SR400's at the Island Classic

Phew.

We spent a huge weekend at the glorious Island Classic.

While lurking around Reddit we came across these two pics of one of our racebikes taken by Alexander Brisbane. Many thanks to him for letting us stick them up here.

The rest of his photos can be viewed here.

(As an aside, this guy can take some pretty damn good pictures!)

Workingman's CB750 Finished

And there she is!

For the record it's a 1978 CB750 that was purchased for a very good price. As such the owner didn't want to get too fancy with it because it'd be a commuter - he lives at the end of a dirt road and said he was never going to bother cleaning the bike in it's life.

Fair enough. The engine was strong and had plenty of life left in it. The electrics were good and the carbs were cleaned so after a few cosmetic modifications it left us and, last we heard, is happily riding about in Victoria, looking considerably less naff than when we first placed hands on it.

We cut off a bunch of brackets, welded a new frame loop up, made a sidecover, swapped over some bars and fitted an aluminium tank - which required swapping out the tunnel, moving the fuel tap and various other bits of welding.

Stay tuned for some more updates on what we've been up to over the last few years!

Workingman's CB750 seat fitment and frame modications

Here's what the stock tail section on the CB750 looks like - grab rail, tool box and a brake light that can also be used to send semaphore signals between fleets.

The owner was after a seat that was a little funkier than stock, but still comfortable as the bike was his everyday rider. We sourced a shorter unit that looks pretty good, but the frame has to be modified fairly extensively for it to fit.

That's us getting enthusiastic with a red marker - that's all the bits that have to go. Here's the rear loop bend and welded in place, ready for paint.

Now at this stage we'd ordinarily like to take everything out and 2 Pac or powdercoat the frame but as the customer wanted a bike that he would ride every day and 'never, ever clean' it was hardly worthwhile. But here's the seat in place...

Perfect. We also added a neat little brake light and some indicators but, er, we forgot to take pictures. Sorry about that. When you're on a roll, you know?

While we were there we also cut and folded that aluminium sidecover. As with the tank there's no polishing there - just the fold and cut marks cleaned up.

Workingman's CB750 Tank

Here's a tank swap we did some time ago.

The bike is a late 70's CB750 and the tank is an aftermarket aluminium number designed for the SR400. We cut the bottom out of it and fitted a new tunnel, and moved the fuel tap over to the left hand side.

It's now gravity fed rather than vacuum. Slots in quite nicely.

And this is my favorite bit - we fabbed up some new mounts on the tank so it can bolt down to the bike firmly - the tabs allow the seat, which is also an aftermarket item, to lock surely in place.

The black CB750 all finished.

Here's the completed black CB750...

And some more detailed shots. The rearsets are a generic type and a backing plate had to be made from a 8mm plate of alloy, cut down to fit. The one plate also mounts the rear brake and exhaust to keep things simple and looking light.

A bank of the CR carbs. With the 865 kit on board, heavy clutch kit and with a proper exhaust the bike should run a lot better now than it did before.

That's a Joker Machine CNC'd top triple clamp. Bolted up nicely. I think a cast type might work a little better but to be fair it is an 80s CB750 so it makes sense. The speedo his a generic Posh unit or something like that and the bracket was made by us. It was drilled and finished for a row of idiot lights but after pairing down all the electrics it turns out that the bike can run without them.

Small headlight. The instruments, which are only just visible here have been chromed. It has a twin disc front set up and runs two brake lines the whole way rather than using a splitter box. The brake lines at the front and rear are stainless Goodridges.

The new exhaust system we fitted was okay, with the exception of the muffler. So we cut off around 8 or 9 inches and looked around the workshop for something that would suit. We scavenged this off our Bimota. 

And there you have it - a nice clean and simple CB750 cafe racer.