Building your own machine is a fun past time

Over 21 years I have been here and now I look back and think how far the Motorcycle scene and Community has come along in regards to self builds or designs.

It is so refreshing to see creative minds out there who have thought about creating their own machine from something that probably wasn’t even running a few months back, and now they are tearing down the tarmac with a huge smile on their faces.

I love seeing other people Motorcycles and this is a Big family in the 2 wheeled world and we all have something in common when we see a machine and look closer and what the Motorcycle comprises off to make it such a stand out bike.

Honda GB250cc Cafe Brat by Sabbath Bob Custom

Sometimes, just a little Brat-Cafe style Machine catches your eye, and this little Buzz bomb is an eye catcher for sure, and of course, you do not see too many GB250’s over here, in Europe there were many more available as I should know, when you were 17 years old, you could ride up to a 250cc Motorcycle on a Provisional License. So, many 250 contraptions were made by many big names and its always fun to see old Iron that has been resurrected and now is a fun motorcycle to enjoy on the local tarmac.

 


How much fun is this?  Mostly built by Honda in Japan, Europe did see quite a few of these, but alas I haven’t seen any in the USA, its a shame, as the Platform is ideal for a Brat-Cafe style Custom machine and this particular build was created by  a Nonthaburi (Thailand) based “Sabbath Bob Custom” workshop. Its a head turning little Tarmac eating 250cc bike and I love the styling.

The Knobby Trail tires set this off from the bog standard road bike and by simply dropping the trees down and pulling the upper fork tubes up a few inches, well, it throws that from end down- Giving it a more aggressive stance, also removing the stock gauges leaves the top end uncluttered.  As well as taking off the higher factory handlebars and going for a set of Clip on’s that are fitted below the upper tree, will give you that cool back aching ride that reminisces the days of old school racers.

Using a 4inch headlight with a Foglamp lens, really makes the 250 look like a 400 cc Motorcycle and everything becomes tucked in and tight, which works very well on many machines in this style.

This is a fun bike, not show Quality and what I like about that is they are not bothered where they ride it, on smooth tarmac or in the woods and tire choice is key on any machine, sometimes you have to forgo comfort for styling and this works very well on this GB250 bike and love the choice that the Thailand based company went with.

So with a little amount of money and plenty of ingenuity, you can create something cool out of almost anything, I love this Bar Hopper and wanted to share it with you. There may be something similar in your garage. Just doing them few things, changing out the gas tank from a larger bike, does completely change the look of the bike from its stock guise and with a bigger tank, you can get further too.

Keep your eyes out as I have seen a few 250’s made into cool Custom rides. Enjoy your Weekend everybody and send in any pics of your rides to:  carpy@carpyscaferacers.com

4 into 1 exhaust systems for CB750 and CB550 still selling strong

Well Howdy Everyone

Hard to believe that almost 22 years ago I started making parts available for these and other machines and continue to do so today, I try and help everybody out where I can, and I really do enjoy what I do for a living.

None of these parts are made in China and I make all the Prototypes right here in California, with more parts I am designing right now for our machines and a few more brands too is in the works, but right now I am getting ready to build a Brand New Barn/Workshop and all the plans have been approved by the city , so not long until I can work from home once more.  I think you get more attentive to the detail and of course, can save any frustrations about driving to and from work.

Below is a shot of a 4 into 1 Ceramic Coated Exhaust system that I have sent to a Customer back home in the UK, and the system looks awesome on his 750-4 Honda.

Peter Hch Harrison In the UK has one of my 4 into 1 exhaust systems on his 750-four Honda.

I really enjoy what I do and thank you for sticking with me and not using Chinese Parts.

Covid Attacks Jennifer and Me

Well, I have been ultra careful and not touching door handles, wearing a glove to pump gas and use any ATM machine and in the end, Covid Got Jennifer and of course I caught it from Jenn.

We have both been vaccinated and we had it on Both our Birthdays, What a fecker of a Virus.  We quarantined and got the all clear about 11 days later but to be honest at some point I thought I had ridden for the last time and now it was the end of the road.  I think having the Pfizer Double shot for me, saved my life to be honest, I was struggling quite badly for a few days and if I had not had them Jabs, I think I would be Ten Toes Up.

 

So, back on the road and finally after a few weeks of just Lethargicness , I am finally able to work a full day and got last week out of the way and not gasping for breath.  So, Be careful out there everybody this thing is a bloody Killer.

