It seems hard to believe that it has already been six months since I dragged home a rusty non running 1980 Honda CB650 Custom that I bought sight unseen at a local junk auction for the princely sum of 150 bucks.  If you didn’t see it back then click on this link to see the before pictures. Of course along the way there were various challenges & fun but I had a blast getting this one going and as unlikely a candidate as it was for a scrambler conversion it really did turn out that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts!

Normally I am a man of way too many words so how about if this time I just show you some pictures interspersed with a few tidbits of technical information?

1980 Honda CB650 with 1974 Honda CB750 gas tank & a set of 1979 CB650 standard wheels.

1980 Honda CB650 Custom Scrambler

The handlebars are courtesy of a 1970 Honda CL450 I just happen to have lying around. The tires are Shinko 705 adventure touring tires.

I wish I had a plasma cutter like this at home!

The green paint is a mixture of gloss green & flat black tractor enamel, & the exhaust is from Mac.

they don’t make machines like this vintage Lincoln welder anymore.

Don’t let the nasty looking lowers fool you, the forks have new seals, Progressive Suspension springs & fresh 10w fork oil. I decided to keep the 650 Custom fork legs for the scrambler conversion since they are longer than the 650 standard forks. When I raised the rear by switching to the 17 inch wheel & taller tire it helped to compensate for the extra rake of the custom and gave more ground clearance.

At this time I would like to give thanks to the wonderful folks who provide me with my day job that makes all of this possible.

Safe Harbor Access Systems for allowing me use of the old warehouse and some production areas for this photo shoot. Click here to see the stuff I spend all day drawing blueprints for! And if you see anything you need let them know where you got the information.

Here’s some more of that headlight bracket drillium that I showed you in my last post.

speed holes make it faster right?

I couldn’t stand the 85 m.p.h. speedometer that came on this bike, plus it was making a horrible squeaking sound, so on went the 140 m.p.h. speedo & tach from a 1976 CB750F, with green faces of course.

Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to attack this with the polisher?

K&N air filters hang off the back of the original carburetors, to learn what I did to them just click here. Other than a re-jetting

& a Mac pipe the engine is bone stock in all of it’s 11,000 original mile glory.

Slug & liquids? Sounds like the results of cheap beer & too many hot wings…

I put a lot of speed holes in this one ’cause I wanted it to be really fast 🙂

Holding up the rear is a set of Progressive Suspension 412 shocks with the heavy duty springs. I have been very pleased with this suspension, it gives a nice cushy ride over some pretty rough bumps but is still firm enough to rock out on a set of curves. Well at least as much as you can with a bike like this.

Sometimes you just find the perfect graffiti to really set a picture off.

Beware of the Dog

Peace Y’all

‘Psyco