Post by felkman on May 31, 2011 9:57:20 GMT -4
Here is the project I am working on now. A 1970 cb450 with 4,300 miles I got from the second owner, the first owner was his dad that gave it to him for a graduation gift a year later in 71. During that first year of owning the bike, the owners friend died in a motorcycle accident and the 450 sat ever since other than a put around the block every couple years.
Before I start getting a bunch of haters for stripping down an original bike, please let me explain.
I always had at least 2 or 3 bikes at a time until I got married and had kids so I sold all of my bikes to redo my (now daily rider) 1968 BMW R60/2. It was a fun build but I kept it pretty much stock. I wanted to build another bike that I could call my own instead of just finding stock parts like I did with the BMW. What I wanted was a 1965 - 1967 black bomber to have that cafe racer look. What I found was a super clean all original 1970 cb450 with only 4,300 miles on it that had sat in a heated garage for 30 years (even the original tires were still on it). My first thought was to get it running and sell it, and use that money to find me a black bomber, but after thinking about it. I would still have to spend more money on a bike that would have a ton of miles on it and may need motor work and that gets expensive. The 1970 I have, cost me almost nothing, I know it has low miles, it would handle better than the bomber.
Project begins! I bring the bike home, giver her a bath (yes, her.... all my bikes I have owned are girls!) I clean inside the rusty tank, rebuild the petcock, the carbs, replace the fork seals, gaiters, move the relocated ignition, change the oil, and replace the 1978 battery with a new one. Reeear.......reeear......reeear.......reeear............. broooooooooooom! She fires right up. Not only does she fire up, this little 450 has far more pep than my 600 BMW!
I strip off some of the 70s coolness, (high handle bars, crash bar with foot pegs, and sissy seat) to clean it up and buy some new tires. As many projects go, you get an idea in your head about how you may do things and after you do them, you change your mind or just don't like the way they look. My first thought was to throw on some clubman bars, find me a cx500 tank, repaint her and be done. After fitting a cx500 tank and clubman bars, I still kept thinking about how I wanted a black bomber cafe.
The 6 month search now begins for a black bomber tank. After getting outbid several times on ebay and calling every motorcycle junk yard in the country, I see a set of chrome panels and knee pads pop up on ebay. I contact the guy and offer him a nice price for him to end the auction, he agrees and I now have the panels and knee pads. Finally after a couple months, another tank comes up for sale (I am not going to lose this) and I put in a crazy high bid at the last second and win the auction surprisingly at a really good price. After a little grinding on the tank to fit the newer frame, I now have what looks almost like a clean well kept black bomber at a 1/6 of the price. Now I decide to ditch the clubman bars for some adjustable clip ons, get rid of the ugly stock headlight ears and buy some new gaiters that will fit to the fork tubes without the headlight ears. I lower my gauges a little, using a bicycle part as a mounting plate, and I strip polish my uper tree, controls, and master cylinder.
My 68 BMW is 6 volt and as you can imagine, even with a custom halogen bulb, is hard to see at night. I guess it is not terrible but I want to be able to see on the cb450. I first start looking into replacing the bucket with a 7" and just having a halogen but while searching, I fell in love with the Victory headlight. I buy one on ebay for the 450. Having only seen these in pictures, I didn't realize just how big this light was until it showed up at my door, it also is a bottom mount headlight. I came up with a plan to mount it and even though it is a little big for the bike, I still love it. Now I want to change the halogen bulb and replace it with a HID kit to really brighten up my night riding. The pictures below are before I ditched the side mount idea for the light.
I am hoping to have this bike on the road by July so I still have to build me a fiberglass seat, fit my fzr rearsets, figure out what I am going to do about my exhaust, wire it up, and some other things. Hopefully next winter I can strip her down and do a repaint it something other than black. I love black but I already have a black bike and would like something different. That is where we are up to this point of the project. This is no way going to be a show bike. I am building it to have a fun bike that I can ride because isn't that what motorcycles were originally built for?
