would have to buy new head studs. The owner figured things out with the shipping company and they refunded me the shipping cost. Witch was just enough for me to get APR cylinder studs. Once I started unscrewing the bent studs it was going great until the last stud broke of at the block. This was another bummer because I did not have the tools to pull out the quarter inch cylinder stud that was sticking out. So I took the block down to a machine shop and they were able to get it out of there. With the block ready I started piecing the bike together. Before installing the motor I shaved of all the brackets that I would not be using. Just to make it look cleaner. I knew I wanted to use a slim seat. So I cut the frame down as short as I could. So then it was time to do the seat. With the $2000 budget in mind I wanted to see if I could hand make a seat. That was an interesting experience. I have an article on that on the website (
hondacaferacers.com) But I ended up using a wooden seat pan out of 3 pieces that was stacked with 5 yoga mats. And wrapped with reused leather. The leather came from a trenched coat from good will. And with the help of my mom I was able to get a cool design on it and wrap the seat.
Please list special parts added or fabricated for the bike
Trimmed and shaved frame
Bicycle speedometer
Custom exhaust and wrap
Single stock tachometer
35mm clipon handle bars
Ebay tail lights with custom brackets
Ebay headlight mounts
Ebay side mirrors
