Mounting a Fender on a CR750 Race Bike // Paul Brodie's Shop 

Paul, it does my old heart so much good to see you back in your shop doing what you love. The world is a better place with your experience, expertise, and artistry.

When you said, "making stuff again in my shop" it made me feel warm inside. Keep on keeping on, Paul

Thanks Paul, another masterclass in fabrication, glad to see you looking better and enjoying what you do best.

"Actually making stuff again in my shop"! A statement of delighted victory. Good work Bloke.

I loved seeing how joyful you were when the fender radius matched on the first try! The Gary Fisher story was a bonus.

My long-time friend, Mike Ballinger, remembers the early days of Honda 4 into 1 exhaust building and was an early fabricator. He also recalls the excitement of the track announcer at B.C.'s Westwood race track over the sound of the 750's 4 into 1 exhaust. Thank you, Paul, for prompting that fun memory. 😊

I guessed 15, but wasn’t taking into account paint finish work. In 70 I was a senior in high school building a 125 Ducati. Having read everything that I could at the time about motorcycles, was even studying 2 stroke pipe design and configuration. Had the good luck of seeing Don Vescos shop and ran into safety wire for the first time. Later in life became an aviation mechanic and never far from a pair of well worn safety wire pliers and a couple of rolls of S.S. wire. Finding your channel restores a pleasant era of my younger days! Really enjoying your channel.

One season we took under our wing a young man from Japan, who raced in WMRRA's novice class... at the time my brother was racing Wasco's CB750f (*in 900f form) in the open dinosaur class, which wears a set of very similar carbs to those - Kenny taught us the proper pronunciation of many things we had wrong... he pronounced kei-hin as "kay-in" with a very very soft H and no inflection on either syllable Around that same time I had the opportunity to ride on track with Steve Baker, when he made a design for an exhaust system innovation that is now commonplace... the muffler in the tail. The bike was an Open Battle of the Twins (BOTT) bike based off of the big Virago motor, custom framed. The shock waves coming out of the pipe, before you got tucked in behind the windscreen were like a combination of being hit in the face with a bat, with the reality warping mirage of the pulses of heat. Following a former World Champion was an amazing thing, he was smooth as glass, and as precise as a Swiss watch, and FAST! We were blessed, in the PNW with a wealth of talented riders, tuners, and fabricators - with you among them ;)

Hemmings shows the MSRP of a 1970 CB 750 as $1,495.... Kinda puts that race kit in perspective.

Those ultrasonic cleaners are great, do yourself a favor and put your solution and parts in smaller containers and just fill the whole tub with water. That way you only have to dirty a small amount of solution. Saves a ton of money and cleaning! Merry Christmas and happy new year Paul and Mitch

Sure glad you didn't volunteer to complete the Safety Wiring, The owner of this bike now has more bragging rights since the one and only Paul Brody worked his magic on it. I would love to see the smile on his face when he gets to see it. Thanks.

I think over 7000 bikes were sandcast motors. All 1969. Great show. Thanks Paul.

I found your time for the project interesting, I work in aviation and so many times customers complain about the time it takes to complete a project. Everything is a one off, everything is hand made and fitted, etched and alodined, primed assembled and painted. It takes huge amounts of time. And that is just structure, the mechanical side of things is another hurtle. Love your videos. Glad to see you looking well

Great to see you back in action in your shop Paul! 💪

Kei as in "the CA-ped crusader", Hin as in HIN-drance. Glad to see you active around the shop! 👍

Artistic solution - seems like Frankie gets a much better bike and your energy is back😜

I have an old Bultaco that had screw in slotted and sharpened pins that were supposed to keep the tire from slipping. I put on a brand new Pirelli tire and the first time I rode it the pins neatly cut the bead out of the tire when it slipped. Doh!!... I was at a race at Ontario Motor Speedway around '72. What a race! Mann was on 3 cylinder BSA, Nixon was on Kawi triple two stroke, Renzo Pasolini on Harley and Jarno Saarinen on Yamaha.( Both were killed soon after in a race collision with each other at Monza)...

Wow, Paul, that fender mount is exquisite! So happy to see you back fabricating stuff!!! Great episode. Please let us know the owner's reaction to the new mount!

