"she's old, slow and heavy but i still love her"...or...

"Tuna sold me a turd bike and i polished her into a diamond"

'picked up a warehoused, ratty old '75 CB500 twin (for a steal) from Tuna earlier this year, the 'Turd' as i came to find out she was dubbed. i pulled her off the back of the truck the day i picked her up, modified some old intake manifolds and bolted on the race carbs from my CB350, ran an improvised 2 liter coke bottle fuel tank to 'em and some jumper cables to the truck and she kicked right over. 'ran her long enough to get the oil hot and i dumped it and started stripping her. 6 months later i finally got her back together and road worthy...100 road miles as of today...so i feel comfortable posting that she's 'alive' again. that being said she'll probably blow up on me on the way home from work today with my luck. luckily i don't have much into the rebuild except what i gave Tuna for her, some stray parts and gaskets and the cost to powder coat the frame and some other various bits. the rest was just, roughly, 8 million knuckle busted man hours with a wire wheel on the bench grinder and hours at the bead blaster booth.

anyway, thought i'd share. she's old, slow and heavy but she's my fun work commuter

before:





and after:

 

'bunch more rusty a$$ before and after progress pics here:

Flickr link

 

Gorgeous. :up:

 

way cool bike!

 

Thats a damn good job. I like the changes you made such as the fenders, paint colors, seat, pipes....subtle but big improvements.

Love that old school street rod tail light...

 

Good work....me likey...:up:

 

thanks, fellas. and yeah, that 'Glory Brown' as it was called had to go i toyed with the thought of cutting her up and making a cafe job out of it but decided to keep it simple, nothing too drastic...some lower bars, stock foot pegs, got rid of those GIANT stock turn signals and hand fabbed the instrument faces. she damn sure ain't out running anything but it's a nice, upright comfortable ride.

 

Wow, nice job James :up:

 

Really really awesome.:up:

That's nice as hell.

 

WOW... Is that the same bike Scott picked up at Roebling a while back? If so, you did fantastic work! I saw it "before"...

 

yup. that's the very same turd. he told me that's the name y'all gave it. when i first saw it in the back of his trailer i was like "...awwww damn, what have i done?"

 

Bravo Jdub....well done sir.:up:

 

I almost like "Glory Brown" better... For some reason, it churns my stomach a little more than "Turd" does. It kinda gives it some "Ghetto Doo-Doo Style".

 

"Brown Glory Turd"

 

who did the seat?

I'm looking to start doing stuff to my scrambler and a shorter seat and shorter rear fender are on the list of things to do

 

Looks awesome!

 

i did all the work except the powder coating, which was done by Miller Powder coating in Lilburn, GA (shameless plug).

i'd have to dig up the seller info, but the skin itself came off ebay. i stripped, blasted, painted and recovered the original foam all myself.

 

Amazing work. The gauges are a great touch. Way to breath life into that old girl.:up:

 

Went and looked again. That sumbitch is nasTAY (meant in a good way)!


I like the old school grips.

 

Those are the 37 year old originals