650 CSR Cafe Project

I bought a pretty ratty 650 CSR really really cheap. And I always wanted a cafe racer, ideally I'd have liked to use a CB750, but I got the CSR running with a windjammer and tour box for about $200.00. So here's some pix of the project so far:

Day 1: What an ugly morodycle, but it just may have some potential. The moron who had it needed to paint the windjammer and got rattle can overspray on everything in the front.



Another:


The first thing I needed to do was 86 the front end. I/m not sure what forks were onit, but they were easily three inches two long. And I need to bring the front end down for a cafe racer. The bike sat too much like a cruiser.

Strapping the front end to the garage ceiling to swap forks:


New front end, which was way more of a pain than I thought. The bi9ke had leading axle forks which meant with the forks I had to change wheel, axle, speedo unit, disc, fender, etc. I also put on the clubmans.



Getting rid of the rear fender and the tank:





I also fitted a yamaha FZR master cylinder

Here where I'm at now. I'm fitting the new tank, but I'm running into problems with the CSR frame dropping down soo much at the seat pan. The new tank rides higher and I not sure what I'm goin to do with the area right at the back of the tank. I need to find some way fro the seat to curve up to the tank, or else weld higher rails to the frame. If I go with the rails I don't know what I'll do with the area under the new seat then.

New Tank:





Here's one with the old tank for comparision, its not bad, but lloks more like a dragbike/bobber than a cafe racer.



Any ideas for the seat with the new tank?

Post edited by: Muddy, at: 2007/05/12 20:15

I realized that its a little hard to get perspective with the frame bare, so I snapped a couple more shots with the stock seat foam up against the tank:








Post edited by: Muddy, at: 2007/05/12 20:39

Does the tank sit higher in the back than the front? In some of the pics it looks slanted. I think you are going to need to clearance the tank a bit to let it sit lower on the rails. The big gap between the tank and the carbs is going to look a little funny. The seat should not be a problem. Just cut up some cardboard to get an idea of what the seat pan should look like. On a cafe racer the seat should only have a little padding on it anyway.

The tank is just sitting on the frame, I need to fab up some brackets that's why its leaning froward.

That's what I was thinking about the clearancing. I ws going to talk to some local custom chopper guys and see about widening the tunnel.

If I am correct that is a Benelli tank. I know there are popular on CB350's and other Hondas but I haven't seen one on a Kaw yet.

Yeah, I think its a benelli repro. I looked at the bike again, If I take the rubber mounts off the backbone I get it down to about 1/2 inch higher than the stock tank. Which isn't so far out of the ballpark.

I would of stuck with the original tank

del

JMKZHI wrote:

Muddy wrote:

The first thing I needed to do was 86 the front end. I/m not sure what forks were onit, but they were easily three inches two long.

Hey Muddy, since the fork overage has been mentioned a number of times in your posts, I've been kinda curious: How was the determination made? To satisfy my curiosity could you measure one of those forks? - it's easiest to measure from the bottom of the fork to the top of the upper fork tube where it meets the cap (to me anyway). The info would be helpful. Thanks.

As for the fuel tank, if the current one doesn't work out, a tank from a KZ750E just might be a direct bolt on - one of those holds about a gallon more than the CSR tank. JMK.

The forks were roughly 35 inches from the bottom of the fork to the cap.

del