Stripping the CB650

Yesterday my daughter spent some time cleaning up the bike, while I set about removing the unwanted parts. I rigged the fairing with a rope sling to the rafters in my garage so I wouldn’t have to try to hold on to it while removing the bolts. It was a good thing, because the mounting frame was bent (and it looks as if it was bent when the fairing was installed, though I’m not 100% sure). After I got that off, I pulled the engine guards.

The original headlight and signals are long gone, of course. Original style replacements aren’t that hard to come by, but after some discussion we decided to go with a look-alike headlight instead along with some fairly nice OEM-like aftermarket signals.

So here it is stripped:

The fairing installation did not, it appears, require cutting any of the stock wiring harness. It all looks pretty good:

Here are the engine guards. I’m not sure what the deal is with them… they make the bike hard to ride.  I wonder if they were built for some other bike; I seem to recall that this CB650 was based on the the original CB400 four cylinder, which had a more upright seating stance.  I may try to sell them… I’m sure not putting them back on.

I put fuel system cleaner in the tank, filled it up and ran it some this morning. The treatment was intended for 21 gallons of gas (maximum); I used about a fifth of the bottle. It would probably be safe to use more than that, but I didn’t want to overdo it. The bike seemed to start more easily this morning, but I have no idea why that would be true.