golden hour
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This is the hook that I removed last week. It kept the seat from sitting on the frame correctly.
The old seat latch doesn’t get in the way at all, so I’m going to leave it there for now. Maybe this winter I’ll grind it off.
The cafe seat’s mounting bracket requires two holes. The CB550 only has one. Gotta drill a second.
I measured it perfectly before I drilled.
Ready to mount.
Benjie does awesome work. I’ll always buy my cafe racer seats from him from now on.
High temperature black headers.
Very unassuming. I like that the pipe travels beneath the bike.
Didn’t come with instructions. It wasn’t obvious at first, but I eventually figured it out.
Self portrait.
There was a good sized gap between the bolt, the harness and the frame. I assume the gap was there to accommodate for the passenger pegs. A couple of washers fixed that up, and it was a snug as bug in a rug.
I couldn’t be happier. It fits perfectly, it looks great, and it purrs like a big cat.
I dig this tool.
I bought it at Harbor Freight. An inexpensive Chinese made 4 inch angle grinder that I got for $16 bucks.
My friend Clint would scold me for buying cheap chinese tools, but I love them.
I never used one before, so I didn’t know what to expect in terms of safety, so I bought some $1.99 gloves, $1.99 googles, and some dust masks.
My cafe seat came in last week and as I mocked it up I noticed there were two hooks that I needed to grind off so it could fit properly. I decided I wouldn’t post pics of the seat yet…. that’ll be for another post.
The Honda CB550 has a second hook near the tank. I assume its another helmet hook. I can’t think of what else it could be.
They pull off easy by bending them back and forth with a pair of pliers.
I realized this is something that should have been done with the bike stripped down to the frame, something I didn’t plan on doing until this winter. I just covered the bike with a blue tarp. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of debris and sparks. Zero debris, lots of flying sparks. I had to put on a hat.
Er… my first time…
Hook by the tank.
This winter I’ll have the frame sandblasted and powder coated. Until then I thought I’d better shoot the exposed metal with rust preventative primer. I don’t care about how it looks now. The seat will cover this.
Not pretty, but no one will see this.
Most people don’t care for it, but I love eBay. I have been selling everything I’ve been pulling off the Honda CB550. Even the items I didn’t think anyone would want.
I’ve also been keeping track of my sales and purchases. In fact I have a pretty geeky spreadsheet that covers all my expenses and profits from this caferacer project.
This table illustrates only the items that I stripped from the bike.
Not bad for 30 year old parts. I netted nearly $300 dollars. That profit helped pay for my brand spanking new exhaust.
I haven’t come out ahead, nor have I broken even, but the profits from my eBay auctions have cut my costs on this project significantly.