Many people have been home working on their projects, I have been sending orders out this week and will get back into full steam ahead next week, and I thank you ALL for your orders, emails and texts of Concern over Jennifer and Me, it was greatly received and sure helped us feel better when we read them.

Later on in the year I shall be offering New Exhaust systems and may try to make some for the Later Honda’s too, I am looking at other avenues of parts and with any luck maybe even a pod cast or two, fingers crossed.

Stay Safe everyone and thank you again for all your great messages.

 

 

Never tire of wrenching on 2 or 4 wheels

With all this Crazy Mayhem with the virus and wear a mask etc., its nice for me to be able to just do my own thing out in the sticks and away from the craziness that has really changed the Globe right now, but I came across this photo of me many years ago when I created my own style of CR750 Honda and they were care free days that we still need to have . Below is how Life is today with just some of my very own rides and am blessed to live the lifestyle that I do.

I have a variety of machines to complete and am looking forward to new parts I will be making available to you all to help you with your own creation, half the fun is building and the other half is riding them.

I have built many styles of bikes and always scratching my Nogging to think of what to do next, but when the New Barn is completed, I shall be looking into completing some creations and more Blogs and videos to show you what I get up to out here.

If I can help steer you in the right direction , I surely will, this is like a big family to me and always feels good when a Customer informs me their ride is now on the road for the first time.

Get creative and you may have to strip that bike 3 or 4 times to get where you wanted, this bike above I built 3 times but in the end it came out just as I had envisioned it and was worth the blood sweat and tears.

Paint scheme I did almost 15 years ago

Well, it is almost the 4th July, the weekend is almost here, I was looking through my Computer and happened to come across this body work that I did back at home in my garage in the City Of Orange, some 15 years ago.  I didnt use it in the end and sold it on Ebay, never did see it again, I did a similar paint scheme to the HTML bike 8 years later but forgot I had even done something similar.

I had an old K4 Gas tank that was pretty beaten up and not wanting it to go to waste, I hammered the sides to give them Knee inserts a certain pop when you look at it, these take a while and I hand hammer them, but the end result is always cool to see.  They came out great and then I decided That I would have a play around with some paint, as I received some sample Candy Paint from a friend of mine.

I used a Candy Aztec Gold Base and added the flake with it and sprayed the whole tank and seat I had as a spare, then wet sanded it and masked it ready for the Candy Apple Red candy paint and laid that on super think, wet sanded and then a liter of Clear Coat to make sure it seals the color in good.

This was all experimental and was super glad at the way she turned out and, all in a garage at home, make sure you put a tarp on the floor and water everywhere as Metalflake gets everywhere.

I wanted to share this with you as to be honest, I had totally forgotten about this bodywork and now on reflection, how could I have forgotten about such a great color scheme for a motorcycle?

The Seat base is my own Dunstall assembly that I still sell many of on the website and it held the paint really well with no issues at all and was a breeze to prepare and spray.

I have always loved Metalflake and the likes of Roth, Barris, Watson, Starbird and Von Franco all loved to incorporate on their rides back in the day and when the Sun hits the color it really does Pop!

Wished I kept that now but I am sure we have all done that and I needed the money for electricity bill or something back then so it helped me out of a jam at the time.

Its a nice combination and very MV Augusta of the day, sure hope that you lot like it too?

So, I thought  that today would be a good day to show some old photographs of this tank and seat set up for a CB750 Honda and maybe it will inspire you to get out in the shed, garage or Porchway for that matter and have a go on your bodywork?

There are tons of color options that you can use and the end result will always wow you with Candy paint.

I think I have made over 100 pounded gas tanks over the years and never tire of it, albeit its a lot of hard work, but the end result is worth all that sweat.

I test fitted this on the bike I had just started, the Tenacuois Ton Alloy bike, so shows you how long ago that was.

A sharp set of Bodywork thats for certain, and glad that I took a risk on it, and all them years ago too, just makes me smile when I see this photograph.

I am building a few bikes this year and have some different Custom designs that I hope to incorporate into the bodywork, so stay tuned on my website for that.

Thank you for taking your time to read my Blog today, hope it at least made you smile, this is a very cool paint scheme that I am truly proud of putting out there in Cafe Racer Land.

Have a Super 4th of July weekend everybody.

