honda cl450 hardtail???

I'm looking to make my cl450 a hard tail and was looking for some advice any would be great . he guy who had it before me tried to make his own it just didnt come out that great , i would appreciate any tips

hard tails arnt something that you should be getting advice for from a forum, im sure someone might be able to help, but if you need tips for this then you need to farm the job out to someone that knows what the hell their doing. take it to a shop, pay a little extra to be able to watch and ask questions and learn. in the end, your going to be riding this down the street with cars and semi's and people with familys in giant SUVS. when it falls apart in front of them you will have wished that you would have set the ego aside and had it done right. thats my 0.02

Post a picture of your bike and maybe we can give you a little more help!

naw ....im going to do it my self, , was just seeing people thought and seein if anyone had done it before and what problems to watch out for

Originally Posted by mlc216

Post a picture of your bike and maybe we can give you a little more help!

If you are happy with the wheelbase and you don't want to stretch it out anymore, then I would work off of what he has done already.

IMO: I would bend up some 1" DOM tubing and weld in the lower frame rails (green) while the swingarm is still welded to the dropouts. Then, I would cut the swingarm off the dropouts and unbolt it from the swingarm pivot. After you get rid of the swingarm, I would trim back where it was mounted as far as possible depending on where your rear motor mounts are. You may have to fab a triangular gusset where the new lower framerails come in if you can't cut back the original brackets all the way down to the tube.



If you can post more pictures of the rear motor mounts I may be able to make a few better suggestions for that area as well. Let me know if I can help anymore!

If your rear motor mounts are on the backbone instead of those big side brackets then you can do it like I did on an xs650 I built.

I cut the stock lower frame rails back far enough to have straight tubes to lug and weld the new hardtail lower section in and then I cut the crossmember out and extended the backbone a couple inches to lower the crossmember between the new lower framerails.

Originally Posted by cros36

hard tails arnt something that you should be getting advice for from a forum

Why would you say that? There's plenty of good builders on here that can help greatly with this. I would advise the owner to be sure his skill set is up to the task to make quality welds and look at plenty of examples before jumping in and hacking away but with the right help and skills it is doable. I think there's at least 100 independent bike builders on this site. and at least 50 full time legit shops that read and give advise here.

Now if you aren't up to the task then farm it out. Beleive me I'll be the last guy to refuse the job if it came in my door. But if you are then have at it. Research, pictures, advise, take your time, and do it right.

Hell man, build your own. Heres my 74 CB450

"hard tails arnt something that you should be getting advice for from a forum"

Isn't asking question what this forum is all about?

That looks killer Henry! Very nice use of original easy to use parts with a twist.