Custom Honda CB650 Cafe Racer by Scars Motorcycles.

This weekend I was down at Scars motorcycle workshop based in a former plasterers in Peckham. The owner Jack was kind enough to make time to talk to me about the bike he built for last year's bike shed show. So this is a 1979 Honda CB650Z, to be precise. So a bit of background on this, this bike was bought off of Gumtree off a guy in up north somewhere and when I picked up obviously it didn't didn't look much like this at all. The brakes were seized, the engine hadn't run since 99 I think the guy said. So it was in need of a bit of work and it's also the first motorbike I've actually ever worked on. So a bit of a bit of a steep learning curve from dragging it out of this guy's shed and taking it down to when my workshop was actually in Bristol. But I'll run through what I did to it and try and explain a bit more about it. So start with the tyres. So these are the original rims off of the CB650. So they're just standard comm style which have been powder-coated matte black and the tyres are just Pirelli Sport Demon powder-coated front forks. Standard brakes really because again sort of being the first bike in that kind of keeping things fairly simple with it. I just popped the forks just through the triple tree here and then these are Tarosi front clip-ons and I chose these just because they're incredibly simple. You can't see it here but an allen key that just goes straight through into the bar and just clamps on really neatly and really nicely. Just got some sort of race looking grips here. The switch is actually off a Royal Enfield which I had in the workshop at the time and I just looked across and I thought that's actually really simple and the wires all matched up so that's on there. And then got the kill switch on the top here and I just made a little panel with the electric start button as well. All the ignition has actually been moved to under the seat as well as obviously all the old electrics have been wired back under there to keep it as clean and simple as possible at the front. And then just a simple little speedo which actually has been routed through the headlight which was a bit of a happy accident but that just keeps that all tidy. And then so the paint job is inspired by Mercedes Formula One car actually with a sort of gunmetal teal effect. So I've just tried to sort of keep this because this is quite a heavy tank because this with a CV650 it's actually obviously not as popular as say the 550 or the 750 people do but it's kind of the tank is a bit awkward on it but what I've done is actually the guy who sprayed it for me has got the bottom part done in black so when you when you see it from afar the black actually sort of melts into the into the frame into the engine so it just you sort of only read it from the orange to the top orange teal to the top so it you only read that to give a bit of a slimmer lighter effect and then just kept the the the Honda badge just simple and sort of hidden with the same same paint. Engine completely rebuilt with new rebuild kit and the ram air filters re-jetted the carbs to suit the new air coming in. I can't remember what they call this exhaust now a megaphone or something but it sounds really good when it starts up. Standard suspension obviously this is a custom seat with all the electrics hidden underneath I think the only bit is the regulator rectifier under there with a battery as well so keeps it even though the battery's up here it makes no difference to the weight balance. So this was at the bike show last year? Yeah this was this was at the bike show last year so I showed it in the shed gallery space so I think I went to the bike shed show four years ago and then I sort of thought well this is something I'm interested in want to be involved in so I decided you know I try and aim to get a bike in the shed gallery space so yeah it was there last year and I'm going to take it again this year actually as well. So what kind of like process was that to get it in the show? I just emailed him, you get like an email from the from the guys at the shed I think it's Ross and you just send him a photo of it and he says yes or no basically but it was kind of it was shown at a show when I was living in Bristol so it's kind of already there. What show was that? It's called Oil run by a shop called Spoken Stringer so it's very much based on the bike shed show in London but much smaller so I actually had a bit of experience from doing it there and gave a little talk about the workshop I had in Bristol at the time before being here in Peckham but yeah it was a really good show and obviously just nice to sort of get it out the shed and show people rather than it being hidden away. So you said you've ridden this one a bit last year? Yeah yeah I got it MOT'd, rode it around a bit but hasn't been used in a little while now yeah. And that's four cylinders so I assume that was quite tricky with the carbs? Yeah it probably still needs a bit of fiddling around with it just I need to take it on a motorway to get up top speed but yeah a bit tricky just syncing them all because once you take them all off it all you know goes a bit out of sync so you just just go out for a ride with a screwdriver in your pocket and just freak them as you go along. When I took this engine apart I turned it over you know just cranking it over by hand and the pistons were free so that's a good start but when when I took it out one of the cylinder bores had sort of basically eaten itself and was lying in the bottom of the sump and the piston was shot to pieces so I had to then order the new block there, I think it came from America. So there's all these like things when you buy a second-hand bike just like second-hand car whatever there's always like hidden gremlins you just don't know I mean the engine might freely move but you don't know what's going inside so rebuilding the engine myself for the first time on my own was yeah learning curve yeah but it was a good one because then when you you take this into the smaller engines and stuff it's just less daunting and it is a good feeling when it starts I think wow okay yeah it works. So you're saying the brakes were fully seized were they? Yeah yeah it was just squealing and just I had to sort of drag it into the back of my van but yeah just I don't know just sort of just had it all in bits and just cleaned it all up and once you get it all powder coated and stuff it starts to sort of resemble something that's a bike again. So that one's going for the second year in a row then to the bike Yeah so this year I've got an actual stand there because alongside the bikes I've been developing these pannier bags so I want to sort of showcase it on the little scrambler just over there and and this one to sort of show you how the bag can work on a on a sort of a cafe or a Brat cafe racer and a sort of smaller little scrambler so we'll be showing this one some people have already seen it some new faces would it be new to them to give it a clean. And plans after probably sell it because I need the money and can't keep having can't keep collecting bikes so yeah yeah drop me an email. In the next video we'll be taking a look at the CG 125 that Jack's been building for this year's bike shed I'll be heading down to the show in a couple of weeks time so do say hi if any of you are going and see me there thanks again to Jack for spending the time recording this video you can see more images of his builds on his Instagram account which I've linked to in the description if you've got any questions about the CB 650 leave them in the comments below and if you're new here and you want to see more videos like this hit subscribe and I'll see you next