Gary was a warrior in the Super Bike Wars of the late 70's. As I remember he stayed with Hondas.

So glad you're back fabricating, Paul! Amazing to watch your skills and problem solving in action. Keep the Westwood (and other racing) stories coming...and don't feel you need to speed any of it up! Real-time is fine. 😀

Hope you're feeling better Paul. Fascinating info. I have a 1971 CB750, that has a street version of the cafe kit. I don't know much of the history of the bike, but what I was told by the previous owner was that some guy built it in Florida in the very early seventies. The builder used some good stuff for the time; Read-Titan rearsets, Morris magnesium wheels, Crane cam, real clip on handlebars, regeared trans, and a four into one. That thing was a real slug. He geared it so high, that the couple of times I rode it, I couldn't get past third gear. Fourth and fifth were totally useless. I did get a complete stock trans for the bike, but I never got around to installing it. Oh yeah, the builder put struts on the rear instead of shocks. I never saw the logic in that. The second, and last time I rode it, I got a speeding ticket on a back road from a state trooper, but that's a story for another time. Let's see, I think that was '85 or so, and the 750 hasn't been started since. I hope your health continues to improve. Regards, Duck

Good health and fabrication on my favourite bike - Awesome stuff! I own three CB750's: A K1 from 1971, a K0 from late in 1970 and a Seeley Honda CB750F from 1977 and I can't part with any of them! The CR750 has always intrigued me...

Love the bike. Wish mine was a sand cast one. Mine is a 1972 and it still has the factory 4 into 4!! Paid 100.00 bucks for the bike! Motor was locked up. Just got it running 2 months ago! Keep up the amazing work!

I guessed 12 hours.... Pops got burned quite badly in a dyno fire back in the day, when they used the "step and hold" method @ 1K rpm increments all the way up and all the way back down... can't remember where or when it happened. Yosh parts are excellent but $$$! Fender bracket looks great Paul, thanks for the history lesson loved it! Cheers, Doug

It's too bad they're gone now but my pal Bob Jameson and Bob Hansen could have filled in a lot of the blanks on the CR750. Bob helped with development of the CB750 on many trips to Japan and Hansen was American Honda team manager. The two problems facing Bob, who was Dick Mann's mechanic, were high oil consumption and rapid wear of the rubber slider for the cam chain tensioner. The Japanese engineers told him not to worry about the oil consumption and without new, improved parts all Bob could do was bolt-in the same tensioner as the worn one. He installed his last one the night before the 200, working into the wee hours cleaning all the rubber crud from inside the engine. Dick Mann was really a courtesy entry because Honda Ltd (Japan) assumed the Grand Prix riders (Hailwood, etc) would win it hands down. Their mechanics ignored the worn tensioners and took off for the pub after final practice while Jameson called them every bad name in the book. As history has shown, they all DNF'd with engine problems. Towards the end of the race, Hansen had Mann slow his pace to ensure a finish and Romero/Triumph was coming fast! When the race was over and Dick won, Bob checked the oil level and told me the crankcase contained only about 1-cup of oil and the tensioner was badly worn! For his final 10-15 years, Bob Jameson lived about a mile from me and we were good pals because we both worked at American Honda ps. Keihin is pronounced "Kay-heen." I'm Japanese-American and have been to Japan many times for Honda so the names are familiar to me. www.revzilla.com/common-tread/50-years-later-a-look-at-the-drama-behind-hondas-first-daytona-200-win

When I worked at a cycle shop, the vendors pronounced that word “key en”. I paused one of your videos once to get the part number off of your tool holder because I was going to order you one. I was shocked when I saw how much multi-fix holders cost. I’m glad you got a good deal on them. I have an AXA tool post on my lathe so I understand the need for a dozen holders. Before Covid I could get 4 AXA holders for $20 shipped. The multi-fix seems like a more useful design though.

I miss my old CB 750. It was a '76 with a four into four exhaust. During my first road trip with friends on more modern bikes, we watched some supermoto racing at a friends house and discussed how the riders were able to ride like that. The next day as we rode out to the coast in Northern California, I started late braking and aggressively downshifting and had that old girl backing into corners as we snaked our way West. It was a magical day and I've never made a bike do that since.