 

The Old Koppa Kafe was a fun Custom to create in my Garage.

No idea where the time has gone to be honest, but I always loved creating this machine, just because it has so many great Original parts on it that really did make people turn heads.

So I started off with a bunch of parts and already had the idea of how I wanted this, as the KOPPA KART was a famous Barris Kustom Truck that I had loved as a teenager and wanted to have some Copper Influence on this Motorcycle, but I had to do a ton of preparation to the Honda Duplex cradle frame to make sure all looks good when painted.

 

There was a lot of hand sanding and grinding of old Factory welds to try and make this Chassis as smooth as I possibly could, but also, I cut the neck and added a couple more degree’s to the rake, not too noticeable but I didn’t want it too aggressive, and I think this came out perfect for what I was looking for.

Also made up a Hoop and welded that to the frame, nobody was doing this back then and wanted it to finish of the seat that I was going to fit to it, and welded a bracket at the rear so I could attach the seat cowl and make it sturdy. But the most work that really needed some attentions was how was I going to extend the stock gas tank 5 inches, as I wanted a much longer fuel tank and thought that I may as well use some of my old spare gas tanks to cut up and make the change.

This is no easy task but, I was fortunate to have a bunch of K series Petrol tanks laying about in my garage rafters and thought the best way was to keep the front end and extend the tank backwards using sections from a couple of old gas tanks.

You can see the section cut and of course had the gas tank media blasted to get all the paint off so at least there was clean metal to work with, this will also have hammered knee inserts to give it that touch of Nostalgia of TT racing days and I was glad that I did go this route in the end.

You may not notice the stretch but its way past the original mounting bracket on the frame, you may also notice that I cut the rear exhaust and passenger peg supports down, this was to clean the lines up and allow for the lower part to become a bracket that my Italian rear Sets could attach too, I also braces gusseted the frame under where the gas tank sits just to give the frame a little more rigidity.

Here is the cross bracing that I did and used the pieces I cut off the bike, so it all got re used into this creation and I had not seen anyone do this before too so another added attraction I guess?

 

Putting this machine together in the garage was pure fun, I really did love the way the old girl was being revamped and as you can see, I did a lot of detail as at the end of the day, I was building bikes for a living now and this would be a great business card bike. many cool Parts and I used a pair of 18 inch Aluminum rims that were for a CB750 Automatic, of course I used to rear rims and then polished them to a chrome finish to give it a little more Bling.

So many hours were put into this and it became quite a challenge at times, but kept pushing on, I had to retap most of the thread holes as metalflake gets everywhere when you paint it and not use a booth, but I kept being persistent and it paid off, I used stainless Allen head Bolts through out the bike too, not cheap at almost a dollar per piece but makes the bike for sure.

Hand polished all the Aluminum and it took me forever to find an intake Plenum, I had one but it just would not fit, found out it was a Suzuki one, so thought to my self, ” Where the hell am I going to locate one of these Plenums for a SOHC?”  Then I got an email from a guy in Sweden who had a Suzuki and was Supercharging his but, his Plenum didnt fit and he thought his may be for a Honda.  So we traded and sure enough, when I tried to fit the Swedish one, it fitted like a glove. What were the chances of finding another eh?

What a piece of art it is too, so happy to be able to fit this to the machine and another tick off the list of things that needed to be accomplished to get the bike to the standard that I was after.

Just look how cool this Copper Metalflake looks, we used 3 pounds of the stuff to get the required depth that i was thinking of and a ton of clear coat was used to smooth it all out, but that Polished Aluminum offsets the Copper really well , what do you think?

I really was happy at the way the bike sat and looked and bit by bit I would get things accomplished, then I would push it onto the driveway to see how it looked in natural light.

I had Machined the front Lower forks and rebuilt them with New uppers, springs and this was a neat and unusual look as I had never seen anyone machine lower forks on a 750 before.

When I had these on the bike at Shows, people would ask about the forks and send me theirs to rebuild and give it that Custom look, it sure added some Custom touches as I painted the grooves Copper to go with the rest of the bike.

Finding someone to drill the correct hole on the stator cover, turned out to be a pain in the arse, I had one so called shop in another state have a go and messed it all up, so I did it my self and under cut the hole then used a drum sander to keep adjusting until the oil seal fitted tightly, and there you go, job done.

