Missin' The Ol' 79' CB650 Cafe Racer

Decided to sell the 1979 Honda CB650 a while back, but damn am I missing that bike...

CB650 Top End Overhaul

Our cafe racer is one of those bikes that runs like a champ and then when you decide to fix one issue numerous others start to appear and have to be done immediately. We have only been left on the side of the road once due to our diligent maintenance but this fix hopefully curbed a much larger issue about to appear.

After one afternoon of riding I noticed a breathing or weezing sound coming from the left side of the engine. I shrugged it off thinking the carbs might be a bit clogged and needing some cleaning. As it turned out, they needed cleaning again but the bigger issue was that a top bolt securing the valve covers on the cases had stripped loose and shredded the threads. Initially a helicoil was going to be the first option but doing it right required a top end tear down to avoid any possible drill shavings in the engine compartment or over drilling into the rocker arms.

We pulled the spare engine out from the under the fab table and tore down that top end as well to trade out for parts. After polishing up the cylinder head and cleaning it up completely the switch over was complete without having to redo any threads via helicoil or going to a larger bolt size. Having a spare engine for parts has been absolutely necessary for this bike as its so hard to find parts for these engine years as they were only around from '79 to '82. Once we get our new carb kits in we can pop in the new gaskets and get the vacuum pressure checked and be back on the road. Hopefully we can finally hit the fastest speed on this yet, pushing for 85 - 90 mph. Next upgrade will be a taller sprocket which should get us there.

Rusty Knuckles Featured In Cafe Racer Issue #13

We heard word a while back that our Honda cb650 Build was potentially going to be featured in Cafe Racer Magazine, well now we are for sure. Stoked for sure and honored to say the least about sums it up. Thank you to Marilyn Stemp, Mike Seate and the folks over at Dime City Cycles, we truly appreciate it. Go to your newstands to check it out or order it online.

Cafe Racer Magazine

Check out the build progress on Flickr

1979 Honda cb650

couple of pics of the bike when I bought it.

Honda cb650 build

here is the sketch I have been working on for my ideas on the rebuild. Picked up a "sorta" running 79 Honda cb650 for a couple hundred bucks and bound and determined to make it into a cool cafe racer chopper of sorts. I dig the original lines but now I want to tighten them up a bit. Have been rewelding the frame to make a lot of areas seamless in construction and will be polishing out the existing welds for a clean powdercoat with overpaint on that. Also working on milling down the tubes in the front end to lower the stance a bit, make it more aggressive in look. The big load of work though is tearing the engine down to the last nut and bolt and soda blasting all the cases to repaint and rebuild what has been sitting for years. Hopefully in the end I will get a great bike to run around town on that will have cost me overall about 2 grand and be fun as hell.

Honda CB 750 City Chop

cool honda chop from San Francisco. Simple, clean and perfect ride for the city. Good lookin' out Xander