Finished my cafe, mostly.

The sun finally decided to shine today so I got
some pics of the bike all finished up and shining
in the sun(except for the new carb holders that
I ordered today, so riding won't happen till the
end of the week but the rest is done!)

What I did:
Built seat/tail section from stock seat pan and cb550 tank
Removed stock gauges and cluster replaced with 2.25" white faced gauges from www.mikesxs.com
Relocated key switch into headlight bucket
New progressive wound rear shocks
Replaced stock vm24 carbs with vm26s
K&N pods
Shortened throttle cables
Replaced points ignition with stock electronic ignition from 1981 kz650
Kerker K2 baffle fitted into MAC 4-1 can
Clubman bars
3" round bar end mirrors
Candy tangerine paint with ghosted spade on gas tank

To come this next winter:
Rear sets
Add a bend to the exhaust to kick the can upward to a nice angle
Polishing polishing and more polishing
Better seat!!!!

Nice looker you got there.
I have to get me some of those mirrors:cheer:

I got the mirrors on ebay and was kind of disappointed when they
showed up. The expanding mechanism in both mirrors didn't work
at all. I ended up taking apart my old bar ends that had the
expanding rubber plugs in them and using the innards from those
instead and they worked great. The mirrors are nice and don't
rattle and vibrate nearly as bad as the old stock ones I had,
I was just a little disappointed in the overall quality. All is
good now though.

VERY nice bike, great work!

Don't tip it though, those little mirrors will be the first to go!

Was the spade laid down by spraying a coat, then putting that pattern down, spraying another, and then lifting it up?

Yeah, laying it down is NOT in my plans.
Not sure how he did the spade. The paint is the only thing
on the bike that I didn't do myself. He told me that he used
both pearl white and a heavy flaked silver for the underpainting
and that he used more pearl white in the spade, but other than
that I don't know the details about it.

Absolutely beautiful anarki. You've done an excellent job, you should be very proud.

You mentioned that you got shortened throttle cables. How did you do this? Did you buy them or modify the existing ones? I'm in the same boat as you with the clubmans and my throttle cables stick way out and look horrible. Need to fix them over next winter.

Nice job. Colour is great.

Love the wide tail piece...

That seat is well, I don't have words for it ... LOL!
Sorry, couldn't help myself. You already mentioned it has to go...

Paint looks sweet but as you mentioned for god sakes "Polishing polishing and more polishing".. Please, this would make this bike truly stand out. Buff the aluminum and with that paint job, this will turn heads everywhere.

Other than time on your part, it shouldn't take that much effort to go from nice ride to wholly shit awesome...:woohoo:

Old Man Rock

Deacon, I had new stock cables shortened at my
buddies store. I don't know exactly how he does it
but he's got a set up to cut them down and reattach
the linkage anchors. They came out looking great, I
had him cut 2.5" off the length when I bought the new
cables and I think I could actually lose a couple more
inches and be better off. I still have quite a bit of
extra length. If you have any good shops in your
area stop in and ask if they can shorten cables, I
didn't know it was possible either until my buddy asked
if I wanted him to shorten them for me.

Very nice! The more I look at this, the more I am thinking of letting someone else paint my bike as I haven't painted before.

On the short cables, another option is to talk to Jeff at Z1, different bikes may have the same ends but be shorter overall. That is what I did on mine.

anarki650 wrote:

Deacon, I had new stock cables shortened at my
buddies store. I don't know exactly how he does it
but he's got a set up to cut them down and reattach
the linkage anchors. They came out looking great, I
had him cut 2.5" off the length when I bought the new
cables and I think I could actually lose a couple more
inches and be better off. I still have quite a bit of
extra length. If you have any good shops in your
area stop in and ask if they can shorten cables, I
didn't know it was possible either until my buddy asked
if I wanted him to shorten them for me.

Thanks anarki, I'm going to put that on my "to-do" list for this winter. Don't want to bother with it now and impact the riding time

Nice bike man! im working on the cafe myself, how are the clubmans? do they hit your tank? im worried i'll finish the tank and then when i get clubmans it'll hit the tank and scuff her all up. I know its probably not an isue when riding, but in the parking lot? just wondering b-4 i order em. is here a better brand/bend than another. thanks. and nice bike.

P.S. ....no directionals (left arm?)