CB650: The Jersey Devil Project

Right now, its just going to get a good coat of primer. In the end though, I'm planning on a traditional Honda red.

 

The stripped tank is now in (hopefully) capable hands of my buddy to have the whole welded shut. Might be a couple of weeks before he can get to it but I'm hopeful that it will go well and I will be able to proceed with pulling out the other dents instead of bondo-ing those three areas too.

While that's out being dealt with I'll try to get the garage cleaned up, the bike on my new jack stand, and the rear suspension off to start getting it cleaned up! I wish I had more time to work on it but hey, the little bits and pieces here and there shure have been fun!

Maybe I'll see if I can get someone to do a crappy Photoshop of what I'm wanting it to look like when its done so I have some more motivation

 

Here's a quick preview. The red will be lighter and the tail will be white, not silver. The headlight and gauges will lower so they are almost level with the top clamp
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The front fender will probably be replaced with a black brace, fork lowers painted black also. Hoping to use spoke wheels eventually. Engine is and will stay black also. It definitely needs work before I have a good scheme but it'll get there.

 

Well, I just ordered a set of brake lines with a splitter from an '83 CB650 which will allow me to use the spare air-link shocks I have. This is good news to me since I can run dual front brakes with these. I just have to find a good air line for the link, some 35mm clip-ons, and a fork brace (not sure what size yet), and the front end will be good to go in terms of mocking/fitting things up. Pretty easy to find the stuff on ebay so hopefully I can get them ordered this weekend. I found some relatively cheap V-Rod style headlights which is what I was wanting. I've not settled on gauges or controls yet though.

Next week I should have plenty of time to pull off the rear suspension, "de-tab" it, figure out what hardware needs to be replaced, and determine if I can run a longer shock without causing the chain to rub constantly. Also plan to remove the center stand finally. I may even be able to get the front end off and start fitting the new forks and brakes!

 

Its nice to know that others are interested! Major bonus is that this keeps me honest. I feel a bit embarrased if I start letting it set for too long. I'll try to post a picture or two at the end of next week to show what progress I have managed.

 

Today I managed to pull the carbs, front forks, bars, controls, crash bars, and lots of other items. My goal is to get to just the engine sitting in e frame by the end of the week. Hopefull I'll be Ble to start working on cleaning up the rear swing arm, etc as planned too.

Some findings: The spare forks do not have the same bolt pattern for the brake caliper plates and are longer overall, not sure I want to use them now. I cannot add 1" longer rear shocks without the chain slapping against the swing arm constantly so I won't be doing that either. My bike has an oil cooler plate on it, but no oil cooler. The path has been "jumpered" with an section of oil line. I will more than likely invest in a cooler and mount like the CB750 has just for the extra safety margin on heat. The engine paint is REALLY grubby. Looks like it will need to be cleaned and painted one way or another.

Trying to figure out how I can run dual front brakes... Would it too weird or be dangerous to put two left forks on it and rotate the one on the right side so the caliper is forward while the standard left one is back? Going too look into some CB650 Nighthawk forks which I believe are interchangeable with what I have and will allow dual front brakes. I might just cave and run a single since there appears to be nothing wrong with the current forks.
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Dale,

The more I look at the pictures you posted, the more I love the wheels on the red-framed Honda. So much in fact that I bought some gold/bronze high temp paint which I'm planning to use on the rims of the wire spoke wheels I plan to go with as well as the CAM covers and possible the tops of the carbs just to carry the color through the overall scheme.

 

Well I got it stripped down to just the engine sitting in the frame today. No new surprises, which was nice. The only thing that didn't work out is the paint I picked up for the valve covers which ended up decidedly more orange than I had expected. I'm going to run out to the store again soon and pick up something more in the gold family and try again. I'm leaning more and more towards modifying the rear section of the frame to get rid of the "seat bump" but obviously I keep going back and forth. Going to have a friend over in a few days/weeks to help me pull the engine then ill get to cleaning up the swing arm, frame, and decide on the rear frame.
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Yesterday I swapped out the orange covers for a set painted gold as well as sanding down the edges of the upper set of cooling fins to exposed aluminum... looks good! I'm hoping that I can get the engine pulled out this week as my dad will be around to lend a hand over the holiday. Then its time to start pulling the silver covers off the engine for bead blasting and paint.

