Back from the Shed: Honda CB750K Café Racer

Worth the Wait: CB750 from Black Cycles Australia… 

For every lovely vintage bike you see cruising the backroads, parked up at the local tavern, or racing the track on Sunday, there are scores of abandoned projects just waiting for a new life. All too often a lack of time, money, or inspiration grinds a build to a halt, and the inertia just builds. Other times, the builder just has one too many projects, and the bike gathers dust in a corner of the shop as other builds (or paying work) take precedence. Often, the only solution is for the project to trade hands.

That was the case with this ’71 CB750K, which had some significant work done by an Australian builder before the project lost steam.

“The motor had been rebuilt, frame powder coated, and basically assembled as a roller, but it had been stored for 10 years after this work was completed and storage had taken a toll on all paint and surfaces!”

The original builder surrendered the bike to Wayne, a 70-year-old motorcycle enthusiast, who had the wisdom to seek out one of his nation’s best, Noel Muller of Black Cycles Australia, to complete the project. Though extenuating circumstances would make the build take a bit longer than expected, the result would be one very lovely CB750 café racer with some seriously rare and interesting details — check that MV Augusta-style 4:4 exhaust, for instance! Not to mention the custom-fabbed oil tank, Raask rearsets, custom swingarm, dual Dellortos with Lynx manifold, and Morad 5″ rear wheel.

Noel himself gave us a thorough rundown of the build, so we’re going to let him give you the story straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s been a little while since we featured one of Noel’s builds — a little over a year — so we’re doubly happy to have him back on BikeBound!

CB750K Café: In the Builder’s Words…

Early February this year I received a partly assembled 1971 Honda CB750K from Wayne, a new customer who had just purchased this bike and many aftermarket parts from his engineer friend who’d been accumulating some special parts with the intention of building a cool bike, but as happens so often, he had too many projects and this one was finally surrendered to Wayne, a 70-year-old bike enthusiast.

The motor had been rebuilt, frame powder coated, and basically assembled as a roller, but it had been stored for 10 years after this work was completed and storage had taken a toll on all paint and surfaces!

So I went ahead to chop the rear frame off (past the shock mounts) and remove nearly ALL the original frame brackets & tabs. I then fitted a new short tail hoop to accept a handmade steel cowl and a custom-made lower, shorter seat.

I then made the custom aluminium 2.5lt oil tank to fit.

I then stripped and painted the frame and (supplied) custom billet and steel boxed swingarm.

The motor needed a good detail before being refitted in the frame, including repainting the head in a black wrinkle finish, polish/repairing the covers, caps, and all stainless steel nuts ‘n bolts.

The dual Dellorto’s on a Lynx manifold had also degraded A LOT since first assembled, so Justin from PopBang Classics completely rebuilt them to better than new.

The exhaust is, I believe, custom headers leading to custom curved and tapered mufflers (4 into 4). It’s a little unclear the origin or actual builder, but possibly made in South Africa or Sweden? And believed to be one of only three sets ever made to resemble vintage MV Agusta pipes, but to directly bolt on to the SOHC CB. I’ve had the complete system jet coated in matte black by Competition Coatings.

You’ll also notice the vintage Raask rearsets specifically made to suit the Honda.

The front end is a 48mm Honda Hornet item that’s been rebuilt and lowered by XXX Rated Suspension.

Original front hub and Cognito Moto rear hub are laced into Morad 17″ aluminium rims…the rear was only around 4″ wide and Wayne specifically requested a wider rear, so I finally tracked down a new old stock Morad 5″ rim to match (as they’re discontinued now?).

We then fitted some new Michelin rubber — 120 front and a 170 wide rear — which then caused drive chain clearance issues! To solve this I ordered some YSS piggyback shocks (custom assembled by YSS) to have longer bases for more clearance. Then we went down to a 520 race chain and custom sprockets which did the trick and has ample clearance now.

There are also aftermarket billet triple trees, Brembo rear disc brake setup, Motogadget tiny speedo, buttons, bar-end indicators, Kellermann rear micro LED’s, aftermarket levers, and we built an aluminium front fender to suit with stainless steel mounts.

The headlight is a Purpose Built Moto billet 7″ item with custom aluminium fork tube mounts we made here.

The tank looked OK at first, but after careful inspection, we found surface rust under the paint and inside as well, so Justin from PopBang had the tank burnt out back to bare metal and painted the tank and tail to perfection.

He also completely wired the bike front to back using Dynatek electrical components. A lithium battery resides under the swingarm with a lithium regulator and the starter solenoid under there as well!

Because of the Raask rearsets, we can’t run the original kick-starter so it’s electric start only now. There are many more small details I haven’t mentioned as well!

Overall the build took a bit longer than we first thought, but Wayne is over the moon with the result and plans many miles on this one.

Follow the Builder

Black Cycles Australia: Black Cycles Australia | @blackcyclesaustralia

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