1976 honda cb750 cafe racer hotrod

canadian shaun young sent a nice email tonight, eh. here is what he wrote:

while researching sohc.net forums for info on the cm400 bobber project i was working on, fell in love with cafes. i found a good deal on a cb750 for 400 bucks and snatched it up.

in september of 2010 i started tearing it down while thinking about what my direction was going to be. i wanted it to be “sportier” than just a classic cafe so i decided to stick with the basics; silver, polished aluminum/steel, and white. in my mind that looks lighter, and therefore faster. everything came from that.

i decided to go “all out” with a modern front end, sourcing a 2005 ninja 636 front forks and lower triple trees off ebay for 180 bucks. the stem was milled down to accept the cb750 headset bearings.

the rear end needed a new tire, wheel, brakes, bearings, shocks, and blah blah blah…. all that was going to be costly! coincidentally, i found an ad on kijiji.ca for a scrapped kawasaki 2009 er6n 650 with only 310 miles and i asked the guy what he wanted for the hand controls, flasher relay, and the entire rear end including drive chain, shock, tire, wheel, and brakes. the answer was 650 bucks.

rebuilding the oem rear end for close to that wasn’t possible and i would still end up with what everyone else was running. the frame was chopped in front of the shock mounts and wideend 14 mm to take the new swingarm. new bungs welded into the frame to take the beefy 20 mm swingarm bolt and a side-mount welded in for the monoshock. nothing to it right?

i fabricated endless amounts of aluminum brackets for the headlight, turn signals, ignition switch/motor mount,and polished everything. the engine was completey rebuilt with new rings, cam chain, gaskets, seals, primary chain, tensioner, and more. i powdered the case with high temp silver and the cylinder and head was done in high temp white. it came out beautifully.

the airbox and oil tank were made out of a 3″ aluminum square tubing. i had an old piece of exhaust off of a snowmobile that had the perfect bend to squeze between the frame and shock to follow the exhaust line. the frame support over the shock was welded in to match this angle. the blue cone filter, matching the shock, topped it off.

blue is the only accent color on the bike. i found the fairing at a bike shop in dartmouth, nova scotia for about 25 bucks. the paint, which i did myself in my 10′ x 12′ shed, is white base with a clearcoat, then pearl and another clear. the tank is two-tone silver sahara effect and the same pearl on white. this was the hardest part. painting is difficult to do correctly and i missed the boat. it looks okay, i guess, but it rides f***ing great! it absorbs bumps like mad and is still stiff as f**k in the turns and feels right to me. i love the sound of the exhaust because it’s not annoyingly loud, yet cool as f**k.

dig this video of this cb750 hotrod:

shaun is working on other bikes and can be reached at cornerbrookcustoms at gmail.com.

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