Sometimes writing a feature for Moto Rivista is like doing a really hard but completely awesome jigsaw puzzle! That was the case with this Honda CB550 Café Racer we are featuring today.
We first stumbled upon this Honda CB550 Cafe Racer back in August when we featured ‘Andie’s 1975 Honda CB360’; you see the photos were both shot by ‘Some Guy Photography’. Thankfully after some digging we have finally got all the pieces to this ‘Jaybird’s Honda CB550 Cafe’ puzzle and we can now share it with you!
Some things are just meant to be, like Jay and this Honda CB550. Jay finally took the plunge and purchased this off a friend after about 5 years of it popping up, in and out of storage and begging Jay to notice it.
Jay knew straight away he was going to follow the Café route for this build. Knowing he had a decent platform to begin with, Jay stripped all the parts down to the engine and gave the bike a good cleaning.
The engine of the Honda CB550 was polished, cleaned and was coated with duplicolor engine primer and silver paint. Jay also got his front fender trimmed up and made a few small sections of holes, which looks quite interesting.
The old tank was nice but needed a new skin, the tank, side covers and the headlight bucket were primed, wet-sanded and painted in a beautiful Celeste color. The front and rear wheels were also cleaned and painted in black. Jay’s friend donated a nice pair of Clubmans Bars for this Café Racer project.
The tail section of the frame was chopped down for the new rear section; Jay chopped the hoop off an old swing arm stand and welded it on. Jay did the hand fabrication on the seat pan and the rear cowl and got them bolted down and painted. Jay also completed all the electrical and wiring loom on this sweet Café Racer. Jay was a bit nervous to attempt the seat himself but with a little help with the sewing he got it all done.
Launch the photo gallery and take a close look at Jaybird’s masterpiece!
