Finally the paint is done.  After lashing the tank down to an inch of its life,  the last tank I buffed ended up flying across the room, I gave it a good buff.  It turned out nice. 

I also polished the gas cap and cover.

You can see the lace pattern better when I use the flash, the colour is off though, it's more like the other photos.

I played with the seat so that it would latch correctly, now it snaps on like a dream.

I slapped the new petcock on, nice and shinny.  The old one was a mess.

A couple more shots just for the hell of it. 

Superdog's a blur,  I hope he leaves my drapes alone.

I gave brazing a shot, it might come in handy latter.  I like the contrast of the metals.

No more electrical issues

I don't know why the last stretch of a project is always the longest.  Maybe you get lazy, maybe frustrated.  Maybe you kept for last the stuff you dislike the most.  Either way winter is coming and this bike still isn't done. 

I had assumed things about this project that got me into trouble.

Firstly, I assumed that I had amber running lights at the front of this thing.  I was very sure and this is why we kept blowing fuses left right and center.  It turns out that the stock front ambers had only two wires.  That means no running lights.  *^%#@ me. 

And B,  I assumed that a white wire is hot and a black wire is ground.  Apparently Chinese LEDs use whatever wires they feel like so the opposite was true.

Mr. G paid me a visit and his methodical ipso facto approach to this was more fruitful than my swear, yell and plead approach was. 

Once these two facts where known the rest fell into place.  We did have a "what the @#$" moment when I connected only one wire to a stock lamp I was using for troubleshooting and the damn thing lit up.  I looked at Mr. G with the other wire in hand and once again swore.  The look on his face was worth it.  After a second or two of  what the @#$^% we figured out the body of the lamp was grounding on the rad support.  Freaking vintage stuff made of metal. 

Some crappy wiring had to be fixed.  I'm nor comfortable with stuff like this:

The wires to the battery box got lengthened.

Now everything works like it should.

I'm still at it

I know it's the end of the summer and I had it in my head that this thing would be out but earlier this spring.  No excuses, I got frustrated, lazy, sidetracked, so on, so forth. 

Remember that scrape on the headlamp ring,

 just like that, gone.


It turns out that the CX500D and the CX500C have slightly different front fenders, so after unsuccessfully trying to put my finished fender on I realized I had to start over again.

 The brake lamp is now permanently mounted to the bracket thing and that is permanently affixed to what's left of the back of the frame.

I hid the wiring for the brake light using a little black thing and some precisely bent copper tubing.   I'm not kidding when I say precise,  I must have frigged up that thing half a dozen times with a little hand bender fighting me all the way.  It worked out well though.

A little magic stuff called Shoe Goo and it's stuck in place plus I'm sure the wires won't chafe on the copper. 

With the help of  Mr. G the pipes where wrapped.  Nice job if i do say so myself.

I got some Kuriakin Switchblade pegs for the VStar, I like.

My friend Mr Double J dived into the world of body work.  He fixed some issues on his wife's bike, hell yeah she rides too, and took the opportunity of changing the looks a little.

Hang to paint...

and put together.  Not bad, lots of swearing went into that.

Good night.

Getting close

We are nearing the home stretch on this puppy.

As I've said before, my front wheel was a little wobbly.  Not straight enough to pass a safety.  Luckily I have a spare one on the other bike.   I got the gents at the Honda dealership test it and it proved fine. 

Here it is getting painted.

Put the new rubber on it and there you have it.

I've mounted the solenoid with its bracket in the battery box.

With the fender liner gone I made a little shield to keep stuff off of the wiring.

I am also missing the rubber bit of the shifter, perfect opportunity to make something different.

You can see from this photo all I have as a little metal nub.



I used an old wrench, some very small copper pipe and some Shoe Goo for that non slip rubber coating.  Not bad.

The rectifier is going under the seat pan so I fabed up a bracket for it.  I bought a reciprocating saw to do the job.  Jeez that was too easy, I should have bought one of these a long time ago.

The paint has been set sanded and now I'm carefully buffing it. 

About half way there.

Looks like a Cafe Racer

The boys where over yesterday to help me make some headway on this project.

We got the rear signals installed and partially wired.  I used some brass fittings to clean up the look at the back, a little Shoe Goo held that in place.  Awesome stuff, thanks for the tip Mr.G.

Mr. G confirmed my issue with the battery box.  Here is my redesigned box.

Sorry Mr. G, no more anonymity.

The handlebars went on along with the levers and grips.  The cables got connected correctly the first time, that's 'cause I didn't do it.

Mr. G showed up in an official pit shirt... close enough.  We later wondered why Ski-Doo pit crews wear short sleeved shirts?

Mr. Double J and Mr. G tackled the electrical.  I have no clue or patience when it comes to that stuff.  Thankfully these two have plenty of both.

Some of the wiring is custom made. 

At one point we managed to release a little Japanese smoke,  Mr. G was ready though, just in case. 

Remember the spaghetti I had in the headlamp bucket?  It's back with a vengeance.  Mr. Double J was happy I labeled all the connectors.   He'd have been happier had I labeled them all correctly.  I had a couple labels that didn't make sense. 

But...

... in the end, tee hee, the bike had front signals and the headlamp works. 

We still have to figure the running lights and the LED blinkers.

The cooling system is back in,

and the exhaust is mounted.  It will come off again to get wrapped but the dry fit confirms all is well.

We test fitted the tank and seat to see what room we had underneath and it looked good.

Hey, that's starting to look like a custom motorcycle.

I swing a leg over to check out the riding position.

It feels good.

Mr. G approves.

Overall a very productive day. We are that much closer to finishing our first custom Cafe Racer.

Thanks gentlemen.