So I figured I’d do it right this time and have an honest build thread. I bought my ’77 CB750F in April of 2008 because gas was so expensive and I had a long commute to work. Something cheap that ran good and needed a little cleaning up was what I was looking for and man did I find it. The PO had a cover for the bike because he left it outside, but the cover was in his garage instead of on the bike. The bike was dirty and had been outside for most of its life, the seat was shot, the gauges were faded, and the fork seals were wasted. I paid him and hit the highway home and promptly found out the bike would not go over 65, I could hit 70 down a hill though!
After I had it home and trashed the seat I jumped in to doing a tune up, and while I know the guy changed the oil at least once, I don’t think the air filter was quite so lucky.
After that she ran very strong and I started to go about cleaning her up so I could have a commuter. The fork seals were toast and judging by the amount of gunk they had been for quite some time. Slowly but surely I was cleaning this and fixing that and then one day an event happened that changed everything, I found SOHC4.net. It went from a commuter to a full blow project overnight much to the dismay of my wife, who really had no clue what she was in for.
I didn’t really have a plan for what I wanted but did focus on doing a core build. The motor was good so I decided to focus on the rest of the bike because I was starting back to college and so my funds were very limited. I pulled it all apart and rebuilt the wheel bearings, brake calipers and front master, swing arm, neck bearings, went with earlier model carbs, and recovered the seat.
My changes were to go with drag bars, different front fender, ditch the faring and go with a stock headlight with different ears, and a different throttle and bar end mirrors. I shaved the stock gauge mounts off the top tree and made a custom gauge mount that bolts to the ignition switch holes. I added the Cycle X Power Arc ignition and made a switch plate so I could change the timing in flight and mounted it to the old choke mount point.
I replaced the stock clutch lever with a different one and axed all the switches from the bars. I mounted a kill switch and high beam switch in the back of the headlight bucket and rewired the entire bike.
I ditched the fuse box for a circuit breaker and hung a ignition switch inside the frame rail just in front of the left side cover. I modified the tail light and went with one from a R1 because I liked the look better. This required some cutting and making a little rear fender add on and a shield to protect the bottom of the light from the hazards of the road.
Painted the bike a deep Dodge Blue and it came out pretty good for my first official start to finish paint job and Ta-Da we have a finished motorcycle.
I had more plans in store for it this winter and while I’m off to a slower start then I had hoped but with the lessons I learned during the first go around I think all will be done by this summer. As you can see a new exhaust was in order as the stock one was a bit tore up and got a whack job from my hacksaw.
I plan to do some motor work and paint it with something much better then grill paint this time, I really didn’t do anything to the motor last time and it needs some help. There are other changes in store but they are under wraps and you’ll just have to check back here and see how this all comes out!
