Mother Load! Or, Now What?

So, it's like this. I've been looking at Craigslist for a month or two looking for a simple air cooled 80s ujm to wrench on. I've always enjoyed wrenching, as long as it wasn't my daily driver, and my kids love to learn and help where they can. It's taken a month or two because everyone in DFW seems to think their rusted out, sat in a field 20 years, never had a title, not stolen, hunk of crap is worth at least 2k. The few good deals I found were gone by the time I made contact.
Last night, an ad for a cb500 came up at a reasonable price. No picture, email only. Email sent. Super great guy calls me back says it's a good candidate for reviving, plus he has a bunch of spare parts.

Let me find a trailer and I'll be there in a hour.
What you see in the pictures is a vstrom, surrounded by a 71cb500, another cb500 frame, engine and rear end. An 82 cb900 basket case, and enough parts to finish all three with a lot of extra parts left over. It's all rough, but most looks salvageable. I'm going to spend the next few evenings going through everything and trying to figure out what path to take. I may use this thread to document progress or happenings.
I wanted a project, and got a new occupation!
So, uh... What's next? Anyone in the Arlington that knows what this stuff is worth want to earn a beer or three and help me decide?
I'd like to have at least one rideable motorcycle at the end, and thought about selling off the pieces that I won't need to fund that, but the more I think about it, it I can get two or all three, why not?

If you put a set of carbs on the kitchen table, you may end up with a bigger shop. Or not.

You'll notice that everything is crammed on MY side of the garage, with constant access to the elliptical machine. I don't think cleaning carbs on the kitchen table is going to happen. I guess it's a small price to pay for being married to a girl that uses an elliptical!

I'm being thick-headed; you went to pick up one bike and came home with 3?

You sound like my wife! One, mostly solid bike. The second 500 is motor, frame, and rear end. Third bike (the 900) was thrown in by the seller at the last minute so that he could be rid of it. The forks may transfer over to the good 500 and give me dual disk brakes, but I'm not to that stage yet.

I also got this beauty that will probably go on the wall, unless one of you tells me it's worth money that could fund gaskets and seals.

That fairing as well as the bodywork on that bike look to all be old Vetter stuff as the Honda never came with a one piece tank and side cover setup.

Craig Vetter and a few others offered some kits like this

I just picked up a Virago (#3) for $200. The former owner said the starter gear was bad. Turned out to be the RELAY. Scott (M38A1) thought it looked Showroom new. Hadn't been on the road in 19 years. If you know what to do to one, they're sweet bikes; Otherwise, you can fix all the wrong parts.
Also got a Windjammer 4 to fit. Now, I have two Windjammer 3's to sell.

budzrex said:

That fairing as well as the bodywork on that bike look to all be old Vetter stuff as the Honda never came with a one piece tank and side cover setup.

Craig Vetter and a few others offered some kits like this

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Looks more like a Wixom fairing. I have never seen a Vetter fairing like that.

I think I have found it!
it has taken a bunch of looking but the fairing for sure is a Tracy fiberglass works, penetrator W100-750 fairing.

need a full picture of the bike. does the body work flow into the tail section all as one part? it looks like it is a Tracy fiberglass works, Honda 500 eliminator.

both quite rare, not many survived and they can be worth some money to the right person.

Looks like that's the one!


Did a quick eBay search and didn't find anything. Anyone have an idea of what a rough painted but solid ( haven't found any cracks) one of these is worth?

Transpomgr said:

Looks like that's the one!

Did a quick eBay search and didn't find anything. Anyone have an idea of what a rough painted but solid ( haven't found any cracks) one of these is worth?

Click to expand...

boy that sure looks like it.

hard to tell, I found someone stating they were worth about $300 but that did not state what model Tracy body work.

as my old car dealing former neighbor stated "a object is worth what some one is willing to pay for it"
I say put it up on E-bay with lots of tags "tracy fiberglass" "cb500" "vetter" etc... with a reserve of say $500 and see what happens.

clean it up run some polish on it and take lots of top and bottom pictures.

first carefully take it off and look on the underside for any form of identification to be sure.

it could also be worth more on the bike, there is a non running 73 CB500 on E-bay now and it is missing front caliper, dented rusty tank and bidding is up to $810 and it is a boring stock bike.

focus frenzy said:

first carefully take it off and look on the underside for any form of identification to be sure.

it could also be worth more on the bike, there is a non running 73 CB500 on E-bay now and it is missing front caliper, dented rusty tank and bidding is up to $810 and it is a boring money pit bike.

Click to expand...

Fixed it for you.

yep Tracy bodywork, styled to look like the Triumph Hurricane X75


So I was off by one fiberglass resin soaked aftermarket guy, not bad for a
guy that has smelled paint and solvent fumes most of his life

No ID, but there are the remnants of a sticker, or maybe it's tape. I think it will be on eBay in the next few days. More to come.

Okay. Had a battery and ignition switch and key arrive as the old tumbler was frozen. Manual should be here in the next day or so. Installed battery and switch and nothing. So now I'm going through and checking/cleaning connections. Am I correct in that a 1971 cb500 only has one fuse? 15a under the left side panel?

I checked the diagrams at cmsnl dot com and yes just the one master fuse.


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I bet if you marketed it towards the Hipsters and Nuevo Cafe Bike crowd you could make more money on it, I'd bet 99% of that crowd had never seen that bodywork, mainly owing to most of them being under 30 yrs old.