I had an Old Drouin Supercharger that was once going to go in an old chopper/drag bike and after I got all the parts I knew what bike I was going to build.  Now, the Motor I had was a fully Blue Printed motor, costing 7000 Dollars many years ago and this was perfect for the bike and thats how this came about.

I had a local company water Jet a bracket out of 7075 Aluminum and gave them a paper template, this worked out and treat and bolted right up to the SOHC motor with exact clearances, I simply Polished the bracket once everything was test fitted and you can see the Crank Pulley at the bottom fitted perfectly too.

All fitted and this Mechanical Washing machine looked Bloody awesome all hanging out of the engine on the Left hand side, it is Belt driven too so pretty quiet to be honest with a neat Polished Aluminum Belt cover for added coolness.

Yeah, it was an intricate bit of Kit to begin with but loved looking at this Motorcycle I looked at it as a piece of art and used as many pieces from a 1969-1978 Honda as possible.

I hand Hammered the knee Inserts using a Tear Drop Hammer from Eastwood Supply and this came out so nice with the Copper paint and boy did it shine when the Sun hit it too.

There is a lot of work here and those who have tried to Polish their Hubs will know what I am talking about, I also added a Double Chain and Sprocket set up as there was a lot of Torque here in that engine, I couldn’t locate one for the longest, but Azusa Chain helped me as this was for an Old Lathe and converted it to the bike and worked really well, ran a slightly wider sprocket carrier for the offset to be right.

I also fitted an Old Lockart Oil Cooler to the bike as it will run 15% cooler with that fitted and as the Oil Filter Housing has some broken fins, I cut them off and polished the body and it looked pretty good to be honest. I ran Braided Aircraft lines to the cooler too some Dash 12’s.

That’s an Original Lockhart Cooling Radiator too, I made a thick Aluminum Bracket to mount it to the Horn bracket and then polished it to look like chrome, it worked really well too.

That tank turned out so well, I used Por15 to seal it before painting and then pressure tested it at a Radiator shop, C.F.R was for Cafe Racer but in the style of the old H.R.D Motorcycles of years gone by.

This was My first attempt at making a Fiberglass front fender, since then I have sold over 500 of these to Customers all over the world, its 22 inches and has a bead all the way around it.

Cant get enough at looking at that, even today, it was a tough Motorcycle with loads of interesting parts and so Glad that I jumped in and had a go at creating this machine, there wasn’t many Café bikes at all about, so many people used to comment on what sort of bike it was and I think i was lucky enough to inspire a few people to have a go their selves and create their own unique ride.

 

My First attempt at a Custom Gauge, using an original one, I wanted to put BOOM at 140 MPH, got many comments on that and it was a great discussion point at shows etc.

I fitted an Original Series One Yoshimura exhaust of which was the pattern for all the systems I make today, I used a CB750 Connecting Rod for the license Plate holder, I later swapped the plate to the other side as the exhaust gases would tarnish the chrome lol. They are New Old Stock FOX shocks too and they really did give the ride height that I wanted on 18 Inch rims.

 

Allen bolts all through out the build and I did my drilling style on the sprocket cover just the break up some of the glow of the polishing, I have made many of these covers and sold to customers too over the years.

Rear Hub gets the same treatment and that’s an Original Dresda Boxed Swing arm that I chromed and boy does it look sharp on the bike, it really does accent that rear end.

I used Cow Hyde to upholster the Custom seat and used Gel foam for a comfortable ride and its a nice riding position with that 5 inch stretched gas tank.

Everything I feel on this Motorcycle Flows well, its such a warm color too, I hope that you liked just some of it as I know that you understand how much effort goes into creating a machine such as this.

Time has moved on and this bike now resides somewhere in Australia and hope the owner is having fun with that Custom built CB750 HONDA.

I took this bike to many shows all over the USA and had many great conversations with like minded people.

I think this was Seattle show but ALL the shows were super fun and made so many friends and acquittances etc. it’s a healthy industry now and I am still making many parts for these super fun inline four motorcycles.

I used a headlight from an Old DeSoto Automobile as I think it fitted in between the fork ears really well, I hand drilled the front Rotor using my drill press, I even made the bike stand.

One of the last photos before the bike made her way to the other side of the world but am proud to say I created that Monolith of a Café Racer.

