1975 T500 front fender repair with Honda 450 Parts
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:14 am
Here is a short story long.
I had a fender bender with my Suzuki T500 a while back where I ran into the back of a truck at low speed. The classic, busy traffic going fairly slow scenerio, where I looked over my shoulder to check something and when I turned back the traffic was stopped. Funny thing about 1975 Suzuki T500 brakes, they are not that strong. The truck I hit received about $1800 damage to the rear bumper/fender but, thankfully, nothing was damaged on my body expect my pride and ego. The Suzuki however, lost a rear turn signal, the very nice CL350 Handle Bars that I had installed but the front fender received the most damage of all. The fender was pushed into the front tire and had to be removed before I could ride the bike home....bent handlebars and all.
Normally I would have just tossed the whole fender but, for some reason, I saved the front fender mounting bracket and had it sitting on the bench. Unlike a Honda 450, T500 front fenders seem to be hard to come by in good condition. The only decent one I could find was a restored fender that the seller was very proud of to the tune of $359 or so. Eeeekkk!!, I don't think so.
Fast forward a couple of months to earlier this week when I was looking at the Suzuki fender bracket on the bench and realized I had a stock 1971 Honda CB450 fender sitting in the corner that was in very good condition. The only problem was that it was missing one of the support brackets. I did a trial fit of the Honda fender to the Suzuki fender bracket and DAMN! it fit nicely.
I drilled out the stock 450 mounting bracket rivets and installed the Suzuki bracket with the original Suzuki nuts and phillips bolts. I've spent a lot of years building an aluminum airplane that is held together with rivets so I have plenty of experience drilling out rivets without damaging the original hole. It's a skill I'm not proud of because it means the skill I should be proud of (driving and bucking rivets) probably needs some work.
If you haven't done this before it's a simple matter of using a good center punch to mark the center of the rivet head. Next us a small twist drill to drill a pilot hole deeper than the thickness of the rivet head. Finally, using a twist drill approximately the size of the rivet shaft, slowly drill until the head pops off.
Here is the Honda fender brace after removal.
The Suzuki brace is on the right ready to be mounted and the stock Honda brace is on the left. Suzuki could have saved about 2lbs by imitating the Honda brace in size.
The Honda fender had a small indentation that got in the way of a perfect fit so I took a ball peen hammer to the brace and modified it so the fender would fit flush. The peen marks will not be visible and it didn't have to be formed very much but the final fit was excellent.
Using the appropriate vice grip clamp to hold everything in position, I drilled through the existing fender holes and into the Suzuki fender mount brace. (no Photo's, sorry). Again, using the original Suzuki 5mm bolt and nuts (and clamps to hold everything in position) I mounted the fender to the brace.
The fender fit into position and formed the tire nicely. If it wasn't for the two holes in the top front and bottom rear portion of the Honda fender where the mounting braces are located, I would leave the fender just as it since I like this look.
Here is where I'm indecisive. Do I cut off the excess material on the Suzuki fender bracket (the stock braces mount there) to clean it up or do I leave it the stock shape in case I ever need to re-use the stock Suzuki fender? I'm probably going to cut it since any stock fender I might purchase in the future will probably have the brace attached.
As a test, I then mounted the front/top support bracket and was very surprised to find that it fit the lower mounts on the T500. It looks a little odd with just the front brackets on so I wanted to even things out with the rear/lower bracket although it will be about 1/2" too long and will have to be shortened.
After looking at it closer, the front brace is a little long since it causes the front of the fender to rise a little above the front tire. You can see where the rear part of the fender is close to the tire as well. I'm going to modify the braces to fit a little better but that will have to wait until I get a new Honda fender bracket from Steve on the http://www.hondatwins.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; forum.
I'll post some more pictures later when the job is completed.
I had a fender bender with my Suzuki T500 a while back where I ran into the back of a truck at low speed. The classic, busy traffic going fairly slow scenerio, where I looked over my shoulder to check something and when I turned back the traffic was stopped. Funny thing about 1975 Suzuki T500 brakes, they are not that strong. The truck I hit received about $1800 damage to the rear bumper/fender but, thankfully, nothing was damaged on my body expect my pride and ego. The Suzuki however, lost a rear turn signal, the very nice CL350 Handle Bars that I had installed but the front fender received the most damage of all. The fender was pushed into the front tire and had to be removed before I could ride the bike home....bent handlebars and all.
Normally I would have just tossed the whole fender but, for some reason, I saved the front fender mounting bracket and had it sitting on the bench. Unlike a Honda 450, T500 front fenders seem to be hard to come by in good condition. The only decent one I could find was a restored fender that the seller was very proud of to the tune of $359 or so. Eeeekkk!!, I don't think so.
Fast forward a couple of months to earlier this week when I was looking at the Suzuki fender bracket on the bench and realized I had a stock 1971 Honda CB450 fender sitting in the corner that was in very good condition. The only problem was that it was missing one of the support brackets. I did a trial fit of the Honda fender to the Suzuki fender bracket and DAMN! it fit nicely.
I drilled out the stock 450 mounting bracket rivets and installed the Suzuki bracket with the original Suzuki nuts and phillips bolts. I've spent a lot of years building an aluminum airplane that is held together with rivets so I have plenty of experience drilling out rivets without damaging the original hole. It's a skill I'm not proud of because it means the skill I should be proud of (driving and bucking rivets) probably needs some work.
If you haven't done this before it's a simple matter of using a good center punch to mark the center of the rivet head. Next us a small twist drill to drill a pilot hole deeper than the thickness of the rivet head. Finally, using a twist drill approximately the size of the rivet shaft, slowly drill until the head pops off. Here is the Honda fender brace after removal.
The Suzuki brace is on the right ready to be mounted and the stock Honda brace is on the left. Suzuki could have saved about 2lbs by imitating the Honda brace in size.
The Honda fender had a small indentation that got in the way of a perfect fit so I took a ball peen hammer to the brace and modified it so the fender would fit flush. The peen marks will not be visible and it didn't have to be formed very much but the final fit was excellent.
Using the appropriate vice grip clamp to hold everything in position, I drilled through the existing fender holes and into the Suzuki fender mount brace. (no Photo's, sorry). Again, using the original Suzuki 5mm bolt and nuts (and clamps to hold everything in position) I mounted the fender to the brace.
The fender fit into position and formed the tire nicely. If it wasn't for the two holes in the top front and bottom rear portion of the Honda fender where the mounting braces are located, I would leave the fender just as it since I like this look.
Here is where I'm indecisive. Do I cut off the excess material on the Suzuki fender bracket (the stock braces mount there) to clean it up or do I leave it the stock shape in case I ever need to re-use the stock Suzuki fender? I'm probably going to cut it since any stock fender I might purchase in the future will probably have the brace attached.
As a test, I then mounted the front/top support bracket and was very surprised to find that it fit the lower mounts on the T500. It looks a little odd with just the front brackets on so I wanted to even things out with the rear/lower bracket although it will be about 1/2" too long and will have to be shortened.
After looking at it closer, the front brace is a little long since it causes the front of the fender to rise a little above the front tire. You can see where the rear part of the fender is close to the tire as well. I'm going to modify the braces to fit a little better but that will have to wait until I get a new Honda fender bracket from Steve on the http://www.hondatwins.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; forum.
I'll post some more pictures later when the job is completed.
