Long post warning!!! Been a while since I updated this thread. In some ways it feels like I'm spinning wheels, but I suppose some progress is measurable.
Firstly: I dunno about about how practical it's gonna be to make that CJ360T seat cowl and associated seat work.
Placing the "I don't want to do anything to the frame" along with the wouldn't it be cool to use the existing seat hinge and lock and retain the hinging seat constraints on myself, I'm not 100% convinced I can come up with a seat pan/seat that will be narrow enough to nicely blend into the cowl. And part of the satisfaction that I enjoy getting from poking around with things like this is that notion of "It's not perfect, but I did that myself"....
I attacked the CJ360 seat pan, thinking that part of the middle could perhaps be removed, then the front portion and rear portion could be reattached somehow to form a pan that would flow from the tank and into the seat cowl.
From the side, it looks like it has all sorts of potential....but it also looks overwhelmingly challenging. I'm not sure I can get it all to a point where all the angles are going to work well enough that there would be some "I did that" pride". And....the keeping of the frame's seat hinge and seat lock brackets necessitates that the rear of the seat pan will be just that much wider than the front of the cowl....it's gonna look like cr*p. Sure, I could add layers of material to the cowl to bulk in up, but I think that's biting off more that I want to chew.
So, plan B: would the cowl flow from a 400Four seat pan? No...seat pan is still too wide---it too needs to be to clear the frame's brackets.
So, plan C: Drop the cowl idea, and use a shortened/reshaped 400F seat. -- make it functional (for solo riding) and make it more pleasing (to my eye). In the early planning days I kinda thought that the seat could be modified to look something like:
So, disassembled the 400F seat.... eek....
As fate would have it, I managed to pick up a 1977 400Four seat and took it apart. It was nowhere near as bad, and cleaned up pretty good. I think it's usable.
So, the approach will be to modify the seat pan and foam a little bit at a time. It's a process right? That rear fender was always going to be reshaped a little as well---all in due time.
In other news, the cockpit area is slowly being taken apart:
The exhaust came off:
One header pipe is still adamantly refusing to be separated from the collector....and the (aftermarket) muffler is also very stubborn.
And two spare header pipes were acquired:
The TTR400 rearsets I bought were test fitted:
And the kick starter clears the right footpeg!
Also poked away at the carbs: the bike came with rack installed:
And it came with 7 spares, 4 of which were on a rack and a little better looking
With these four spares installed back in August, the bike would start, but not idle. Good enough for me....
A couple of hours of careful poking resulted (I hope!) in four good starting points. Need to order up a few bits and bobs, but it feels good when old dirty parts can be cleaned up a little eh?
Also met with the guy who painted my T500's KZ400 tank. I REALLY want to use the 400F's original paint, but there's a couple of small dents, and a couple of nicks/scratches. The plan is to have his dent removal guys have a look, and just "freshen up" the tank's finish.
If I can finalize what I hope/want to do with the tank/side covers/seat in the coming weeks, those bits can be sent off to the experts and I can then continue disassembling, cleaning, polishing, dealing with the other main components. I also sourced a whackload of gaskets and seals, original levers, some smaller gauges, etc.
Want to look into putting electronic ignition on it too....
I'll also include a few pics here of some preliminary work that was done "behind the scenes" prior to starting the thread.
I had bought a CB500Four front end from Fantino, that had been rebuilt with emulators and modified to run a dual disk. It came with new All Balls Racing head and wheel bearings....a real nice little package of parts!!! Should be a nice little non-over-the-top upgrade in the front suspension and braking department.
Over last winter some of those parts were polished up a little...
The 500F hub runs 40 spokes (400F has 36) so needed a different rim. Opinions may vary, but a 90/90-18 front time and 110/90-18 rear are arguably a little wide for a 1.6 front and 1.85 rear rim....so....found a 40 spoke 1.85x18 rim (a fully assembled KZ400 rim), and a 2.15x18 rim for the back powdercoated in satin black.
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The KZ rim and spokes will work with the CB500Four's hub. Managed to source brand NOS spokes from the local Kawasaki dealer--the parts guy there is amazing---he put a box of random, written off spokes in front of me and said fill yer boots.
And I was also looking to delete the passenger footpegs, but since they mount to the swingarm, I picked up a used swingarm and shaved the peg brackets.
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Cleaned it up, sanded it down, made some small repairs. It has a coat of primer on it now; some new bronze pivot bushings were acquired, the shock bushings were popped out and I have some new ones to go in. It will be eventually painted/powdercoated.
So, when I myself read through the story so far, it seems like Tarantino is somehow involved...it's all over the place, but hopefully Quentin will help me bring it all together in the end!!!
