750 cafe project

[beergood]

Well, it seems like there are quite a few of these projects going on. Anyway, here is mine.

I picked this up from a friend a couple months ago. The first thing I did was put some clubmans on, and I got to ride it a few times before the weather started to suck. My other bike is a 92 GS500, and I gotta say, I really like this bike. Very smooth engine.

The project is kind of slow going due to the lack of a heated garage (I got a couple months before I can ride it, so I might as well take my time).

Stock with clubmans:

 

[beergood]

Getting ready to hammer in the tank (took a lot of courage for that first hammer blow)

A little bit of trusty bondo. I haven't used this stuff in a few years, boy was I rusty.

Tank primed and getting ready to start fabbing the seat.

 

[beergood]

I really like the look of the original tail piece, so I decided to incorporate it into the new tail. I started by covering the original piece in aluminum foil and layering fiberglass over it.

Here is the new piece after I popped it of the original.

Here is the tank with the new paint scheme.

 

[beergood]

Here is a test fitting of the tank and the new tail piece.

The tank mods look a little harsh in this picture due to the flash. They look a lot better in person, although I might take a little more time later into the project to get them perfect. Then again, I might not. I kinda think a little imperfection goes with the character of the bike (and the rider).

 

[beergood]

Just another couple angles.

Things left to do this winter:

Finish fiberglassing/filling the tail piece.

Fabricate a seat.

Paint/polish wheels to keep with overall scheme.

Chop front fender

Paint calipers

Polish whatever I can get at

4-1 exhaust (when I find one for the right price)

Smaller gauges and/or a fairing

Pod filters and re-jetting (still weighing pros and cons on this)

 

[Tarbash 27]

but it was such a nice looking bike

 

[80GS1000]

Nice. Although I'm not a huge fan of the yellow accents. I think white accents would look better. Just my 2 cents though.

 

[beergood]

but it was such a nice looking bike

Not really. The tank had plenty of little dings, nicks and surface rust. The seat was ripped and there is some pitting on the chrome.

Also, I am thinking about making some new rearsets for it. I would like to move my foot position back and up. Has anyone else done this from scratch? I looked into buying some and I can't justify spending half of my original investment on a pair.

 

[Mike_H]

I like it. Seems there are a lot of people on the boards here who apprieciate the old cafe' racers. Its a cool look. On your tail section, are you going to use the 'glassed piece as a mold, and pour foam or something into it, or are you going to use it as is? Seems like you will lose some of the detail of the original part, if you choose to use it as is, not too mention your dimensions will be bigger by the thickness of your glass all around. Nice project. Keep us updated

 

[beergood]

After another layer or two of fiberglass on the tail I will smooth it out with body filler, sand and paint it. The part is actually remarkably faithful to the original. It will be slightly larger, but that is part of the design.

One of my goals with this seat is to use the existing hinges and lock, instead of just bolting it to the frame. That way I will still have access to the battery, toolkit and registration. The original piece tapers too much to cover the rear hinge. I would have had to either cut a hole in the lip around the bottom or remove the hinge and just use the front (which felt kind of flimsy when I tried it). The slight difference in size and flexibility of the new piece makes it possible.

I am a little concerned about getting it smooth/even enough to make me happy. One nice thing about this part is that I have only spent about $25 making it so far, and if everything goes according to plan than I will be done for well under $50. So even if I have to scrap the whole thing I am not out a lot of money, although I seriously doubt that I will have to do that.

As for the yellow accents, I mulled over color choice for quite a while. Yellow just felt fastest. I have no other justification. My last tear down and repaint on my 500 resulted in a black and orange bike, so maybe I am just weird.

 

[byrdman76]

After another layer or two of fiberglass on the tail I will smooth it out with body filler, sand and paint it. The part is actually remarkably faithful to the original. It will be slightly larger, but that is part of the design.

One of my goals with this seat is to use the existing hinges and lock, instead of just bolting it to the frame. That way I will still have access to the battery, toolkit and registration. The original piece tapers too much to cover the rear hinge. I would have had to either cut a hole in the lip around the bottom or remove the hinge and just use the front (which felt kind of flimsy when I tried it). The slight difference in size and flexibility of the new piece makes it possible.

I am a little concerned about getting it smooth/even enough to make me happy. One nice thing about this part is that I have only spent about $25 making it so far, and if everything goes according to plan than I will be done for well under $50. So even if I have to scrap the whole thing I am not out a lot of money, although I seriously doubt that I will have to do that.

As for the yellow accents, I mulled over color choice for quite a while. Yellow just felt fastest. I have no other justification. My last tear down and repaint on my 500 resulted in a black and orange bike, so maybe I am just weird.

Looks sweet beergood. I like the yellow - I think the black and orange would have been even better! Your tail section looks alot like some of Carpy's creations. You should check out this site for some ideas http://www.cb750cafe.com/

Keep it up man it looks great.

 

[pozzi]

i dig that you used the stock tail for a mold!
i've always liked how those look and wanted to get my hands on one for cheap to make a casting off of for my bike, but right now i'm thinking i may just make a removable solo seat cover for the back half so the wife can ride when she wants. we'll see.


keep us posted on how yours turns out, cus i may still try to get my hands on one for my bike!
looks good but i think the yellow being a flat color makes it look a bit DIY. if you found some metallic yellow it might make it look a bit more like you had a prof paint job. you can go to many autobody paint supply stores and get them to mix you up an aerosol can of an actual auto paint color (just tell them its for touch-up or a small piece).

