Paint On, Pain Off

So the headlight looks so good on the front of the bike, I'm contemplating leaving the faring off and going old school. That said, even if I sell the faring, I need to get the rust off and fix the mounting hardware. So off it came with a little BoltOff. Then I soaked it in CLR for a day and the rust dissolved away. painted with a couple coats of engine enamel and it looks as good as, used.

I also started stripping the gas tank with Citristrip. We've used this non-toxic chemical stripping gel all over our house and it works great, cleans up good and it is doing an amazing job on the tank. The trick is patience. Put a coat on and walk away until the next day -- it will be all bubbled up. We scrape it off and wipe off the scraper in a shopping back held over our other hand like a glove. Works like a charm. The tank is about 80 percent done already. Extra coats are needed, but not a lot of elbow grease. The tank cover, I dry sanded down and covered with two coats of duplicolor primer and one coat of engine enamel in black. This will be a contrast color, still not sure what the final color will be.

Pipes are covered in stove black after some CLR rust removal. The power chamber -- which was completely rust covered got the same treatment and all looks good. Got it all done, just before the bad weather moved in. Will get pictures soon, I promise!

She likes it electric

Okay, so I've got the headlight on and most of the nest of wires fits in the headlight bucket, so it really cleans up pretty good. It is a really tight fit, and I have some wires that don't have a home yet, but I've successfully got the headlight and turn signals connected.

That said, two things are apparent:

1) The heavy turn signals have no place to go. They will fit on the headlight bucket, and they look kind of cool, but the stalks they came with ~barely~ fit. I've ordered a lightweight cheapo set from Hong Kong that I can attach to the faring directly. This will also solve another problem I have. I'm eliminating the chrome from this thing, since much of it is pitted and rusted. I'll cover all the chrome parts in a gloss black engine enamel. However, the retro turn signals are just too pretty to paint over. The cheapos will paint just fine and blend in instead of standing out.

2) Things aren't blinking. When I relocated my rear turn signals to the back of the bike, they wouldn't blink. Not sure if they did before, but I know they worked before teardown. So now the question is what has to be connected to get them working. When I hooked up the front turn signals, they lit up just right, but did not blink. So either I have a blinker unit that is shorted out, or all the connections need to be made to get it blinking. I'm not going to over pursue it at this point. My battery will need to be replaced for the new season and it may just be that I'm short of power to work the blinkers.

Meanwhile, the motorcycle is looking pretty good. I tried the faring out with the new bars and headlight and it's is going to look like a cool old BMW going down the road. Much work left to do however, and summer is coming.

Latest Build Update

Finally got some more work done on the CB400A this week. I tracked down the relay for the shift indicator and got that working. I also installed the grab bar on the back so I can strap my milk crate or bag there for grocery getting and trips to the library this summer. I rerouted the turn signal in the process but I couldn't get them to light up. Will try again now that the battery has a full charge.

I'm still waiting to install the headlight and turn signal. I need the headlight mounting brackets. The ones sent by Speedmotoco in Eugene were too small and so I sent them back and they are supposed to send me another pair. Speedmotoco did send me a nice black drag bar to replace the elk horn handlebars that came with it. The old bars were comfortable but you sat bolt upright like a scooter. I remember my old CB and how I longed to have lower bars for tucking in on longer rides.

I needed the drag bars to install the viper faring too. Got a little worried after I got the bars on because I thought that I would have to relocate the mirrors too, but it looks like they will sit just outside the faring. Still not sure how I'm going to mount the front turn signals. I'll wait until the brackets arrive and go from there.

Installing the drag bars was (almost) a snap. I popped off the throttle and right side controls with no problem, but I had to cut the left grip to get it off, then I found that the screw on the bottom of the left controls was about stipped and stubborn in the hole. Got to use my new impact driver for the first time in anger and it worked like a charm. Everything went on the new bars, but I left that screw very loose. Will pick up a replacement the next time I'm at the hardware store, then bin the rounded off one.

I've been watching lots of how-to videos on YouTube about motorcycle restoration. Found a great one on removing decals from your bike. The pulls decals off a fairly new Rebel with just WD40 and a hair dryer. So I gave it a go with my side panels and my heat gun.

Before WD40 and Heat Gun

This one looks okay, the other one was already damaged and got a little hot from the heat gun. It needs major sanding and repair anyway. 

The finished tank looks pretty good.

