Frame and seat update

I recently welded on the new tail section for the seat I ordered. I ended up hating the look so I'm returning the seat and buying something different. 

The problem was the frame. The original upper tubing section of the frame (just behind the gas tank and before the shock mounts) is slightly bent from factory. This was a major oversight on my end. Most custom builders will cut out the whole top rail section and weld on a completely flat one. Like this.

Notice the completely flat line from the tank to the kick tail on the seat. I have decided a frame modification of this magnitude is not justified at this moment. This realization has changed a lot with this build. I'm going with a more flat seat which will provide a look almost identical to this.

Notice the obvious bend in the tubing behind the seat. Yea, that's stock. If I had done a bit more homework on this before cutting I could have utilized the rear light bracket as well. The only modification (from what I have gathered) done to the bike above, was cutting off the  fender mounts. Looks like a homemade seat as well. This is definitely a more cost effective way of doing things. Lesson learned. Here is a picture of me cutting off the rear light mounts...DOH *Homer Simpson voice.

And the frame as it sits now:

After the fact I have become somewhat of an expert on identifying the seat setups builders use. This is another interesting option I could go with.

Might be hard to tell from the picture, but that guy just cut off the rear light mounts and called it a day. Here's another shot:

No tail loop just seat pan. He doesn't have passenger pegs so I guess this is acceptable. I could do something very similar for relatively cheap but I don't think it's safe enough for passenger weight. My new seat parts should be in within the week, and then I'm redoing it all. Lesson learned at the cost of about 90 bucks. 

Frame cutting.

I worked on the bike for almost 6 hours today. I cleaned the float bowls in the carbs and tried to clean up some of the engine in preparation for engine paint. Here is a before and after carb dip cleaning picture.

You can see the dirty carbs in the foreground and the ones that have been dipped are behind them, waiting for the new internals.

I did a couple of other house keeping items on the bike. The most noticeable thing I did today was start on the frame modification. 

I used a hack saw to take off the rear section that was no longer needed for the new seat. After cutting the rear section off I started on de-tabbing the frame to help give the frame a cleaner look and get rid of excess metal. 

Jorge also had a hand in helping with the frame de-tabbing.

I put the seat on the bike just to see what it would look like. I am really happy with the direction things are going.

The seat is from Dime City Cycles. I have to say, I'm impressed with the quality. For a seat that cost 200 dollars it should be nice, but the quality is top notch, also much more comfortable than it looks. This is everything that I accomplished today. Tomorrow I will hopefully weld on the new tail loop and fab some brackets for the seat. 

Quick update

I placed an order with Dime City Cycles yesterday. The new seat and mandrel-bent tail section kit should be here Friday. In the mean time the project is somewhat at a standstill.

 I am trying very hard to do everything in this project in a logical process. If any of my friends reading this blog have ideas or want to pick my brain on what I'm trying to do, shoot me a text or leave a comment below. 

I'm actually in the process of trying to pick a color for the fuel tank. I was thinking brushed steel, but that has been done a thousand times. I want something neutral, maybe "commando green." 

Once again if anyone has any cool ideas let me know, maybe I haven't thought of it. Cutting should start next week. 

Wiring and carbs.

Last night I started stripping the bike down further. I removed the rest of the tail section of the bike, including the tail lights, turn signals, and rear fender. 

I removed the wire harness. That was an interesting experience. I know absolutely nothing about electrical, really nothing. So I had to write down and label all of the connections that were disconnected. This all seemed fine while I was disconnecting the tail lights and turn signals, then I made my way to the headlight. I could have never guessed the hell that was waiting for me there. 

This is basically where all the wires are connected and tucked on the bike. The picture above doesn't do the cluster of wires justice. After a couple of hours, I had everything labeled and fully removed the wiring harness. The frame is ready to be cut and welded. The fork is the only thing really left on the bike. At this point I'm only held back by budget. I'm hoping I can get all the electrical back together after powder coat.

The picture above is after I labeled all the electrical, right before I removed the harness from the bike. I helped a guy today at my bike shop. He is an auto mechanic and owns a motorcycle. I've talked to him a couple of times and he seems eager to help. He has been down this whole "build it yourself motorcycle" road before. If he decides to help, I'm sure I will learn a ton from him. I also worked on the carbs this morning. I picked up a parts soaker from the auto parts store. I soaked two of the four carbs. They seemed to clean up pretty well, but I think I can do better.

The carb kit came in from Japan earlier this week so once I have the carbs nice and clean I can re-assemble them with all new internals and seals.

The tank liner also arrived so I will be cleaning and lining the tank soon as well. Before I clean the inside, I want to figure out what I'm going to do on the outside. I'm thinking brushed and polished, but I'm going to do a bit more homework first. 

After talking to Jorge last night, I went over my budget for the bike. My hope was to be under 3k on the final build. After crunching the numbers I have confirmed that is more than doable. I am also planning this bike in stages. If, for what ever reason, I get this bike on the road and it isn't what I want or isn't reliable (enough) for my needs, I don't plan on having more than 2200 dollars into it. If it does turn out like I'm thinking it will and it is reliable, I will spend the rest of the budget that I initially planned. New suspension, upgraded gauges, newer brake components, etc.

Kickin it up a notch.

I worked on the bike for almost 8 hours today. I got a lot of work done. I took tons of pictures to show everything, but I have decided to do this post Tarantino style. I stopped today after I pulled the motor! 

As you can imagine pulling the motor was a big milestone in this build (for me at least). Pulling the motor would have never happened without Jorge. I was polishing the motor and cleaning the frame when Jorge came home from work. He came downstairs and saw my progress. He checked out my work and hung out for about 5 minutes before he said, "let's just pull the motor." Jorge took the lead on getting the motor out, and it only took about two hours total.