Eventually I want to get everything powder coated (where applicable) but rattle can paint is cheap and will let me visualize the finished product.

I started looking into rewiring the bike this week and realized its going to be a bit more complicated than I was anticipating, but still doable. I stumbled upon a product by Motogadget called "M Unit" which uses a micro processor and presumably some solid state relays to control all the major electronics (lights, starter, etc) which seems really neat. Its a bit pricey and I'm thinking it could be a lot of fun to replicate on my own with an Arduino or similar board.

I dropped the rear swingarm off at my buddy's house to get the few spots that the factory didn't seam weld, seam welded. Then I'll strip it and paint it and it should be good to go. It sounds like he'll be able to get to the tank soon also which is pretty exciting as I'll be able to get the dents filled and it painted (again, rattlecan) to see how I feel about the gold and exposed metal bits.

Any thoughts on using drag-bars vs. clubman style bars? I'm also trying to find replacement gagues with analog displays and digital/electrical sensors to replace the cable drive stuff. Any leads? If I'm going with the Ardunio control, I might end up using it and some high speed servos to repurpose some busted eBay ones.

 

And the engine is out! Time to start de-tabbing up the frame and figuring out where bracing and welding needs to be added. I'm also going to have to clean and degrease the engine and trans so I can touch up the paint.
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Started on the frame today. Removed most of the tabs that I will not be using after its back together. There are a few stubborn ones that I could not get to with my angle grinder. I'll have to figure those out later.

I also started on a bread board for the electrical control system. I'm hoping to test in out in a couple of weeks (finding time is tough) then design and have a PCB made for the final product.

 

Last night I started wiring up the design I came up with for the electronics controller I want to use. Its based around an Arduino programmable microprocessor (currently I'm using an Arduino clone, the Diligent chipKIT Max32) which will let me program in whatever functionality I want. I intended to have a strobing high-beam during day light (safety/visibility to other drivers), fade in/out turn signals (just because), the brake like will flash 3 times before staying on when the brakes are applied (safety/visibility to other drivers), etc. Currently, I just have LEDs as stand-ins for everything but the components I'm using are rated high enough to power the actual devies as far as current and voltage goes. I still need to hook up the buzzer I have to provide the horn functionality, another light to show if the START signal is going out, add a photocell, put in the voltage regulator for the Max32, and add a couple of misc components here and there.

I got the idea from Motogadget's M-Unit controller which looks like a great product but doesn't do everything I wanted to be able to do. This approach also gives me an idea to learn a bit more about circuit design, programming, circuit components (using MOSFETs and Optoisolators), PCB design (I'll have to get a custom PCB made for this eventually), and it simplifies the wiring loom since I'll only have to run one wire out to switches then ground them locally instead of having the switches in-line with the lights, horn, etc.
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I think it could be done but will require some significant mods to the rear frame. Read back through and you'll see that I've been going back and forth on doing that drastic of a change or not. Yes, I agree it would look more like a traditional cafe bike but I also feel the quirky drop adds character. The particular bike I've started with is a cruiser so there's a bit of a challenge to overcome there. I may get a 1979 CB650 frame which doesn't have that dip and transplant all of my stuff onto it, have a custom rear end bent and welded on to replace the current one, or just leave it as is. I like quirky.

Thanks for the interest!




I finished grinding/cutting the in needed tabs off of the frame this afternoon. I'm making a list of the few items I need to get to be able to start getting the bike back together and running. The biggest thing I still need to do is to disassemble and clean the carbs. I think the circuit for the lights is going to have to set on hold until I get the engine running again but it was great to get the whole idea figured out and moved at least to concept.

 

Ok, so maybe I wasn't done cutting up the frame I've decided to remove the large supports for the passanger pegs that won't be going back on anyways and I'll be replacing them with an "adjustable" mounting location for some fairly basic rear-sets. I'm also taking steps to remove the seat rail bump but I'll follow up on that in another post.

I was able to source some stock 40 spoke, '80 CB650 wheels from ebay which I'm pretty excited about. I also bought a set of Euro style handlebars. I'm working on cleaning up the rest of the removeable covers on the engine (except for the clutch cover since I haven't drained the fluids yet) and will post a picture or two late this weekend.

This is so much fun!