Very good Paul, I'm glad you are making and fitting things again. Thanks Paul and Mitch

Love the history. Pointing out the period pieces on the bike was great! Keep up the killer work!

👏👏👏👏👏good to see back manufacturing in your shop Cheers Chris

Great to see you back in the shop, and looking well....

Paul, enjoyed the history of the CR and of the fab work on the front fender stay. Thanks for the video.

My guess was 40. This gives me an idea of a different fender mounting system than what Ive got on CB750K cafe racer build I'm doing for my son. Great episode...love the history!

it is nice to see you doing some work again mister Brodie , i had a smile when you talk about the 4 in 1 muffler , because it remember me of my first motorcycle it was a Honda cb750 four 1974 with a 4 in 1 muffler called hooker

Hi Paul great vid. Interesting to hear your comments about the Honda 750s weak camchain set up. I remember reading a report in a bike mage where British motorcycle engineers bought and tested a Honda 750 4, and when doing continuous high performance tests, it was`nt long before their machine`s camchain set up detonated destroying the top of the engine. As a result, the British bike industry ignored the Honda saying "it`ll never work, and will never sell". What they did`nt expect was the Honda, and Kawasaki for that, developed and refined the OHC set up, making it more reliable, and at that time, us Brits were persevering with pushrod OHV engines. How wrong they were. Once again, thanks for another entertaining vid.

An artist you are, Paul! Like no other man on earth. For healing, look into "Rick Simson oil" Best wishes

Another well thought out fabrication ! My Dad was the builder of my race bikes and I use to bug him about why he spent so much time building the small parts and here is a quote he use to tell me about my impatience, "Prior planning negates piss poor performance." As usual, he was always right. Paul, how's your heath coming along ?

Congratulations of once again being a maker and not just a story teller. Our dreams have come true. Best Christmas ever!

Hello Paul. Great stories and very cool historic racer there. I had forgotten all about Gary Fisher motorcycle racer. He did get some good press in the `70s. Got muddled with Gary Fisher, one of the mountain bike pioneers. You know a thing or 2 about that subject! lol. A few of his bikes are carefully maintained and kept here. Still shocked how good the Roscoe starting about 2009 (?) works. So, a steel fab guy with your knowledge should need 2 ish hours to invent that fender mount. Yes the piece of art you made takes way longer. Your loop over the tire looks suspiciously like the /6 or 7 BMW fork brace/ fender mount. Forget bending one of those by hand, they were hit with a massive press. See Eve`s 90S for confirmation. We used to have a family use Yamaha FJ600 with the OE thin cast aluminum brace. It was quite a clever design, with a little spoiler to direct oil cooler air, mounted above the fender. In a minor crash it cracked. Machinist Andy Whitaker took a look, whipped out his pocket 150 mm steel ruler, and announced he would make a better one. The made from billet polished result was way nicer. We even found a Yoshimura 4 into 1 for that 600, pretty rare pipe. Seeing you making chips and designing was delightful. Quite reassuring that the world isn't all bad.

It’s nice to be able to watch you work your magic again! Matching the arc of the fender in one attempt was impressive! Luck? No way. Years of experience!