 

It took a small amount of help from the impact driver but all the mounts came out pretty easy for a 40 year old bike. 

I also drained the oil from the motor so the filter would clear the frame on extraction.

Who ever owned this bike before didn't put a filter back in on the last oil change. That was not such a huge deal. I have heard of a guy on forums not running filters, just coolers. Needless to say, I will be putting a cartridge filter back in once I put new oil in. To get the motor off, I had to remove the chain. The chain didn't have a master link, so it had to be removed unconventionally. 

I cut the chain so I can put a master link on and reuse the chain if I choose. It may be best to replace the chain anyway.

Before Jorge came home, I mentioned I was polishing the motor. I cleaned up the shifter as well, one side of the bike looks new! 

I sanded the cover starting with 200 grit and worked my way to 800 grit. I plan on going up to 2000 grit paper, so I have a couple more hours of polishing left ahead of me. The shifter cleaned up nicely, I cleaned it off the bike while I was polishing the cover.

All in all a very productive day. Now that I have the engine out, the new tail section will be getting welded on very soon, and the new seat will follow. I also pulled the exhaust, which will also be replaced.

If Jorge continues to help me as much as he has so far, this build will be done months ahead of what I had originally planned. 

Work has started!

I started on the carburetors last night! Once I started on them, I noticed they were completely different from any of the walk-throughs I have watched. This wasn't such a big deal as Jorge was eager to help. I went through one of them and noticed the seals are completely deteriorated. 

I ordered a seal kit from Japan last night. It should be here in a week. I also ordered redkote to line the tank. Jorge hooked up a power source to the battery so we could test the lights. 

Brake lights work! 

Turn signals were also working. Although this electrical system is old it seems to be in great shape. The instrument light cluster and neutral indicator still worked as well!

 

Although the rear brake activated the brake light, the front did not. We checked the front brake relay and noticed the brake light is pressure activate (for the front). The relay was right under the triple tree. Jorge unscrewed the master cylinders to find sludge in the brake reservoir. The state of the brakes didn't come as a surprise to me. I'll clean and bleed the system and that should fix the brake and brake light. Seems the electronics are in great shape overall. I might try to make a newer wiring harness later on. Here is a picture of the electronics panel under the side cover. 

Things are right out in the open and seemingly easy to work on. This bike is great! I have almost no experience with motorcycles. I have been a bicycle mechanic for about 5 years. I was surprised how much like a bicycle, this motorcycle is. The throttle cable is very similar to a shifter or brake cable on a bicycle. I'm guessing the clutch is the same.

The throttle cable did have a small break in the housing, which will have to be fixed. The good news is that cables (including the housing) are 6 bucks shipped. Thats cheaper than the cables I installed on a customers bicycle last week. 

I managed to separate the tank and seat from the bike in about two minutes. I'm not bragging, I'm just impressed with the serviceability of this machine. 

While I had the carbs off for their cleaning, I measured the intake for the new pod filters I'm ordering.

If you have a stock cb550 then the measurement is about 33mm, so the 35mm pods bolt right up. Jorge quickly got involved with the carbs and wants me to completely disassemble the carb cluster. As the rebuild kit comes in the carbs will get more attention. Until then, the carbs are on the back burner. 

Jorge did break out his parts cleaner so that should make the task of cleaning the outside of the carb cluster a bit easier. A parts washer will help the rest of this build a great deal as well. 

Paychecks will dictate, but this guy will also be getting replaced soon. 

That's all for now! 

Garage is ready!

I made a post earlier today about feeling like my progress had slowed down. I feel like losing forward momentum on projects like this result in failure most of the time. So after I figured out my schedule today, I decided the garage was my mission. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it was a larger job than I had anticipated.

Here is a picture of the garage after an hour of working on it:

I busted my butt to get the garage finished today. As I got close to finishing the job, I noticed I had time to bring the bike in garage. 

 I should be able to start work on it as soon as my schedule allows. I would like to finish the carbs and tank by next Monday. I think I can make that happen. 

Here are some pictures of my hard days work.

The shop looks much cleaner don't you think? 

I'm glad I was able to make this much progress today. It's a morale booster for sure.

 

Weekend update

I have been too busy to start working on the bike. I'm getting scared that this will become a trend. My girlfriend's father said I could move the motorcycle to his downstairs garage/basement if I helped clean it out. This has turned into a bigger project than I originally anticipated. I would say that it's about halfway there. So in some ways I have made forward progress on the bike.

I am currently out of money for the project. The great thing about this project is that I have a lot to do without spending too much money. Once the bike is moved into the garage (hopefully by next weekend), I will rebuild the carbs and line the tank. I will also be ordering a battery in the next week or so. I am talking to Jorge (my girlfriend's dad) about batteries, I would like to get a small one that can be concealed on the bike. I am not sure what the system requirements for the electric start are, but I'm sure I will be able to figure all this out with a couple hours in the Internet. 

I have been looking at my favorite motorcycle blogs and custom builder's sites for inspiration. I have found a couple of pictures that are almost exactly what I envisioned for this bike.

This bike is from Classified Moto. Hard to tell from the picture, but it has dual sport tires. I have always liked the idea of this as I am likely to hit some dirt roads on this bike. I believe the tires fitted are Shinko 705s which are rated for 80% street and 20% light off-road. Perfect! 

 

Another picture of the same bike, but completed. I really like the "brat" style seats and I decided that was what's going on my bike since day one. It puts more focus on the motor and gives the bike a more aggressive forward stance. I would love to do a fork swap but from all the research I have done, it doesn't seem worth it. 

At this point, I am having to do a lot of non-mechanical work before I can get to the fun stuff. That's okay! I can't wait to get to the point where I am ditching these ridiculous stock bars and seat, cutting the frame, and fitting the new stainless exhaust.