Regulars Rides: Steve's Honda CB550 K3 Shed-Build

[Music] my name's steve marshall and i've brought down to the bike shed my chef bill on the CB 550 k3 from 1978 i bought this bike in 2015 it was an absolute mess and i decided that i'd needed a challenge a particularly difficult point in my life so when i bought the bike it was in a complete state i'm sure that we're gonna show a few pictures of it but to give you a few ideas i was able to put screwdriver straight through the original swing arm the engine was completely wrecked it didn't run the brakes didn't work it was just the real snotter during this whole process i decided that i better start riding and so the funny thing here is i didn't actually have a CVT or passed my test so i submitted the bike to the bike shed so under the shed builds category and i was massively made up that i was accepted on the bike was accepted in so that was an incredible experience totally humbling and loved every minute of it so since that particular point I've actually passed my test and I've been able to reap the rewards of the effort that went into the build and so I spent about two and a half years restoring the bike and getting it into a position where I could think about customizing it properly so the bike itself has had quite a bit of work done to it as much of it done by me as possible starting with the front wheel I chose the Avon Road riders I'm not regretting that choice nice and sticky really good profile and they fit the silhouette of the bike these are the original rims which were again a complete mess those sandblasted and powder coated by Hagan and they also built the wheels up with stainless spokes I've put two rotors on here so I engineered a second rotor and caliper into the equation all braided stainless steel lines from atl completely reconditioned the forks again they were covered in muck so they were really really nicely sort of sent it down and polished lots and lots of elbow grease moving up through the bike we've got a cheap and cheerful ebay special headlight which does seem to go with the bike and particularly proud of these indicators which I managed to lathe fitting for and then weld on to the the the triple tree I've ground down the top crown so we've got a really slimline look here and we got a Daytona speedo which keeps wanting to break there's a specific bracket that I had to make to get this fit and really nicely with the silhouette of the the bike just in here and I put SMO tone switches on the handlebars really really nice bits of kit and they fit again with the the chromed headlight I think this break this front break is an OEM gold wing replacement to go with the extra power needed for the discs and as we move on to the tank a lot of work was done to try and slim line this top flap this filler cap moving down through the the bottom of the tank this was quite an unsightly mess there's been a lot of work go into this particular tank loads of filling and had a few mishaps with the paint so this paint was actually done by a really nice chap called Kevin Dailey look him up I've tried to make this whole bottom end of the tank really really slimline to fit with this particular line on the rear cowl so that has been filled at the bottom there's bit of work to be done on the engine few sort of cursory leaks as I've got the bike running but it seems to run really nicely now I've replaced the point's ignition with an electronic ignition straight from David Silver's seems to be working brilliantly obviously fully rebuilt clutch and I work for pod filters I've had these carbs apart for probably five or six times which is a proper pain in the ass I would recommend thinking very carefully about the the jetting with pods taking us through the rest of the engine we've got these new pipes fitted on here these are stainless units from Steve carpenter over in California really nice guy you can get those from coffees cafe racers if we move through the frame a lot of this has had some remedial work done to it so as it said at the beginning loads or holes loads of rust which I've plugged and smooth down really ran down nicely then these rear set mounts here they're kind of an unconventional riding position but it works for me gets me right down over the bike and I really like the way that it feels this thing has been replaced because the original one I was able to put screwdrivers straight through she's probably the only major part of the Buy I've actually replaced moving through here we've got the Hagin shocks great great performing bits of kits and again hey gong did some of this this polishing for me on this rear hub what I've managed to do is the ethos of the bike was to try and hide as much as possible and keep it as simple as possible and so you can't see right here but I've hidden the brake switch down here reroute 'add the rear sets brake linkage to go past these shocks if we move up the bike this was a unit that I made completely myself out of fiberglass it's my first time fiberglassing and so I'm really really pleased with the way that that's come out and it fits really nicely with the leather seat that I made myself as well if anybody's doing leather work themselves buy yourself some strong leather needles because I went through about three or four of them whilst those doing this there's some pretty cool hidden parts of this bike mainly the indicators which I frenched into the rear here along with the rear light and brake light sort of matches the indicators on the front and then the starting process for the bike is using this really nice new M lock which is part of the M gadget or most of gadget M unit under here which I've also under which I've also hidden the regulator rectifier and so starting the bike it's just like that so that's pretty much it for the bike I don't really Witter on too much I've thoroughly enjoyed building it and thanks to the support of the bike shed in the shed builds so now I've given you a few of the details about the bike I just want to give you a taster for what this thing sounds like it does have an electric start but it also has a kick start so it's pretty cool to use that right you [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Bike Shed Motorcycle Club

Views: 519,885

Rating: 4.9656653 out of 5

Keywords: honda cb550, cafe racer, honda cafe racer, cb550 cafe racer, cafe racer build, honda cafe racer build, honda cafe racer exhaust, honda cb550 cafe racer, honda cb550 four, honda cb550 cafe racer build, cb550 cafe racer build, cb550 cafe racer sound, cb550 cafe racer exhaust, honda cb550 cafe racer sound, the bike shed, custom motorcycle, motorcycle, motorbike, motorcycle build

Id: P8LTY3yh8tE

Length: 6min 38sec (398 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 06 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/joe4201]

Looks nice, also awesome to see that he resurrected an abandoned bike rather than chopping up a perfectly good one.

[u/[deleted]]

I love it man, all I would change would be higher handlebars. It would be like a cafe racer street fighter

[u/Shelby_and_beyond]

That is damn sexy. Those rear lights tho, that’s something else! Very slip stream.

[u/chadmasterson]

I had that exact bike and did not do this kind of justice to it.

[u/BlindBeard]

Very clean, and bet that gray paint looks even better in person!

edit: HOLY SHIT IT SOUNDS AMAZING

[u/E-Step]

Man he wasn't joking about the position of those rear sets.

[u/Tanuki55]

Anyone know any youtube channels that are for fixing up bikes? I would love to get into it / have some nice background noise while I work.