Hi Paul. I have been catching up on your various projects and found this great video on the Honda. As a young lad in high school in the U.K., our librarian/English teacher wanting to keep our minds away from the girls in the school next door, would order weekly/monthly editions of Motorcycling News and Motorcycle Mechanics among other publications. We would pour through them looking at all the new releases. Back then Honda was the bike to beat, and even Mike Hailwood on the MV Augusta, would have a hard time beating them. I collected articles on Honda, and remember one such article on the 50 c.c. factory racer. It revved to an amazing 22,000 rpm, had 4 valves per cylinder with each valve head the size of a dime. It was fitted with a bicycle type calliper front brake. Irishman Ralph Bryant was the factory rider. Luigi Taveri raced the 125 twin which I believe revved to about 15,000 rpm possibly. Jim Redman from South Africa piloted the 250 c.c. straight 6 cylinder bike (after successfully racing the straight 4 cylinder bike), and the 6 revved to 12,000 rpm. Yamaha featured front and centre with Phil Read piloting the 250 and 350 factory racers with Mike Duff (Canada) backing him up. All the races I watched were at my local Brands Hatch, U.K. track. A Honda distributor called Gilberts of Catford (London U.K.) would later supply parts for my cousins and my 250 cc Honda Super Sport bikes. In their display window was a Honda 125 cc production racer for sale. My cousin and I would try and find ways to buy it and race it, but my uncle would never have allowed it. My cousin was always faster than I and the right size for the bike. The owner of Gilberts would let us in to the repair shops and my cousin often helped out there for free. Both he and I eventually sold our Hondas, and he bought a 350 cc Triumph Tiger and I bought a 1965 650 cc Triumph Bonneville. Triumph also brought out a 1965 special edition TT120 fitted with crossflow exhausts, higher lift cam, higher comp pistons and a few other go-fast items. Supposedly produced for Isle of Man TT Marshalls. I still admire the fortitude of Mr. Soichiro Honda who, although (apparently), not being totally interested in his bike company in later years, still poured money into the racing bikes. Thanks again Paul for a very interesting video on the bike. Cheers

Thanks for the cool background info on the bike. Lots of CB750's from that era still around, but not many with the race kit & heritage of that one!

Artistic as usual, 1973 Frankie with mates Duncan and Peter showed up at Daytona in a Oldsmobile convertible with the top down, they opened the trunk to show Steve Baker and I his race bike was tanken apart and put in there for the journey from Vancouver. Waldo

What a beautifully shot and well captured moment, narrated wonderfully. Thanks for sharing!

Paul, relax with that ultrasonic cleaner. You’ll want to wash EVERYTHING! Get the cleaning fluid on the forest store and becareful cleaning aluminum parts specially anodized aluminum. Cheers!!!

man a cr750, what an awesome bike.

Cheers Paul & Mitch of course, thanks for the the very interesting history lesson. Have a great 2023 both of you

Once again welcome back Paul! Hope you are better..

Good to see you back making things Paul. I think many of us really missed and worried about you. Your attention to detail and pride in your work is outstanding.

Great to see you back working in your shop, the fender brace turned out perfect. 👍 Thanks for the very interesting back story and thank you Mitch for doing the video.

Great to see you back in the shop, easy to see you enjoy it!!

R&D, Fab, test, install ...18.5. I was close. Just great to see you in the saddle. I've been layed up 3 years after car accident and spinal injury. Really enjoy each episode.

Thanks, reminds me of BHP Port Waratah, a Mech Eng trainee, first 2 years as a Fitting & Turning apprentice. It's the sort of work I would like to do now, building frames, engines, in a machine shop setting, and doing it to a standard, thanks for the content.

It's beautiful, Paul. Thanks for sharing!

Now that you have an ultrasonic you need to get the correct soap for it. You need to get Alconox. This is what we used where we built mass spectrometers. I tried different soaps in my own personal ultrasonic at home but nothing actually worked. Then the Alconox worked like magic. My small one fit Harley cylinder heads or about 2/3 of a BSA or Triumph twin head. I bought a big one a couple years ago that fits both Sportster case halves and a couple heads at the same time. There's some amazing stuff you can do with one besides just cleaning.

Love your work as much as your recounting of the history! Thanks for sharing your skills, knowledge and experience.

Sure looks like Ron was riding a early TZ700/750. Twin shocks and that is the original fairing design. They were pretty evil handling with those twin shocks. Some riders switched to a custom monoshock in 1976, the TZ750D (77) came with the monoshock from Yamaha. That was a much better chassis.

I guessed 15 hours. I'd have built it with button head screws inside and a little more room for tyre growth. If it's going on the oval, that tyre would grow more that you'd think, oh yes that from working with Dunlop at distance events. Love the race history.