Honda's pearl yellow metallic from their S2000 is an awesome yellow color! best one i've ever seen IMO.
HTH.

 

[beergood]

The yellow is dupli-color's yellow ceramic engine block paint, and it is actually quite glossy. The photos didn't do a very good job of picking this up. I really like this line of paint. There aren't that many color choices, but the paint goes on very smooth, very glossy, and is pretty durable. There is still some of the inevitable tape edge marks between colors. I may try to polish those out, or I may pin-stripe white over them.

The black is dupli-color's semi-flat black. I have kind of a fetish for this paint. I have painted my mountain and single speed bikes with this paint, as well as my gs500, my old Audi GT and last year my 1995 F150. The truck took about 9 cans, and captured the interest of a couple neighbors who were wondering why I was taping off and painting a perfectly good truck in my driveway.

 

[dogal123]

Hi beergood! really nice looking job, I noticed on your list of to do's you have "smaller gauges/ fairing" would that be just a small rounded 'bikini' type fairing, also are you going to drop the bars, bar end mirrors might look the part. Only reason I'm saying is I'm in the early stages of building a cafe racer myself. So always interested in what other people are doing. All the best.

 

[jonesti]

Way to go, great work Beergood.
I'm also going to be doing some rearsets. What I'm thinking is using an aluminum square block 1in deep, 3in tall, and 3in wide. Then milling it into a T shape. Boring holes in the upper(horizontal) part of the T for the stock location mounting holes, and another in the longer, longatudal part of the T. These pegs http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Kawa...tegoryZ35580QQihZ016QQitemZ260064878220QQrdZ1 are two piece and have a bolt holding the C setion that I will eliminate and a bolt bored into the peg which I'll retain for my mount. The C section is what mounts on a factory location and holds the folding spring.
Varying the longitudal sections location will increase or decrease the degree(height and rearness-is that understandable?) to which your foot placement is at.
One step better would be to make a multi-pin mount plate allowing for adjustable placement.
Again this is in my head so till I give it go who knows!! Good luck and keep up the awesome work!

 

[jonesti]

Oh yeah, per prev post remember by altering the peg location your brake and shift levers will be distanced further away. I'm 6'3 and wear 13's so thats not an issue. The way bikes today are getting smaller and smaller I look more like a monkey making love to a football everyday! But light is right. I told my dad the GS was within 60lbs of his Harley. He laughed until I showed him the listed dry weight of the 550....

 

[solo suzuki]

lookin' good...more pics please! :-D

 

[beergood]

The stock gauges sit a little high and are a little large for my taste. They kind of ruin the line of the bike. However, I really like the visibility of them, and I am overly enamored of the gear indicator (I have a soft spot for things like this). A friend has a bubble fairing (like you find on ebay for around $40) that he isn't using. I am going to try to borrow it and see how it looks. If it looks good then I will probably keep the stock gauges, otherwise I will eventually have to come up with another solution using a smaller/simpler dashboard.

Depending on how my fiberglassing skills develop I may keep a bubble fairing and modify it.

I like the look of the clubman bars, but if I could find an inexpensive pair of clip-ons I wouldn't mind playing with them, just to see. And if you look in the pictures, there are bar-end mirrors on the bike right now. I tried riding without mirrors once and found it to be terrifying.

As for rearsets, I am intending to create linkages with new controls (or at least a new linkage for the clutch and moving the master cylinder for the brake), not just new footpegs. I have some access to welding/fabricating equipment. This is down the road a bit. I may wait until I come up with an exhaust solution so that I won't create any conflicts. I got pretty good at just using the rear pegs for cruising and the front controls for driving on my first bike. Although I find this unacceptable in the long term.

Thanks to everyone for the support, comments, and criticisms. I truly appreciate it. Now it's back to the basement for some more sanding.

 

[beergood]

like a monkey making love to a football

Kurt Vonnegut - God Bless You Mr Rosewater?

By the way, I am very interested in the progress you are making on yours as well. Last year I stripped my 500 down to the frame. I was originally just going to change an o-ring, but apparently I bumped my head. I did have the foresight to put everything in related boxes (rear brake, front break, swing arm), label everything and take about 150 digital pictures of the process. I was thrillafied when I got it back together and it started on the second try. Doubt I will do a full tear down on the 750 this year, but I am planning on it next winter.

 

[johnnay]

Nice job - I really like what you're doing. Man, I don't know why people keep whining about "it was such a nice bike...", and "why don't you buy a modern bike and modify it" etc... wah, wah, waaaaaah...!

Personally, I love when people take a stock, plain jane bike and personalize it - hell, I don't even care if they make it better, just different. The only thing a mint, bone stock 80's bike makes me think of is that some old geezer bought the thing and it sits in the garage most of its life. Modifications and personalizations only indicate one thing - that the bike is loved. And that, to me is more important than keeping a "classic" - that's what manufacturer museums are for. Notice that Barrett jackson et al are now making as much, if not more, money on modified cars than stockers? Seems I'm not the only one that feels this way..

Keep on moddin'...!\\/