Southern California new guy

[jiggliemon]

Hey Everybody,
As pre the instructions, I think I might be a little detailed about the project im working on so as not to be considered spam .

I bought this bone stock Honda CB550 in pretty amazing condition. There was some rot in the pipes, and alot of the finish was trash, but overall the bike was excellent.


The bikes biggest problem was the fact that it wasn't holding a charge. I went through all the electrical components, replaced the regulator, replaced the rectifier - yet it still wouldn't hold the charge. Eventually my frustrations lead me to disassemble the whole damn thing to see if I could find a hidden cause. Wel I did find the cause; it was a grounded out wiring harness.





Like any good tinkerer. Once the bike was apart and the problem was found, I had to wonder what other problems might lie underneath the 40yr old charm. So I began to tear it apart even further. Starting with the engine:







As you can see the carbon build up was astounding. It took several minutes on each valve to get the carbon buildup off. Also the pistons had roughly a millimeter of carbon as well. The disassembly continued:

[IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5960878/cb550/IMG_0136-disassembly-07.jpg[IMG]

Up until this point I was debating on weither or not to do a restore or a customization. I felt bad converting a 40yr old bike with 6500 miles into something that it wasn't intended, however - I was never much of a "restorer". I need to create, not assemble. This was when I decided to make the bike my own.

Ever since I saw this bike I knew I wanted to do the GSXR front-end swap. It just looks mean on the old frame:


I had some custom exhaust pipes made (I don't have a bender).

[HEATNBEAT]

Hi and welcome Chase!