  The whole process took maybe an hour for all three pieces. The bigger decals came off easier than the little ones and my fingernails worked better than a scraper to get the first corner off. Have to keep a little heat on it while you peel I found. Best of all, they came right off with no damage to the paint below.

BikeEXIF recently featured this beautiful CB450 with rattle can paint job!

Not that the old paint is staying of course. I need to strip it down, fill the gaps, prime, paint and clear coat. I also have to bondo that big dent on the right front of the tank. Found some great YouTube videos on that too and I think I'll give it a go here at home. It the tank or the motorcycle was prettier, or worth more money, I'd invest in a pro paint job. But as it is a $600 bike, I'll do it myself.  It can be done. Just check out this rattle-can paint job! Here's a great write up the owner did of the full ressurection/resotration. Like me, he's taking a cheap bike and making a great one with as little expense as possible. Very cool!

I like these colors ... nice car too!

That leaves the question of what color to paint. Ever since I bought the bike, Amy has said that she loves the original blue. Now that the stickers are off, I can kinda see what's she's talking about. I can see I kind of Bugatti inspired paint scheme featuring blue and black. I've always loved the old blue Bugatti racers from the 1920s and '30s.

Covering the rusty chrome with high-gloss black and re-painting the surfaces with a Bugatti blue would leave me something like this picture at right. Now that's pretty!

On the other hand, I've also been pondering a more universal paint scheme inspired by -- of all things -- a music video. My plan was for a white tank, with black and school-bus yellow highlights everyplace else.
 I still love this idea, but I think I'll save it for my next bike.
 The "soul" of this old CB400 wants to be blue.

Much Much Go Interview

Ever since discovering Pipeburn Magazine I've been digging through the archives looking for inspiration amid the beautiful cafe customs. I've also been following links to some other great magazines, blogs and custom builders. The Cafe style really is the hot thing right now and I love the "fix what you found" mentality of taking common old UJMs and making them into custom rolling works of art.

I doubt my first venture will be as beautiful as anything on these pages, but it is great to take in such inspiration.

One of the best visual inspirations for the customization of my CB400 of course is the Much Much Go ... winner of a build-off down under and a very controversial show bike. It is stripped down, and customized with minimal cash. A low displacement Honda with Comstar wheels, white pipes and no chrome dangles the attainability of such beauty to backyard hackers with limited funds and unlimited dreams.

I really like the design and I might even go with the white pipes!

Anyway, found a great interview with the creator in Pipeburn and wanted to point to it: Check it out here: http://www.pipeburn.com/home/2010/12/7/interview-nick-much-much-go-eterovic.html

Pipeburn Portland and Cafe Racers on TV

A friend at work just told me about a new series that started last fall on Discovery HD about the Cafe Racer motorcycle scene (or the return of that scene. ) Cafe Racer TV looks like a very cool series. Unfortunately, it is on a channel I don't get, I'm still hoping I can pick it up on Itunes or Netflix. While looking for the website, I stumbled across Pipeburn magazine, a cool Cafe Racer influenced mag from the Portland area. Great stuff here! Pipeburn also had this killer photo spread on the CB above. Check out that paint job!

Motorcycle Graveyard

I remember being a kid with my dad, crawling around junkyards looking for Fiat parts. I miss those open repositories of parts and the treasure hunt adventure of searching through the industrial archeology of the recent past. My dad was an industrial engineer and so he taught me the beauty of the machine.

I wish I could fine a graveyard of old motorcycles that I could crawl through on a wet winter's day, finding that that diamond in the rust. I'm jealous of the folks at Classic Cycles in New York who had an opportunity to access such a graveyard of old motorcycles recently.Here's the story: http://dcclassiccycles.dynamitedave.com/graveyard.html

2011 a repeat of 2008? Ex-oil Exec says get ready for $5 gas

Okay, so when I was convincing my wife that I needed a motorcycle again, one of the reasons I cited was that it would be great to have something that was good on gas for short hops around the valley and maybe even driving to work. I bought my Ford F150 pickup just as gas prices spiked last time. It runs E85, which is cheaper, but that drops the MPGs down to about 13. My old CB400 on the other hand was spec'd at least 45 mpg. It would be much higher if not for the auto tranny.

Now, the ScooterScoop is saying gas prices are slated to go up again. ( 2011 a repeat of 2008? Ex-oil Exec says get ready for $5 gas ) If you didn't notice, gas this Christmas topped $3 a gallon for the first time. Even with the dip in demand of the global economy, they aren't making new oil.