[dgallagher]

Just getting started and will up date as I progress.

 

[Znabb]

Interesting! Is it going to be a Black Bomber look-alike or a café bike?

 

[dgallagher]

going to go cafe,I want it to look like it was built in the 60,s so I am not stripping it bare. I want to keep the origanl seat pand so I added a curve to the rear with metal and will be send it out to get covered with hump built into the covering., New [attachment=0:mntsqpmy]DSC00165.JPG[/attachment:mntsqpmy]exhaust, headlight with speedo in it and maybe some rearsets. Iam leaving the front fender alone and I chopped the rear to be more inline with the seat and tank. below is a new pic. Thanks for the reply and any suggestions are welcome,
Dan

 

[dgallagher]

added rearset on shift side, working on brakes will post pic when done. more pic.s are at http://rides.webshots.com/album/579634585eUzthb.

 

[dgallagher]

Finished the rearsets, very happy with set up, as I am trying to make this bike look like it was built in the 60's I did not want to use the rearsets I have seen for sale, not that they dont look good, they just would not look right on this bike. I had first used the passenger peg as a mount but it did not feel good so I welded a bracket to the triangle shaped opening in the frame, the bracket is the same for the shift and brake sides I used the old passeger foot pegs which works real well for the brake side as it folds up for kick star. to fabricate I used 1/8 steel plate and 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch round bar, I bent the round bar old school, heat and beat. For ball joints I used Burns Q-D Ball Joint 1/4-28 Quik Disconnet ball joints I purchased at a Internationl Harvester Implement Store. The shift side has a sealed bareing in it for ease of movement, the brake side had a second bracket with a 14mm bolt for a pivit point to which I attached a steel coller and welded my brake pedal and pivit arm. This set up allows me to use a short section of the old brake pedal with original brake light switch, return spring, and lever stop adjusting nut, I still need to dress up were I cut off the old pedal but that must wait untill I dissasemble the bike. I have many more pics at http://rides.webshots.com/album/579634585eUzthb This set up works for me, keeps my knees up by the tank and not the cylinders and my rists and neck feel good as well, Im sure I could ride for and hour or so before I felt tired of the position, would need a cig anyway. I am not recommending this for anyone else as it is hand fabricated and your welds need to be solid. Im just saying I like it and it works for me.

 

[dgallagher]

I forgot to mention, the levers on the shift side are higher thatn on most bikes you see, I first had them only and inch and a half high but found that it shifted hard and that my ankle keep banging into the ball joint so I raised them up as you see in this pic. Now I dont hit them and it shifts like butter.

 

[dorion81]

exactly the post i'd been looking for!!! i'm going to be making rearsets for my 78 cb400 and this is what i'll be doing. thanks for putting this up as well as the link to all the pictures!!

 

[dgallagher]

Bike is striped to frame, however I left the engine in as I am not rebuilding it at this time and the frame is in great shape, I can paint it with the engine in utilizing airbrush and touch up guns in tight spots. I have rebuilt all components and am just starting to sand blast parts for paint, sure wish it would warm up around hear so I could paint. One thing I did was rebuild my gauges, I contacted a person who posted that he could do the faces for ten bucks however I wanted my own log and a ace of spades on the gauge so he felt it would get pretty expensive. I don't have any good software but I used MS Paint. I took the gauges apart by prying the crome bezel up and sliding it off. this took awhile, there is a web article on this just do a search on cb 450 gauges. I took the needles off by first moving them to the 12 oclock position and the placing two small spoons under them and resting the spoons on the face plate attachment screws and prying up, it will pop off so be carefull. I scaned my gauges in MS Paint zoomed up to 800 percent and change the color of every pixel, took a while, created my logo and ace of spades simble, got the size correct by using http://www.picresize.com/. I used the custom setting and reduced by 64 percent. I took the saved JPG file to my local printer Heritage printing co. and they printed it out on a plastic film that comes with adheasive on the back. The gauge faces are a green plastic, with white paint on the front, when you wet sand the old decal off you will need to spray the white back, Just a light coat of krylon will work. I plan on making my own faces next winter out of clear lexon so thy will be more translusent and flat as mine were warped over the years, a heat gun flatten them out some but not all the way. I will not be putting the chrome band back on as I found that wraping them with electrical tape streched tight as you wrap it works great. I wraped mine five times around and sealed the seam at the bottom of the gauge with silicone adhesive and they are not coming apart and are more tightly sealed than with the chrome bezel, I can also get back into them if I need to with little trouble. I will keep posting as I go, Thanks to all who have helped me along the way so far.

