Just a quickie

I did a little metalwork today on the throttle and I can now bolt it on. I ran out of time at lunch to do the clutch side but I got started. After I get the switchgear sorted, it will be on to brakes and/or carbs. I have to have a block of time set aside for the carbs. I only get about 20 second spurts before I have to break up a fight or make chicken nuggets or wipe an ass. And when I get home from work there's all the stuff that goes on with my kids... You'd better let that one sink in a little. O.K., better now? Let's move on, shall we? I shuffled the links in the blogroll a little, killed a few and added two. There are a million blogs out there about motorcycles. The ones about sportbikes and cruisers are all full of words and reviews and blah, blah, blah. The chopper blogs have pictures of guys making shit. Riding and making shit is what motorcycling is to me. Although, I'm glad to see Erik Buell is building bikes again. I know business is business but it seemed shitty what happened between him and The Motor Company. I digress. Check out The Zen of Neato but be warned some of the content is NOT always SFW. The Sideburn blog is in the same vein but centers around flat track racing mostly in the U.K. It's making me want to find an SX650. I know where there is an SR500 I could have for almost nothing... Yeah, right. Anyway, Cool blogs that have a ton of links to plenty of other chopper sites. I really like to see folks using their heads, hearts, and hands to build something special. That and green metalflake shit. I don't want to ride them, it's just that the internet is a visual medium and I love looking at them. O.K., I kind of want to ride them too. I know where there is a 69 Sportster...

CB400F Phase One

The idea with this bike is a 70's club racer style. Back before the Superbikes existed, stock looking Japanese fours had big oil coolers, black headers, gold mag wheels and contingency decals on their stock bodywork. Outfits like Moriwaki, Yoshimura, and Race Crafters were building these bikes for guys like Reg Pridmore

I've got my work cut out for me

Notice that pile of dirt back there? The float needles over there? This stuff was all in a little plastic bin when I got the bike. I'm surprised more stuff is not missing. Those jets are a joke. Whatever those spring things are, I'm missing one. Sigh. Sorting parts for the epic carb rebuild. This one's gonna be fun.

Playing in the rain

I took the opportunity of a nice wet driveway and did a quick photo shoot of my new Honda. I've never really

New rolling stock

1975 Honda CB400f. What a sweetheart, eh? Super Sport. Hey, how ya doin' buddy? Well gee, I'm super...sport. O.K. I apologize for all the cheese. I'm just a bit giddy about my new acquisition. The entire time I owned the CB550K I resisted temptation to chop it up and turn her into a cafe racer. A Velocette she would never be but I dig the look. I sold the bike to one of my neighbors and he rides the crap out of it and seems quite happy with it. It's also cool that he rides it past my house twice a day, weather permitting, so I get to see and hear it. When I sold it I was thinking someday I'd like to get a CB350 four and build a cafe racer. I don't know why but I have a thing for small bikes. My choice of a 350 rather than the 400 was easy; 400's are superior in pretty much every way to the 350 thus making them more pricey. I figured I'd never find one in my price range that wasn't all cut up. I was chatting with a guy I work with and mentioned that I'd like to find a 350 etc., etc... He says he has a 400 that he'd like to unload. I figure it's real nice and he wants two grand. He says he was asking $200 but he'd come down on that. I was completely geeked at that point. I could do nothing but bug him about it until yesterday. He said I could come look at it and he'd pulled it out of the shed. Well, I always have a ramp and tie-downs in the truck so I followed him home, and the 400 followed me home.

That should probably buff right out.

This thing is about as complete as you'd want it to be. All the hard to find stuff is there. The carbs are in pieces laying in a pile of their own filth. Sad really. I have a plan for her but it will probably be a very long time before this thing is running and anywhere near what I'd consider cool.

The guy threw in the pink milk crate for nothing.

I was shocked at how small this thing is. I hadn't seen a 400 in the flesh in a very long time and it's much smaller than the 550. It's about like the RD350's. I've got a love for the early 70's roadracers and this thing will probably get the look of Kaz Yashima's so called Z-1 killer.

Apparently, Kaz is still around but is not on the internet. As nice as the stock pipes looked on the 400's I might have to talk the Old Man into builidng a set of pipes like that to anger the neighbors. The seat is decidedly Laverda SFC. Oil cooler, giant NGK sticker on the tank, Z-1 steering damper. I like it. I've got a set of clip-ons I think I can make work. The bike in the picture has a Lester mag on the rear. I used to have an aversion to mag wheels on bikes. Now I think I'd sell a kidney for a set of pristine gold Lester's for the little CB. I won't be racing or anything and I'm not going to put 10 grand into a bike to make it half as fast as an R6 but I could certainly achieve that look for a reasonable price and that's really all I'm shooting for anyhow. More or less reliable, fun, and aesthetically pleasing in a very 1975 wabi-sabi sort of way. That's it for now. Rock on.