Garage Project Motorcycles • Garage Project #7 – “Morning Wood” CX500 Café Racer

http://static.tumblr.com/42cf62bca30ca3a23e686cf35e62ef2a/6h0rwph/qJpn405wy/tumblr_static_8hx8234dl2g4skw0cc4co0s80.jpg);background-attachment:fixed;background-repeat:repeat repeat;background-size:cover;-webkit-background-size:cover;">

.

.

Garage Project #7 – “Morning Wood” CX500 Café Racer

As seen on …

Feb 2013

Feb 2013

Feb 2013

Cafe Racer Australia Build Thread here

Perth Street Bikes Build Thread here

We were contacted by a photographer in Adelaide who wanted us to build him a cool bike to help promote his business. He wanted something small, narrow and dark like a SR400/500. Somehow we agreed on a CX500 which is none of those things. We sourced the bike and he paid for it and then DISASTER….he was suddenly out of work and had to cancel the project. I listed the bike on Perth Street Bikes and James came and had a look at it and asked us to turn it into a Cafe Racer for him.



I’ve always thought that the CX in all it’s forms was one of the ugliest bikes ever made and never saw the appeal. Since it’s been in my possession and riding around on it, I really quite like it and can’t wait to finish this project so James can join the other Perth Cafe Racer members Brock , Irwan and Jason on their CX500’s.



This project is going to be quite challenging for a couple of reasons.

  1. As mentioned, the bike is damn ugly.
  2. The budget for the build is miniscule.


Apart from waiting on a parts from the US for Al’s CB550 Cafe Racer, we’ve got GPM#6 “Gunda” the CB500 Street Tracker, GPM#5 a CB750 brat and GPM#8 a SR250 Brat that are all under construction at the moment. There simply wasn’t enough time or space for us to take this project on so I asked Brett at Hand Made Vintage Kustoms for a favour and he agreed to let me use some space and as I’m a spaz with the tools, Brett will do any fabricating and slap me when I do something wrong. This is a collaborative build between us and Hand Made Vintage Kustoms.



I was really looking forward to building something that would get onto my top 6 CX’s list but I doubt very much it’s going to happen with this budget. We don’t have the budget to take the engine out and paint it or paint the frame or even the bodywork so we’re going for a very mono-tone natural/raw look that is similar to the recently silver powdercoated wheels, frame, forks etc. We’ll break up the metal/silver look with a nice custom brown leather seat and grips.



We don’t have any real “inspiration bikes” for this build but to give you an idea, here are a few links to similar bikes.


Sidebar