[NeverEnough]

So I have an addiction to motorcycles.....

Just picked this up this morning at 9am, a 1979 CX500 custom.
I've always wanted of these bikes and absolutely LOVE how funky crazy cool they are, and when I saw the cheap as hell price on craigslist with the seller also looking for trades, I hit him up for a trade and scored BIG TIME!

History quick and first.
The guy I got it from LEGIT got it out of a barn, and it had 6,000 miles on it!
He put a new battery in it, gas, and tires and rode it for 5,000 miles total last year.
He was from what I can tell, the 2nd owner of it.
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So first things first- gotta get the bike running right again (was able to be started with jumper cables, which it idled with just fine with choke and that was all I needed to know) he said the battery won't hold a charge. And since these things are pretty well known for it, I'm guessing its a dead stator. But anyways gotta give it a good going through and figure out all the problems a 1979 bike has.

I'll get a dated picture for proof this weekend sometime, but for those of you who are my FB friends you obviously know I picked it up the morning hahaha.
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There is something so wrong, yet so right about this picture!



Pretty cool fuse box, all is good.




Old urinal looking thing- looks good!



Inside of the gastank- UNBELIEVABLY GOOD!



Rubber boots etc, all very good! And not a stripped screw head or bolt to be foun..... honestly doesn't look like this bike has EVER had a wrench turned on it!



Meh, not so good, airbox was full of gas....and I also had gas come pouring out of the overflow hoses as soon as I turned the petcock to reserve



Wow..... this bike is amazing, it is in SUCH GOOD, yet SHITTY condition it is ridiculous!



Pretty sure the seat hasn't been off in 25years...bolts were fairly rough to get out, and uhmmm yeah.....Barn dust. And just by looking at this you can tell nothing has ever been touched on this bike, it is all SO unmolested.:shocker:.....
But don't worry, I'm so ready to:CK187: it to pieces.



The headers might actually stay....



Well this has already been ignored hahaha



AAAMAZING! Tool kit with all the tools all wrapped up, AND the owners manual with what looks like the original owners bike's registration papers in it!



1/4" thick 5.5lb front rotor anyone?



YUT UGHH!!!! And fyi THAT IS NOT A SISSY BAR! That is actually a wheelie bar that has been bent from so many drag race launches!:LolLolLolLol:




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End goal is to have this be my daily driver bike that looks INSANELY unique, is great for a daily driver, and is a bike that I don't mind racking up tons of miles on.


My build plan is-
-Get it running and roaring with the press of a button.
-Go through everything and replace what would possibly cause problems in the near future and reduce its dependability as a commuter daily driver bike.
-LIGHTEN THE HELL OUT OF IT.
-Suspension, USDs no doubt, and monoshocked.
-Crazy cool tail/seat
-Some HP mods
---------OVERALL GOAL: Make it look like a 2014 modern motorcycle


============BUILD COST---- I traded a 12ga shotgun for it!:LolLolLolLol:

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Youtubed......Just missing the blackmagic video that is on a facebook link here.

This facebook link is of airbox off, old gas, and carbs not cleaned, and bad old muffler on it still.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202550774756616&l=6806951346841311068
(It got deleted off my phone and idk how to take it off my facebook and put it on youtube.

Startup without the restrictive exhaust, new gas, and carbs cleaned.

First ride on the CX500. (sorry about the crappy camera angle, blame my friend Drew lol)

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Ok so I no doubt have a pretty bad motorcycle addiction and I have to have my fix.

So I traded off a 12ga shotgun for this cx500 bike right?
Well now today I just traded off an AR15 and got this back.:nuts:




That was actually a front end I pieced together like 2years ago.
I think it was 06 gsxr600 front forks, and 08 1000 wheel? And then I put 954rr clip ons on it. I put it on my XT500 I was building and then sold the XT500 90% finished. Well I sold it to a friend of mine and he never did anything with it. He msgd me that he was gonna maybe part it out and I JUMPED and said I would like the front end!

So I gave him an AR15 of mine, and he gave me that front end and 500 bucks! :thumbsup:Wooohoo!

So basically, this bike is gonna be one spoiled bastard with awesome parts!

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Ordered bearings today for my zx900rr build, and the conversion bearings for this little spoiled bastard! wooohoo. $48bucks for CX

But I wanted to get a headstart on seeing how things line up. Gonna have to make totally new steering stops, and shave some stuff off the key cylinder mount on the top triples.

ANYWAYS.....
Before- this ugly old rusty nasty thing




ANNNND AFTER! SEXY GOLD!:thumbsup:





ALSO PLEASE----- gastank suggestions! I want it to be modern looking keep in mind.

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Well I got my bearings in the mail, threw the races in the freezer and went to work!
.....No literally, I had to go to work.:doh:
Then I got to DW in the garage!

Alllllll BALLS!



Installed the bearings and shimmed it how it was needed and ta-da!
Oh and then tossed it up on the not so much race stand hahaha.
Front to midway of the bike looks awesome and modern, midway to back of the bike looks like a big giant pile of dog poop.:lotsocoffee: Gonna be a lot of coffee drinking I have a feeling to get that all ripped out of there and a totally new rear end put in. But the vision in my head is :thumbsup::knucks:

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Cleaned up some controls on the bike yesterday to make them a bit more smooth operating.
Then also wired the bike back together and fitted the controls on the clipons on to see what all needs chopped and shortened. Throttle cables seem to be just fine for length, but I think the clutch cable is gonna need shortened a good bit, depends on if I can find a better way to route it and take up more length.