Before I start getting a bunch of haters for stripping down an original bike, please let me explain.
I always had at least 2 or 3 bikes at a time until I got married and had kids so I sold all of my bikes to redo my (now daily rider) 1968 BMW R60/2. It was a fun build but I kept it pretty much stock. I wanted to build another bike that I could call my own instead of just finding stock parts like I did with the BMW. What I wanted was a 1965 - 1967 black bomber to have that cafe racer look. What I found was a super clean all original 1970 cb450 with only 4,300 miles on it that had sat in a heated garage for 30 years (even the original tires were still on it). My first thought was to get it running and sell it, and use that money to find me a black bomber, but after thinking about it. I would still have to spend more money on a bike that would have a ton of miles on it and may need motor work and that gets expensive. The 1970 I have, cost me almost nothing, I know it has low miles, it would handle better than the bomber.
Project begins! I bring the bike home, giver her a bath (yes, her.... all my bikes I have owned are girls!) I clean inside the rusty tank, rebuild the petcock, the carbs, replace the fork seals, gaiters, move the relocated ignition, change the oil, and replace the 1978 battery with a new one. Reeear.......reeear......reeear.......reeear............. broooooooooooom! She fires right up. Not only does she fire up, this little 450 has far more pep than my 600 BMW!
I strip off some of the 70s coolness, (high handle bars, crash bar with foot pegs, and sissy seat) to clean it up and buy some new tires. As many projects go, you get an idea in your head about how you may do things and after you do them, you change your mind or just don't like the way they look. My first thought was to throw on some clubman bars, find me a cx500 tank, repaint her and be done. After fitting a cx500 tank and clubman bars, I still kept thinking about how I wanted a black bomber cafe.
The 6 month search now begins for a black bomber tank. After getting outbid several times on ebay and calling every motorcycle junk yard in the country, I see a set of chrome panels and knee pads pop up on ebay. I contact the guy and offer him a nice price for him to end the auction, he agrees and I now have the panels and knee pads. Finally after a couple months, another tank comes up for sale (I am not going to lose this) and I put in a crazy high bid at the last second and win the auction surprisingly at a really good price. After a little grinding on the tank to fit the newer frame, I now have what looks almost like a clean well kept black bomber at a 1/6 of the price. Now I decide to ditch the clubman bars for some adjustable clip ons, get rid of the ugly stock headlight ears and buy some new gaiters that will fit to the fork tubes without the headlight ears. I lower my gauges a little, using a bicycle part as a mounting plate, and I strip polish my uper tree, controls, and master cylinder.
My 68 BMW is 6 volt and as you can imagine, even with a custom halogen bulb, is hard to see at night. I guess it is not terrible but I want to be able to see on the cb450. I first start looking into replacing the bucket with a 7" and just having a halogen but while searching, I fell in love with the Victory headlight. I buy one on ebay for the 450. Having only seen these in pictures, I didn't realize just how big this light was until it showed up at my door, it also is a bottom mount headlight. I came up with a plan to mount it and even though it is a little big for the bike, I still love it. Now I want to change the halogen bulb and replace it with a HID kit to really brighten up my night riding. The pictures below are before I ditched the side mount idea for the light.
I am hoping to have this bike on the road by July so I still have to build me a fiberglass seat, fit my fzr rearsets, figure out what I am going to do about my exhaust, wire it up, and some other things. Hopefully next winter I can strip her down and do a repaint it something other than black. I love black but I already have a black bike and would like something different. That is where we are up to this point of the project. This is no way going to be a show bike. I am building it to have a fun bike that I can ride because isn't that what motorcycles were originally built for?
. Anyway, I realized that if I want to ride it this year, I need to do something fast. Well, I decided to hold off on some of the modifications I planned and just put some of the original parts back on until a later time. I am rigging up the stock seat, putting the fenders back on, and I put the stock foot pegs back on her. I still plan on making a fiberglass seat, installing rear sets, and modifying the fenders a little but, I would rather ride it than just look at it. I hope this speeds things up a bit. 
