Some questions for you about your CR750. Did you add the oil gauge on the dash yourself or is that something done on the original CR's? What do you plan to do about the electronics? There's a photo of a battery, but where are you putting it? I see you have a catch tank under the seat hump. By the way, what is the catch tank for?
Rick B-
The only CR750 I've seen in person had a dashboard that held a tach and a Smiths oil temperature/oil pressure gauge (I'm sure someone here in the forum will have all the facts). Since I'm building mine as a street bike, what I wanted most was a standard set of speedo and tach, but I thought it'd look a little more "race" if I could find a cool Smiths gauge. I came across an NOS Smiths oil pressure gauge - in the original box - on ebay, and that's what is on the bike. I had initially wanted to use the stock CB750 gauges, but it was too crowded there under the windshield. Takashi, who did most of the fabrication, suggested CB400F gauges for two reasons. They're smaller, and the speedo is geared for an 18-inch front wheel, which my bike has. But nothing is really simple. The red line is set at 10,000, and I thought that was too high. I found a pair of the gauges on ebay, and then I found a guy who makes gauge faces. He said he could make a set with any changes I wanted, so I had him set the red line at 9,000 and add another two hash tags to the 130 mph speedo so that it would read to 140. Of course, only in fever dreams do I ride that fast, but I thought it would be more in keeping with the look of the bike. Also, I had him do the faces in black to match the face of the Smiths gauge. He seemd like a nice guy, wrote back right away, sent the faces quickly, and didn't charge extra for the changes. He's on ebay, doing business as "catiawheels."
Tha catch tank captures any oil vapor that escapes the upper part of the engine and makes it past the oil tank, separates the oil from the vapor, returns most of that oil to the oil tank, vents the vapor to the air, and allows the draining of the oil that gets caught in the catch tank. I think that's an adequate working definition. On this bike, it's more of an interesting detail than something that's really necessary, since the bike won't be raced and will probably never be stressed to the point of blowing out much oil vapor.
I'll be using a Dyna electronic ignition, so there won't be any condensors to hide. I have a solid-state regulator/rectifier combo, and that's been mounted out of sight under the tank near the coils. The battery location is my favorite, though. Installing the exhaust system involved getting rid of the center stand, and Takashi made a battery box to hold the little lithium battery and attached it to the frame where the center stand used to be. So it's pretty much under the front of the swingarm, and you have to look for it in order to see it. Very slick. The kick start lever will be removed, so the bike will look like it needs to be bump-started, but I'll be able to start it with a button.
So tell me: After all your work on the 400F, you moved to the Golden State. Do you have a motorcycle here? Have you been to The Rock Store? Have you been to Garage Company?
Vincent