Anyways, here is a ridiculous length of wiring I need to shorten and hide.


:CK187:

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Well I pushed out the ZX900rr since I need to wait for a CDI to make sure the motor runs without issues, and I went to work on this guy.

Fitment isn't 100% done yet, but it well enable me to figure out how I am doing the rear end.

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Woooo Monster truck rides! hahaha



The front mounting tab on the tank as it was fairly ugly in my option, and I would much rather have the mounting be hidden, so I cut it off and will be making a new front mount underneath the tank.
It also allowed me to fill in some of the space between the tank and the top triples by moving the tank further forward.
Here is my pretty perfect full lock spacing for the tank, I'm glad I didn't have to recess the tank a bit to make room for the triples like I thought I would need to.



2nd to having a heated space for the first time ever while building stuff, is having this in my mini-garage!

 

[NeverEnough]

Re: NeverEnough's CX500- Barn Find Build

Cut first, think later.
lol just kidding, I actually have it all pretty well designed up.

 

[NeverEnough]

I bought metal.

 

[NeverEnough]

Hopefully things will get back to highspeed building once again....

Rough cut some metal today.

screen grab

 

[NeverEnough]

Fawk yeah, finally a good update!

Got the rear mounts set.



Figuring out the top mount template.



The corrugated cardboard didnt seem strong enough with ducttape, so I made the top mount out of metal.



Annnnnd WOOHOOO!! Rolling chassis again! (tanks and tail position still needs tweaked a bit, its all just balancing there)


I am INCREDIBLY happy with how the mounts, swingarm angle, shock angle, errr EVERYTHING turned out on this suspension! :rock: Standing on the pegs the shock seems PERFECT, but the real test will be when I have the subframe built and get to sit down.
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This makes me laugh...lol, it definitely has changed its age a bit.

 

[NeverEnough]

Cleaned out my mini garage and pushed the bike back in and worked a bit on the exhaust and figuring out the subframe/how I'm gonna attach the front of seat so it slides in proper like.
I have a feeling the angle that the exhaust is at right now compared to the angle the seat is gonna be is gonna really bother me lol....

 

[NeverEnough]

Looking like I am back to waiting for warmer weather for a few days.....
But good news is I am picking up a sandblast cabinet to put in my garage....I've only been needing one for years! Woohooo for soon to be dull-shiny-clean parts!

 

[NeverEnough]

Sandblast cabinet acquired!



Sent from Motorcycle.com Free App

 

[NeverEnough]

Blah humph. Got a lot done, but didn't meet my goal of having the chassis completed enough to sit on....had so many struggles with getting main brace for the subframe, went through four different set ups tack welded and then popped back off because I didn't like it aesthetically.

So kind of updating this with a meh attitude....just posting up what I got done this weekend

Cut, plated, welded and epoxied the tank


Salvaged the CX500's gas tank mounting point and put it to use on here...also sand blasted it up but did that after fitting it in this picture



Subframe seat section at least worked out flawlessly...seat pops on the "tolerances" are so tight.
6.5" width between the square tube in the front, and 6" in the rear.



And just a picture of one of my million attempts at mounting the subframe how I liked it.....and then also ran into clearance issues around the shock...... Messed with it all afternoon, now I gotta go to work.....


Strongest and easiest mount would be to go straight to the horizontal motor mount tube of the CX500's frame..... but I think it looks way excessive


-----------So now just to figure out how I'm gonna mount this lower brace..... and actually make it happen. Goal not reached really irritates me.

 

[NeverEnough]

WOOOHOOOOoooo!!!! I GOT TO SIT ON THE BIKE AGAIN!
​

arty-smiley:arty-smiley:arty-smiley:arty-smiley:arty-smiley:arty-smiley:arty-smiley:

Sorry not tons of pics of the process.... I'll get better pics soon, I JUST got it done.

 

[NeverEnough]

Brightened up the pic thanks to instagram.

 

[NeverEnough]

Well crap, I gotta get this thing finished up..... finding it hard to get motivation to work on it when I've got my mildly built dodge truck build going and three liter bikes to be working on.

Anyways, this weekend I had to write school papers and take care of my daily driver car, the suspension was quite shot.....
So now I will gladly whore out what I did with it.

Eibach lowering kit
New bushings and reinforcement plates
New wheel set.



And now I am forcing myself to go out to my mini garage and try and get some of the electrical done on the CX500......le sigh, would be more exciting if I knew the bike would pull 10second quarter mile times lol

 

[NeverEnough]

School is done, I got an A and so was able to skip having to take a final.....been waiting for this moment for awhile.

HERE COMES THE MADNESS..... sleep is gonna be limited to 5hrs a day.

Gas tank is done and sealed.
Carbs are set and cleaned....will polish later.
Now for wiring.
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and I see I don't have it posted but as I was doing the wiring harness I came across a whole slew of MELTED wires, since all cut out and new connections made.

Now I am cutting, shrinking, and hiding.....alll this and then the front end.


So far looking like so... it will all be MUCH cleaner as time goes on, just trying to get the general idea of how and where I can hide and mount everything and what needs lengthened and what can be shortened.


----just in eating right now, going back out to finish the wiring and hopefully have a good spot for hiding the battery.
Will probably need to build or buy a super tiny battery, but gonna see what I can do first.