As you can see, on the Right side of the bike, I fitted an old 1974 ARD Magneto, that too is Belt driven and gave the bike its Status Quo, she sure does sit well on the Tarmac too.

I used a Pontiac Taillight for the rear on My Custom Rocket Four seat assembly and I still sell them to this day and send all over the Globe.

Thank you for reading my Blog today, I just wanted to show you a bike that I really did have fun creating and love seeing what you lot are putting together. Below is a before and after shot.

Have fun with what ever you are creating and if I can help, you can call, email or even text me, I am always here to advise Thanks again and keep on building and Riding.

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Years gone by.

Jeez, time does scoot by a little too fast for my liking these days, but I came across this I had done many many years ago, it was for a Polishing company and it did bring a smile to my face, so- I thought that I would share it with you lot.

Hope you are having a good week and maybe getting some time to work on your project at home?

 

How to build a cool set of forks for your CB500-CB550 or CB750 Honda SOHC Motorcycle.

I get so many emails asking about certain things that I create on the bikes and parts that I build here at my place, so- I thought I would do a little Blog on my Custom Fork service that I have been doing for many years and shipping these set ups all over the Globe. So below is what they start off like, just a bog stock set of worn out, tired, telescopic front forks.

These came off a bike that was parked up many years ago and the Customer purchased the complete bike for a decent price and wanted to take the machine apart and create his own cool Custom ride, he wanted my fork service and this is a Blog on what I did.

Looks like Dogs or cats or something Hairy had been crawling across this bike for some time, also if you look, you can see the tubes are toast as there are many pits in the tubing and hard chroming these days has got so expensive to do.

The Caliper will need to be completely torn apart and I will Blog that a little later on, this is not an uncommon thing to have sent to me to fix and rebuild and hope you enjoy this little journey of what I did to get these set of forks into a really Custom looking piece.

The main goal is to take everything off, then clean up on the outside and then once happy with that, the fun begins in the transformation of these fork tubes.

There is an array of parts that I need to rebuild these and as you can see I have everything for this to fix and get the guy a really nice set up for his Motorcycle. If you look, you can see I machined the lower Fork Stanchions and put grooves in the legs for a great Custom Finished set.

Above, you can see I am about to fit brand new Honda Fork seals to the stanchions and what I personally use is some Home Depot PVC pipe that fits perfectly over the fork tube and allows me to use the tube as a Press to get the seal to slide into the recess inside the fork and not damage the rubber of the seal.

I sat the forks on a small pad and then used my Rubber Mallet and gently tapped the pvc tubing until you feel the seal come to an abrupt stop, that means its into its seating and no more tapping required.

Once the seal is in, I plop the snap ring into its place using some circlip pliers, this holds everything in snuggly and no scratches on the fork tube. You can buy these at Harbor freight Cheap.

I use Brand New genuine Honda Dampener Bolts and crush washers, I like using the real deal and not the Chinese crap that’s out there, and this will have longevity compared to China’s inferior quality.

I also fit Brand New OEM Rubber Fork Dust Caps and to really give it that Custom touch, I fit Chromed steel Dust Covers to finish off the polished Finned Lower Stanchion.

See what I mean?  It really does complete the front fork in dressing the part to show you this is no run of the mill ride, it has attention to detail.

I finish the lowers off by Polishing the clamps and adding stainless Lock washers and stainless flanged nuts, this is a great look and easy to get a wrench on to remove the front wheel at anytime.

I cleaned up the dampeners and spring and set a pre load using 4 stainless washers, an old Motorcycling Racing trick, I also do not ever use standard fork oil, I do like the old guys did and use ATF and that’s so much cheaper to purchase too.

How do I know how much to put in forks? As many of the years of the CB750 have different lengths of lower stanchions, so the volume of fluid changes.

As you can see, I have the Factory specs for the Honda CB750s right at hand and actually sell a book with all the settings in , so I can easily look up year and model to get the capacity required.

Bang on the money and now this is all ready to button up and get the forks completed for the Customer.

See, they sure do look Custom now and am happy with the way these look and the preload is right on the money too, I also use Brand new fork Caps to give the top to bottom New Parts finished look.

So there you go, a Custom rebuilt set of forks that I offer and boy do they look sharp, not cheap but add the parts up yourself, and you will see this is a good deal.

I sure hope that you liked this little Blog, thank you for following me and purchasing my parts, its my passion and Career.