Cafe CB 750 some progress pics...

[Eric 951]

It has been waaay slower than I imagined with various other projects taking precedence over the bike...but I have finally swapped the bars, spliced the wiring, re-routed the cables/controls, installed the grips, and bled the front brake. Tonight I will have the new LED turn signals installed on the front only--need to drill out longer bolts for connecting and I am currently awaiting the pick-up of the fiberglass tail from the upholsterer. But, I am ready to ride...for now too bad it is raining.

I will post the "finished" pics tomorrow--forgot the camera at home....

the old bars prior to snipping the wires




Still the old front end



old rear look



and one of the Morini...looking forlorn for now....

[Tim Hancock]

That bike looks pretty clean Eric, no doubt you spent some time cleaning her up! That Morini looks like it would be a blast.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I'll be happy to keep that Morini exercised while you work on the CB.

[Eric 951]

Originally Posted by BlueSkyJaunte

I'll be happy to keep that Morini exercised while you work on the CB.

Thanks for the offer, but the Morini needs a ring job in the front cylinder which led to my buying the CB untill I can scrounge all the parts to do the engine rebuild on the Morini..

more pics of the CB progress:


before:

some dremel action was needed to get the housing/wires to lay tight



mocking up the bars/controls





and a quick shot of both bikes...

[Eric 951]

some more pics...

1 hbundle which needed snipped---(2) total

before:


after:
not wrapped yet....






needed to fab some longer hollow bolts for the front siganls than what came with them..



almost done..


and one of my buddy's Ultra which he completely re-did from a metallic blue to this: including pulling some dents from the tins where our other buddy dropped it:

[Normy]

Eric that is a totally cool project!

-I just looked very carefully at the pictures, and I noted that your countershaft cover is intact. This bike looks very much like the '76 CB-750-four that I sold last year. That was the bike that I used to keep in my living room in Orlando.

My bike had a blown cover due to the chain exploding at 80 mph on crowded I-95 one day. Which brings up my point. There is one major weakness of the K-series CB-750 that you need to know about: excessive flexibility of the rear suspension. This flexibilty causes the alignment of the front and rear sprockets to continually change around a vertical axis, and this in turn causes stress on the chain. In my case, even though the chain was up to specifications and carefully lubricated with Honda chain wax, it still broke.

I'm lucky- the chain just blew the cover off and then dropped to the roadway. Typically it wraps around the rear wheel, causing it to lock-up, and the bike goes out of control-

The chain guard? It was twisted and blown open. You couldn't tell what it was when I coasted to a stop!

My advice: Check to see if you have a modified sproket/chain kit. Most CB-750's were supplied with a 530 chain; if you have one [look at the links carefully], remove it immediately along with the sprockets! You can buy a pair of 630 sprockets online, and I recommend a matching O-ring 630 chain with at least 11,000 pounds of tensile strength. That's way more chain than a 67 horsepower bike needs, but you need the side to side strength of the big chain.

Keep up the good work!

N

[Eric 951]

Some pics of the completed front end--finally got to ride Sunday and although it was stiflingly hot it was a blast:

new stubby LED signals



blown main fuse was traced to a less than 1/8" section of signal wire that had rubbed through and was grounding out


almost done


much better


done for now....

[Eric 951]

Oh, and Normy--thanks for the info!--chain and sprockets were swapped sometime in the past. Your CB looks about like mine when I started.