My WAG was 22 hours. I do not have a bike nor do I ride but I enjoy watching you solve problems. David Adair

Hey, Paul. Great to see you going from strength to strength. Happy new year. Regarding that unsupported rear end; I recall it being all the rage, on cutting edge bikes, to have no hoop at the back. It was a given that, if a rider needed a push start, you'd push the bike with your hands on the riders back. If you pushed from the rear, it'd collapse. My bike had no washers on any fasteners, no temperature gauge, no starter mechanisms, and no seat pad, all in the name of power to weight gains.

The kit was way more extensive than you talk about. The forks were not just internal parts. The sliders were magnesium and the fork tubes were titanium. I believe the carbs were cast magnesium unlike the die cast aluminum Keihins that cam stock. Most the fasteners were titanium. Honda didn’t mess around.

My guess was 11 hrs a little shy I guess. Love seeing you in the shop again. The content was great for me, I have a CB 750 four 1976 year model that I want to do some mods to one of these days. The history was great too.

Excellent back story to this episode. Top marks ✔✔✔

Very cool great job on the fender and i liked hearing about the history. Good to see you working in the shop. I guessed 20 hours.

You did a wonderful job on a wonderful and historic motorcycle! I hope the owner lets you sort out that saddle/tail piece.

Hello Paul, great stories and a pleasure to be invited into your shed. I was way off on my guess of time spent, but then I looked at the beautiful job you made of that mudguard, the attention to detail was perfect aesthetically and practically. Honda would be proud of how you achieved that finished job. By the way Father Christmas treated me to an ultrasonic cleaner too! Carbs and clock parts here we go! Thanks again to you and Mitch, sending you my best wishes, regards Kevin.

Paul, I love the history , along with the impeccable craftsmanship.

Paul, I'm so glad to see you in real action again. You are an example to me on how to design and build. Thank you. You're the salt of RU-vid. Best, Job

As always, thank you Paul & Mitch. It's wonderful that you're feeling better! Even more wonderful that you're enjoying your time in the shop again. That's quite a special bike, and special that you were tapped to work on it. I got a couple T-shirts and I'm quite enjoying having them in the rotation. Especially "that's a good fit".

Some would say probably slightly over engineered just for a mudguard stay , but i expected nothing less from a master engineer , always a pleasure to watch Paul great job as always 😁😁🤘🤘🤘

I'm happy for you and Mitch Paul, it's great to see you working on a project that requires all your skills. AND I loved the Honda race story, thanks for that.

Paul, So fantastic to see you making chips again 👍👍😎👍👍

Mr. Brodie, Very happy that your health is obviously improving. Your ability to arrive at elegant and functional solutions is impressive and has been learned, honed and refined after many years. It is amazing to observe the process, some of us can only dream. Great stories about the early race history of the CR750. You didn't want to get into some details concerning the Daytona winning machine. I do not have any first hand information but have read about and talked to people who know details. It has been confirmed that the fuel tanks were oversized and that the crankcases were cast from material other than aluminum, on those Daytona race bikes. In fact one of the four factory bikes crashed in testing and track workers had a very difficult time extinguishing the fire. It is interesting history that Mr. Yoshimura started with Honda's, then Kawasaki when the 900 was introduced but seemed to "find his home" with Suzuki with whom the name is almost synonymous.

a lovely job paul, great potted history from that era too thanks mitch for the "key grip"work behid the lens ,brilliant, best guess was 23 hrs ,,so you have a nice 4 hour break guys ☺👍👍👍

Thanks for sharing this project! Love hearing about some of the the old Westwood racing history, and hearing a bit about the racing history on the CR750

'Back making things in your shop'. The best news. You are looking great Paul. The mudguard mount is art of course. I guessed 25 hours so very impressive. Pops Yoshimura was a bit of a magician, thanks for the potted history of the bike, I enjoyed listening. Best wishes, Dean.

For a moment I thought it was your bike. Very nice job on the mount, id not thought about it but brazing those lugs on does make a real tidy job. Makes me realise i dont get to do enough fabrication on my own bikes. A few years back i bought a totaled Ducati ST4 with the intemntion of rebuilding it the way I wanted it. I loved my 916 years and years ago but i nkow im too crippled to ride a 916 so the ST4 was going to be a ompromise. Trouble is the bugger turned out to be a clone of a 916 and im no better off, but I do have a bloody lovely bike in the shed. Its guys like you that inspire us lot to get on a build these things so a bign thank you for all the effort you put into these videos. And a happy new year to you and Mitch.

