10. A BRAKE IN THE TRAFFIC

The foot brake posed it's own problems.
Mr Hondas version is a rod actuated drum BUT it goes through a crossover shaft which got hacked off earlier on.
This meant thinking of another way so no problem all we need
do is  convert the drum to hydraulic operation.
Off round to various car parts places where I discovered a nice little Toyota clutch slave cylinder...
This will get bolted to the drum backing plate & pumped up via a master cylinder mounted above the rearset on an alloy plate.
SIMPLE EH!!??

Foot brake assembly

9. FANCY FOOTWORK

Along with the handlebar gear in the same box came the rearsets.
Nice ally folding pegs & ball bearinged adjustable brake & gear levers.
Thing is, on a CX500 the gearshift operates sideways,which means it will need a bell crank to turn the action 90 degrees.
So first I cut down the original peg mounts then welded on a plate to form the fulcrum point.
The rearsets bolted right up.
Next I fabbed up a double rose jointed m6 rod,an alloy bell crank and another gear lever for the gearbox spline.
Here's the results:

Gearshift levers

gearshift mounting

Gearshift complete

8. COMING TO GRIPS WITH IT

Left hand controls

Right hand controls

Control assemblies

After a lot of time spent on Aliexpress the switchgear throttle and levers were ordered and after a bit of a wait duly turned up on the doorstep.
Stuff from China is rather cheap and really for that cost is just better than trying to reuse the 40 year old originals.
These parts can be had in a variety of colors but I opted to stay with the rather more traditional black/alloy finish.
The handgrips I bought off TradeMe,called 'pistol grips' are now my favourites and have become a bit of a trademark of my builds.
They are ergonomically (somewhat oddly) shaped and just work nice & comfortably.

7. SEAT & TANK

Heres the 'glassed up Buell S1 seat unit.Its nicely abbreviated but will need widening at the front.
The tank is my figlass copy of a Kawasaki Zepher.
I wound up taking a skin mold of the original CX tank bottom,then added brass 1/4" bsp petrol tap threads, a pair of metal front lugs scavenged from an old Honda tank & a steel rear mounting tab.
The filler cap got recessed into the top along with its captive m5 metric nuts.
The whole lot was then joined together using a colloidal silica/ polyester resin mix covered with several layers of 6oz. cloth.
Then the insides were sloshed with about 1/2 a cup of epoxy resin to seal and fuelproof it

Buell S1 seat unit

CX500 figlass tank bottom 

Tank bottom completed

Tank b4 primer

6. MOLD CHOICES

Decisions decisions
Am trying to garner a coherent look for this project.
I've always liked the no nonsense approach Buells have so after delving into my figlass mold collection it was decided that a Kawasaki Zepher tank combined with a Buell S1 seat tailpiece and an early Ducati 900SS frame mount 1/2 fairing would be the go.

Bodywork mockup

Bodywork mockup 2

Looks like the fairing needs shortening & the seat needs widening but I do like the tank as it changes the bikes lines a lot.
Here I'm trying to decide which front mudguard would work.

Inspirational pic

5. SHINEY BITS

The motor is in a very sad state so in an effort to bring it back to life I decided to have a go at  polishing up the rocker and clutch covers.
So I spent the best part of a day in front of my 1.5 hp. Ryobi bench polisher/grinder.
I like to use a stitched calico buff with dark grey rouge.This is really meant to be used on stainless steel but it seems to get a nice lustre faster than the red rouge does.
To 'polish off' (pun intended) I like to use a clean loose cotton buff with the white rouge & then a good wipe with a clean cotton rag.

Rocker cover b4 

Covers after polishing

4. TUBEWORK

Now the frame needed a new back end to take the Buell S1 tailpiece I had previously 'glassed up.
So I referred to the heat department and fired up the trusty mapgas torch on some unsuspecting scrap 1" tube and viola a nice curved subframe slowly evolved.

New subframe

Busted out the Invertor welder and tacked her on.I fabbed up a couple of shock top mounting brackets and bolted them on.
Sat back to admire my handiwork and realised the swingarm looks a bit spindly and unsupported so that's the next job on the list.
Hunted round a while and found a nice u bend amongst my 'pile of potentially useful parts' or as my wife calls it 'yur junkpile'.
Here's the results of that session.

Modded swingarm

Modded swingarm inc brace