cb 450

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.