I am happy to see Paul at work, which he enjoys! Greetings from German

Thanks Paul, that's a great fabrication, totally suits the bike.

Thank you so much for sharing with us, Paul! Hope you are feeling better, you look and sound great!

Paul, you sir are an artist!!!!!!!!!!!

Great storys, outstanding craftsmanship and a beautiful result!

Nicely done, Paul! I was a "new bike set-up boy" in a Honda dealership when I was 17 (1969, do the math) and distinctly remember the sand cast CB-750 engines. They were prone to exploding at the counter shaft bearing and we replaced a number of them. When the race kits came out, we lost our minds and wanted the owner of our dealership to build one of these bikes, but it didn't happen. The Honda parts catalogue listing those parts was passed around the shop and we just drooled. I still remember the "race only" parts as having a center parts number of "970". That was the magic number. Thanks for this video and a bit of trip down the old memory lane.

Top hint for the ultra. you can use little glass jars and other containers to use different solvents and cleaning fluids in the bath. Saves a fortune on filling the bath and having to switch out dirty fluid between jobs. I've run a whole bath of acetone one time to degum a very precious carb. I wish I'd known this trick before hand, Too may brain cells went west during that little game.

So glad to see you doing what you do best Paul . Love the workmanship. Great to see your doing better mate . Take care Paul . Cheers mate

With your ultrasonic cleaner, can I make a suggestion someone gave me, that I've found really useful: Don't put your cleaning fluid directly into the tub of the machine. Just use water. Then, put your parts and cleaning fluid into jars or tubs (or even plastic ziploc bags), and put them in the water. It works the same but saves cleaning fluid and also the getting the ultrasonic cleaner really messy...

Cool motorcycle. The front fender mount looks a lot better now. I have a 1975 CB750. Great bike. Not as fast as that one you're working on though. : )

Your CAD work is epic

CB72 (250 twin) had TLS drums front & rear! Way overkill! That looks like it has lived a life, cool thing.

Great history lesson on that bike. Outstanding job on that fender mount.

nice to see you again in the shop :)

I estimated it was 20 hours. Pretty close and for all you did I think that is pretty fast. It takes time to do things the correct way. So happy to see you " making things in your shop again" and I look forward to following videos.

Actually they were never "sandcast" cases just a very rough diecasting mold used for proof of concept testing that is why there were so few ever made that way., A friend of mine who was into Hillclimbs in Australia back in the day when CB 750's first appeared had some good friends who helped him out in Honda R&D and they supplied him Camshafts , CB 750 Japanese Police bike cylinder heads (Superior castings with better porting than normal production heads) as well as other race bits from Honda's race department back in the day before RSC came into being. And strangely enough a bunch of Race parts as well for the CB 350 engines he never used a buddy of mine still has as used in the Race bikes emulated in classic racing especially in the UK these days.

Always enjoy watching the thought and process that you put into your custom fabrications. Also enjoyed the history lesson. Cheers to you and Mitch and thanks for the video!

Fantastic story and amazing work.

My guess was 25 hours, I’m impressed that you did it in 19. Most people don’t appreciate how long these things take.

Not sure if someone has said this yet, but on the cb750, the front frame down tubes are spot-welded into the stamped headstock piece. It's common practice on a race bike to fully weld the tubes into that stamped piece. That may explain all the welding on the front of the frame.

If that rear rim is an 18” Akront, it most likely has an extremely thin cross section. Kosman imported them drilled for his drag hubs. This rim looks like it was for a 7” drag slick. It probably won’t last long in a road race application. You’d be better off with a correctly drilled Sun rim from Buchanans. I doubt you will find a Borrani rim that wide to match the front. Knowing Paul’s skills, I’m certain he could section a Borrani and graft in a wider center section. Kosman’s used to do that a lot, too. Pretty trick.

In Britain we call those carb plungers 'ticklers' and you tickle the carb

Hi Paul, beautiful work , as usual! Very well done Sir! I had you down for 22 hours! Greetings from Southport, UK.