CX500 Cafe Fighter Build

Can't wait to see the finished project

 

Good to see another one somewhat local!

I am already over on CX50forums and have a build thread going over there.

Not sure what I am doing for a muffler just yet, but it already had pod filters on it when i got it, so I will be sticking with those.

 

Sub'd

 

I have gotten quite a bit of work done on it since I last posted so I will try to answer your questions and show you what I have been up to.

First let me address the mono shock and bracing. Yes I know that moving it forward is going to increase the travel of the rear wheel and also will need a increase on the spring rate to handle the bigger moment. I have had the bike off of the center stand and sat on it. It did not sag nearly as much as I anticipated as I had hoped under its own weight. The seating position is at 35" from the ground, my RC51 is 33" and the 35" is to tall. i will be working on the mounts to lower it down and make it closer to 33". The seat position is actually really comfortable on the bike, but the whole bike is up to high.

A idea I have is to place a 2x4 under the rear tire when its on the center stand to lift up the rear wheel some. Can someone measure the distance from the bottom of the rear tire to the ground on the center stand on their bike ? I would like to see how much space is under there and I did not think to do it before I cut it all up.

There will be no tail/fairing/cowl whatever you want to call it on the back of the bike. Just the seat. Im going for simple and minimalist and something easy to get around the city on. It won't be a high speed bike or something that gets raced/abused

I am not worried about bracing the swing arm either. From my previous experience building baja cars there is no reason that the swing arm should bend or break unless it is rotted from the inside, which it does not appear to be. Honda put in the time to engineer this thing much stronger that it ever needed to be. I will be keeping a eye on it however and if I see anything start to move/bend I will fix it appropriately.

People were concerned with the tabs for the shock bending also, in a perfect world there should not be any side loads on the tabs with the way the swing arm pivots and and the shock moves. Since nothing is perfect I am sure that there is some side loads, but minimal. When we built our baja cars we were running .065" thick tabs for shocks on a 500lb car that was being jumped and abused and those never bent in the slightest. I am running .100" thick tabs on this for a 250lb bike.

As for the electronics they are going under the tank. Which you can see below. I was in for a big surprise when I started moving the wiring as the harness was hacked to hell from 30 years of previous owners. I relocated everything and moved the wiring appropriately. When I opened up the headlight I found a whole mess in there and had to tidy up most of that as well. Everything is in place now and once the bike and everything is finalized I will pull the harness and tape everything up again.



And lastly on a side note. For shits and giggles I took a little bit of rubbing compound and VERY QUICKLY did a spot of the rims where they were all oxidized and faded out. I was shocked to see that with very minimal effort they clean up and are a very dark shiny black again. So that will be in order once the bike is driving and on the road again. I also plasti-dipped the front fender and it looks good.

Electronics in place, still need to wrap the wiring up. Replaced the 30A main fuse that a previous owner didn't deam necessary.

LED indicators moved to the fuse panel cover since I am going no gauges. The angle of the picture if weird but 1 of them is not straight... I know curved surface and a hand drill will do that. I wasn't thrilled, but not to concerned with it.

Mounted the tail light.

Starting to come together. I ordered a small ballistic battery that I am going to put on the side of the backbone to the right of the shock. It is 2.5x2.5x4inches

 

keep up the good work

 

Ok guys some more progress today. It was gorgeous out so I was able to get a bunch done.

First thing I did was quickly took some polishing compound on a rag and this is what it did to to the rims! I am pretty pumped and I think they are going to clean up real nice with out much effort.



Next I welded up the shock/seat mounts a little more permanent and then dropped the bike down onto its own weight for the first time. The sitting position reminds me of my CR250 I had and its really not as high up as I thought. The suspension compresses nicely and everything works like it should. I am going to ride it like this for a bit and see how it does. I did some more research this morning and found out that a 07+ CBR600 shock has the same width mounting points and is 2" shorter than the VFR shock that is in there now. If I decide the shock is to high I will pick up one of those and see the difference since they are short money.







Looks like the side stand is going to have to be extended a few inches! Center stand is coming out once the build is done and I will only be running the side stand.



Made some filler panels and capped up the frame where I had chopped it off




I found where I am going to mount my front blinkers. Right off of the side of the radiator. I am going to make some tabs to hold them and then just weld them to the radiator surround. I am also going to make some hold downs that screw into the stock screw holes for the radiator shroud to hold the clutch cable in place. The one that is on the bike has some melted spots from being on the exhaust. With the exhaust being a 2 into 1 in the front now I really need to keep it off.



I started welding the exhaust as well, but got frustrated with the awkward angles/positions, shitty and mix of materials and thin tubing. I really hate trying to weld exhaust tubing, especially with a mig welder. The welds were not coming out as nice as I wanted so I stopped for now. I was also out of welding gas, so I would not have gotten much further anyways.

 

Damn, that thing is going to be gnarly looking! I hope I see it cruising down the street someday. It looks great so far. Personal opinion, the rear needs something, maybe a hugger?

Did you ever get your measurement for a motorcycle on the center stand? If not, PM me, I can get you a measurement from my Katana.

 

do you not have access to a TIG machine? That is really the only way to go with motorcycle exhaust welding.

 

No I don't it will be getting wrapped with exhaust wrap anyways

 

Cant wait to see this thing done!

 

Nice

 

Tore the radiator down last night to get the tach cable out. That ended up creating a bigger mess than I was hoping for.

First as expected after researching, the screw that held the tach cable in place was frozen and the head was stripped. Ended up having to pull the fan and the metal radiator surround as well as the plastic shroud. Had to use the dremel to make a flat slot in the screw and use a impact screw driver to loosen the screw. In the end I won and got it out.

From doing all of this i found lots of oil all over the engine. I found a nice oil leak coming from the tach housing and the seal for the fan shaft wasn't even pressed into the housing. Cleaned up the engine block a bit with some simple green and RTV'd the tach housing into place. Waiting on a new oil seal from bike bandit.



The only thing I am worried about with the RTV is that when it all squished together I am sure it blocked the oil passage that goes up to the worm gear for the tach cable. Is this a big deal ? will it burn anything up ? I am thinking I should just order a new gasket instead of using the RTV.

I also finished welding up the exhaust yesterday but I was to beat after fighting with the tach housing/seal that I didnt get a picture.

 

I wouldn't have used RTV on the engine. I'd use a high temp sealant or liquid gasket type sealant, something better suited to the higher temps. I just did something similar when I replaced my clutch cover gasket, the case is split so I have to use sealant along with the new gasket. I'll see if I can find what I used. Best would be a new gasket though.

 

I'd use a gasket and not the sealant. That gear is spinning quick and I'd be afraid of the unsoiled surfaces wearing down and getting into the rest of the engine.

 

Sub'd for awesomeness! Wish I had the time for a build!

 

Guess I should have been clearer... it was high temp RTV gasket maker.

I have used it before on engines with out any problems, but i am going to probably just get the new gasket.

 

I believe that's the same stuff I used. If that's the case, it should be fine. I thought you meant you used plain 'ole RTV silicone (didn't seem right that you would do all that work and then do something like that but ya never know!).

 

Ordered a bunch of crap today, Other than that I mostly cleaned up the garage and organized my tools as they were starting to get all over the place and I hate working in disarray.

One thing I did do was managed to get the stud out of the rear diff for the stock shock. The sucker was in, but i eventually got it out








more to come tomorrow.

 

nice rc51

 

subbed, this looks pretty sweet so far