There’s nothing we love more than featuring the bikes of young garage builders, who don’t have professional-grade shops or an arsenal of high-tech tools. Today we have a 1973 Honda CB250 K4 cafe racer by Charlie Green of Cornwall, UK, who built this bike to fit in with his university studies.
The CB250 K4 was a smaller displacement version of the better-known CB350 twin, sleeved down to meet the 250cc learner’s limit in the United Kingdom. Appropriately enough, Charlie has named the bike “Alil” — an acronym for “A Lesson in Learning.” Charlies says the bike was…
“My experiment to see if I could learn all the necessary skills to rebuild the bike at every step of the process.”
Below he gives us the full story on the build.
Honda CB250 K4 Cafe Racer
(Words by Charlie Green. Highlights by us.)
Built from scratch to fit in with my university studies, the bike was fully stripped and handmade bracing and rear-set mounts were welded to the frame, as well as additional swing-arm supports to replace the original bolt on plate. The frame was also seam-welded to increase rigidity.
The motor was rebuilt with a 1mm overbore, some minor porting and polishing work and a modified clutch cover transfer piece to increase oil flow to the top-end.
Wheels were re-laced with stainless spokes and fitted with some Avon Roadriders. All bearings and seals were replaced, and a stainless braided hose added to the brake assembly.
The bodywork was completed by myself with rattle-cans, and adorned with the ‘CNG customs‘ logo (to fill some space on the seat and mudguard).
The only work not completed by myself was powder-coating the frame and fitting the tyres. Everything else was my experiment to see if I could learn all the necessary skills to rebuild the bike at every step of the process.
Follow the Builder
Follow Charlie Green: @greeny199
Nice, clean work.
Reminds me of my old CB250 “Nighthawk” from about 1992.
Wish I had kept it as it would be great fun to cafe it like you have done.
I’m currently giving my bonneville the cafe treatment, and your work and dedication to takle work that’s outside your comfort zone is inspiring. Cleaning up the wires is scary but obviously it can be done.
I absolutely love it! You have done a fantastic job, the best one I’ve seen. We are about to do a cb350 1972 as a cafe racer. Love the fairing, where did you get it from? Is the tank on yours the original, because the pin striping really finishes it off. Very impressed
Best wishes Beverlie
Hi Beverlie,
Thanks for the compliments. The fairing is a fairing for a Sportster I found on eBay, but is now being sold as a generic ‘cafe racer’ fairing. The tank is also from a 1976 CB500T.
cheers,
Charlie.
Looking good. Got a similar project on atm. What size tyres have you fitted ?
Nice Job my boy. dad.xx