I have been buying and restoring Honda CB650 Customs for about 3 years now and I thought it would be good to share my experiences for other Honda enthusiasts to learn from. I am currently on my 3rd CB650. It all started with my first bike, which was a black 1980 CB650 Custom that I bought from a guy down the road for $700. It was a great starter bike to learn on, it handles well, has lots of power but not enough to go to fast. That bike lasted two seasons before a crack developed in the cylinder block and I decided to retire it rather than repair it.
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| This is the yellow CB650 before I put it back to factory look |
Within a day I managed to find a fully restored yellow 1980 CB650 Custom on a local buy sell website for $1000. This new bike that I bought was in mint condition, it looked like it had either never been stored outside or was completely repainted. Unfortunately I didn't buy it from the person who restored it so there wasn't much of a story to go with it, but it came with a few extra parts (mostly stock blinkers). The bike was set up to look like a cafe racer with 4 into 1 pipes. The factory handle bar was replaced with a straight bar, the tank had green racing stripes and, and the blinkers were replaced with these little tiny ones that I changed back as soon as I got it home. I'll talk about what I had to do to get it running properly in some later posts. I rode this bike for most of the summer until I found a 1981 CB650 Custom for $700 that wasn't running.
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| Green racing stripes |
It took over a week to finally be able to meet up with the seller and make him an offer but it was worth it, I managed to get the bike for $550 and all it needed to make it run was the carbs cleaned, a new tank of high octane gasoline and the battery charged. I've been working on replacing all the worn/rusted components since then and have using parts from my first CB650 to replace them. It's been a labour of love and had been worth every minute. Now my bike shed has is full, I have two running bikes and one that is torn down to the frame a lower engine block with parts hanging everywhere. My girlfriend thinks I have a bike problem but I love it.
I had these problems on mine,just when I was getting to sell it,I found a hole on each carb,that shoots gas in the carb when you twist the throttle,3 of the 4 was clogged,I cleaned the holes and now after 3 months of rebuilding and pulling the carbs off many times,this solved my problem,no choke needed to ride it,just to start it up,power I never knew it had,and take off and top end,WOW!!! extremely fast.You should look at that.(1979 Honda CB650)
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