 

[Znabb]

Meters look really good. Cool design!
If you redo them you might try to scan in a higher resolution as you can see the pixels if you press your nose to the guages.
When I did the meters on my CB500 Four I raided my daughters makeup and found a matching red nail polish to use at the end of the needles.

 

[dgallagher]

I agree, when I redo them I will get some better software as well, MS paint will only take you so far.

 

[frogman79]

I happen to like a free program call paint.net. It's free editing software that is just about as full featured as some of the good paid for versions and it will let you do all sorta stuff to just about any image file I can think of.

http://www.getpaint.net/

I have been using it for years the the guy that codes it regularly updates it and adds in goodies too.

 

[Znabb]

I happen to like a free program call paint.net. It's free editing software that is just about as full featured as some of the good paid for versions and it will let you do all sorta stuff to just about any image file I can think of.

http://www.getpaint.net/

I have been using it for years the the guy that codes it regularly updates it and adds in goodies too.

I use Paint.net too for some picture editing with layers and it's a powerful editing software given that it's free.

 

[dgallagher]

Thanks for the info, many ways to get the job done but free is always high on my list. I will check out the software for future use. Thanks again.

 

[BradCox]

Awesome style man, I like the bomber tank with that gauge/headlight/handlebar setup!

 

[dorion81]

what kind of tail/brake light setup are you going to go with? i'm trying to get some ideas for my build on my cb400, the stock tail light has got to go but i don't know what to replace it with that would look good lol

 

[dgallagher]

I went with a cats eye I found on ebay but am looking at a round light now from some other source I can't remember the name now but will post latter. I want to match my blinkers, that I can post a pic of for you. Got the blinkers on ebay fabed a bracket at the back and the fronts will have to be adapted to fit the light bucket ears. give me 1 more week and I will put the pic's up on the web site. both the cats eye and the round light come in at around $35 and have license plate light and holder.

 

[dorion81]

that's hilarious, those are the same ones i was looking at too. those little bullet ones seem like they'd look good on our style of bike! can't wait to see what they look like installed, same with that tail light. i'm thinking im going to have to chop my rear fender to shorten it and then install that tail light on it.

 

[dgallagher]

I chopped and section mine. Hard to explain but my pic's should show it. I cut the fender up about 2 to 3 inches below the two tail light mounting bolts, I dont have it hear so I can not be specific, Let me know it you need more info. I then took the piece I cut off and cut it close to the size I would want to weld back on. That fender flares out at the bottom so it looks to wide so I cut it in two and then cut a v shaped slit from the center out along the bottem edge so when I welded it on I could adjust the bottom to form along the lines of the fender I filled in the v with sheet metal I had from my truck restoration and it looks great. The idea is to keep the sheet metal over wire wraped look through out the entire fender. Like I said hard to explain, Call me if you need more info.

Dan
563 590 0759

 

[luketrash]

Thanks much for posting the photos of your rearsets. They look way better to me than the billet or cast aluminum stuff for sale online.

I'm picking up my first MIG welder this weekend, and I am going to try my hand at something similar to yours. Using the factory passenger pegs with longer bolts is genius.

 

[morgan]

HA,

i just put those signals on the 350. and thats the taillight i have been looking at as well.

i think those signals look great on the old twins (but could that be due to me having them on my bike?)