1981 HONDA CB650 CAFE RACER - PROJECT UPDATE

1981 HONDA CB650 CAFE RACER - PROJECT UPDATE

Overall, this was a really productive week on the motorbike front.  I had two different bikes at the shop,  so in this post I'll only be covering the progress on the Honda CB650.  The picture below represents where we left off last week with the exception of one tiny difference; the bracket for the cafe seat.  I wanted to show a close up picture of that so you can see how it stays bolted down.  

Two tabs were drilled in the frame for the bracket to be screwed down into.  The two screws in the middle go through the top of the seat and into the tab below to hold it snug.  It's pretty self explanatory but I guess the key here is to make sure it's level and the fiberglass seat pan should be cut at the neck to fit the contour of the gas tank cleanly.  When the seat doesn't fold over the section of the gas tank that bolts down it looks disconnected.

As you can see the new seat was picked up from the upholsterer and this time I decided to go with a black on black diamond stitch.  I wasn't ecstatic about having to use buttons to hold the seat on, but it actually turned out pretty rad.  The only way I would've been able to get away with bolting on the seat without using the snaps would be to relocate the battery/box and wiring so that I could reach a hand underneath the seat to screw in the bolts.  That would cost another $400 dollars at minimum so this is the less expensive route.  It works.

One other thing I discovered after getting the seat back on was that the side covers no longer work for the look I'm going for.  The old seat used to dip down and meet the side covers nicely, so I may have to cut some aluminum panels out and paint them black to use instead.  There's no way I can justify using the stock ones at this point.

I'm still deciding what I want to do about the taillight and license plate mount.  I originally liked the idea of mounting the rear taillight on the backside of the seat pan, but I'm thinking that may not be the route I end up taking, and I'll tell you why.  If I decide to sell this thing and someone doesn't like the seat pan and decides they want to do a nice flat job, they would not only have to purchase a new seat but also a taillight and some wiring.  The solution in my head is to do a side mount license plate/taillight because it can stay where it's at no matter what seat is on.  However, I can't do a license plate/taillight mount while my current exhaust pipes are there.  It won't fit.  As a result, I'm thinking the best thing to do would be pick up a new mac 4-into-1 exhaust system and put the mount on the opposite side of where the exhaust pipe exits.  That's my plan and I'm sticking to it…I think.

 The last changes made this week were the painting of my front and rear wheels along with the front forks.  The tires were replaced before the paining was done in order to avoid scratching them with tire irons post paint job.   These are the Kenda tires I purchased through www.motorcycle-superstore.com, I'm pretty sure I posted a picture of them in a previous post.  These look ten times better all blacked out!  Right now I'm just trying my best to visualize the final product and work towards that while working through any hiccups along the way.   

That's it for now!  Thanks for reading and check back soon for more updates on this project.