Ducati Monster Forum

A few years ago, my buddy who got me into riding bought himself a barnfind 1972 CB350F with the intention of doing a cafe racer conversion on it.  He got about 80% of the way done and got a job on the other side of the country, and since I'd helped him all along the way he sold it to me so it'd go to someone who would care about it.  Between other projects and work sucking my life away, she started collecting dust in my garage.  My brother got tired of just seeing it sit there as I did work on Ducatis instead and got a local dealership to recommend a mechanic who would know how to do the work that the bike would need.  We dropped it off 8 months ago.

Today I finally got him to return my bike to me after months of excuses and stalling and slow progress, not to mention that I was dumb enough to keep working with him after he pulled Step 4 (of 12) on me at one point.  He rebuilt the wiring harness and fixed some of the electrical issues, but after some issues with him not returning my calls I'd had enough bullshit and asked him to patch the bike together by the end of last week.  He tells me Thursday that he'll give me a call at the end of the day with a status report and goes silent.  With no response to several calls on Thursday night and Friday, I left a message saying I wanted the bike back and would be around on Saturday, when he was naturally gone off to the race.  After staking out his house for most of the weekend, the lazy bum refused to return my bike on Sunday ("I don't work on Sundays") and cancelled the Monday pickup I scheduled with him an hour before I was supposed to head over.  If I hadn't gotten the bike back today, I was going to get the cops involved because I was sick and tired of dealing with this.

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-nLtBm6WjrJQ/UDQ3XJ3fCrI/AAAAAAAACM8/6Okhhw2P9oU/s800/IMAG0766.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hC2CS_zY8NY/UDQ3n7frDzI/AAAAAAAACNc/R1FydWE-2iQ/s800/IMAG0770.jpg)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-QDVJZxe1kOY/UDQ3tKFMKlI/AAAAAAAACN0/PDrgPPViOtU/s512/IMAG0772.jpg)

She's still not done, and given my travel schedule for the next few months I'm not going to have the time to do any of it myself.  Anyone have any recommendations in the Indianapolis area for a mechanic who might be able to help me out?  I really just want to get her running again.

Nice looking bike....a lot of potential [thumbsup]

8 month's, you have TOO MUCH patience!!! [evil]

I've basically been traveling three weeks out of four for the last couple of months so the difference between sitting in my garage and sitting at his place was that some work might actually happen while it was at his place.  Might happen barely materialized into did happen during those months, and despite the fact that I had plans to attend MotoGP and GenCon this weekend, I spent the time getting my bike back instead.  I can't wait to get her running, though.

Get on the Hoosier Hooligans board. I'm sure someone will know someone there.

I've been following the guys at Good Spark Garage for a while and seem like a pretty decent place to start. Looks like they're about half an hour away from Indianapolis.

http://goodsparkgarage.com/contact/ (http://goodsparkgarage.com/contact/)

Man that bike is gorgeous

Nice  [evil]

iDESMO?

Hi AdmiralKit,

The guy who did the cafe seats and converted them to mono shocks for the guys at Good Spark Garage on that BMW and Kawasaki is http://meyerbuiltmetalworks.com/. (http://meyerbuiltmetalworks.com/.)  His name is Cliff and he is a good friend of mine.

Bike looks sweet!

You can't see me smacking myself in the face for not hitting them up before I started this thread.  I was out at the Brockway last night with them and got some good leads.


Does Cliff live in the Broad Ripple area?  I asked my buddy who did most of the work on the bike and he couldn't remember the answer, but I think he might have done some of the welding on the bike and for the seat already.  Right now I'm not in need of metalworking service, but I've got a couple of projects stewing that might need his services.

Too bad you weren't farther south. I'm in the Louisville area

Yeah, I know - I'm still working on that M900 project with the frame you sold me.  Really hoping my travel schedule quiets down a bit in the next couple of months so I can actually keep that one moving along.  Between now and the end of September, I'm spending 3.5 weeks out of town (although some of this is finally some well-earned vacation time). 

I'm on the west side and have done a few cb750's. Shoot me a PM with what you think it needs. I'm sure we can work something out.

Friend of mine did this build himself.  He bought the bike for $300 in really rough shape but all original and turned it into this.

I took it for a spin and it runs great.  Brakes are excellent.  Very nice bike and it is pretty comfortable too.

(http://s7.postimage.org/tcnq8xanv/Cafe1.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/r83d7u913/full/)
(http://s8.postimage.org/ntv0j3qsl/Cafe2.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/acy208ggx/full/)
(http://s11.postimage.org/k4bd9748j/Cafe3.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/8f7dl8d9r/full/)
(http://s18.postimage.org/g6cm9b21l/Cafe4.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/6lszmfcph/full/)

I wanna build an XS650. Awesome base to start from.

Cliff was, but he is now in Noblesville.  What do you have to finish?  Electronics?  I cafe-d out a '74 CB750 a few years back... familiar story... bought the bike for $400, didn't run... rebuilt everything.  Rode the crap out of it!  Poor girl now only gets occasional love since the monster moved in!