Rebel 450 - "Judy"

Here's another oldie, which I think I got in late 2015. I don't remember if this was my 2nd or 3rd bike after the XT550. Sort of a random purchase which I think was mostly appealing because of its running and titled status (two very ironic points, as it turned out), this bike was like a housecat that sort of just showed up, decided it wanted to come home with me, and then never left. I wasn't so into documenting shit back then as I am now, so this post will be abbreviated in parts, and won't have nearly as much build details as other bikes. Not like anybody would ever want to copy this POS. 

This started out as a 1986 CMX450, AKA the "big" Rebel. I have seen a total of three of these things ever come up for sale. Two of them had roached motors. Actually, three of them had roached motors, now that I think about it. More on that in a minute... 

This was a Craigslist bike, which I bought from two fairly sketchy twin (?) brothers in downtown Long Beach, CA. They were nice enough, but I remember thinking that it wouldn't have surprised me if this bike was stolen, and as it turns out, to this day I think it might have been. 

The day I rode it home. This was only my 2nd "runner" at the time, so it was pretty exciting!

 

He gave me the title and it had his name on it, which was reassuring, but when I went to register it a few days later, there was some sort of problem that I can't remember the details of now...the bike had been flagged as salvage, or impound, or something to that effect, and the DMW wouldn't give it to me unless the previous owner would sign for a replacement title first. HHHMMMMMMMMMMMM

But, they gave me the slip to do so, told me to have him sign it and bring it back and there wouldn't be any problems. So I called the guy up (who up to this point had been very communicative and transparent, by the way) and told him the situation, he said no problem, but he was busy at the moment, so I should call him back the next day and we'd figure it out. And that was officially the last time I ever heard from the mf'er. That phone definitely went in the trash right after that conversation. 

So all of a sudden I'm $1200 down and stuck with a legally ambiguous (and potentially hot) bike that was nothing more than an impulse buy in the first place. The answer is probably obvious now, but keep in mind I was like 19 at this time so my list of questionable legal escapades was decidedly shorter, and I did have somewhat of a fear of authority. But in a funny way, I guess this bike gave me the push I needed towards living a little more on the edge. 

After not hearing back from the guy for days, I eventually decided I was going to keep the bike out of spite, so I forged the signature, brought it back and didn't say a word. A talk with my friend Chris reframed my perspective, and helped me realize that the DMV didn't care about what was on the road, or who owned it; they were just a business that wanted my money. So, I gave it to them, and the bike was mine. 

I immediately broke into a run customizing the hell out of this bike. Despite the cosmetic changes, at the time, I remember saying that I wanted to keep it stock. That's actually still mostly true to this day - I only dicked with the intake vacuum lines a couple of years ago, and everything else is factory. It's definitely the only bike I have with an OEM airbox, I'll tell you that. 

I plasti-dipped this one, and I think it's turned out the best of those experiments. 

My first attempt was botched (I don't remember why) so my neighbor took this creepy photo of me starting over

I love how Plasti-Dip goes on...it's always smooth as hell

 

The color scheme and scallops I went with were an old holdover from my earliest days of dreaming about bikes. This was a consideration for what would eventually become "Maxine" the VN800 Drifter...but it ended up on this bike first! 

 

I don't think this was my first time using artist's tape, but I was definitely still pretty new at it.

 

For anyone that ever thinks about doing two-tone with Plasti-Dip, pro tip: make sure you remove your masking immediately while your second color is still wet. Put it on heavy and then rip that tape off pronto. 

 

The paint job came out really well, but the colors were too vivid for my liking and bordered on obnoxious. So I did something that might be considered a little tacky, and I washed the paintjob with black and brown spray paint to dirty it up with fake patina. Of course, ten years later the bike has more real patina than I ever could have hoped for, but at the time it needed a bit of help. 

I've mocked people for doing this. Look at the asshole I am

 

Knocked down that brightness quite a bit. Thank God

The bike got a random assortment of decals and stickers, some Schwinn bicycle grips, a tinted headlight and a new set of handlebars, and that was mostly it. This was a really mild bike...at least for a while. 

Emgo "Low Chopper" bars

Not pictured: using a stack of playing cards to mask off the tire. Works great

 

 

Some shocks from a Honda Shadow 1100 fit a little nicer into the retro aesthetic and rode really nice. I had to trim them a little to keep the covers from rubbing on the swingarm.  

With the pink slip in my hand, my first big obstacle was out of the way, but it didn't take me long to realize that something else was up. The bike was hard starting, wouldn't idle right, seemed down on power, would only get hot on one side, and the exhaust pulse was really uneven. At the time I'd never taken apart an engine bigger than a GY6, so I didn't exactly know my head from my 10mm socket, but even my dumb ass knew this motor was dead. Sure as shit, a compression test revealed a problem in the no. 1; virtually no compression. LOL. 

When I got the nerve to open up the head, I didn't have to learn anything new in order to see the problem. I'll let the pictures talk here. 

 

I'm not sure if it was an oil starvation issue or mechanical detonation or what it was, but it didn't matter, the cam looked like a pottery wheel and the no. 1 cylinder was toast. 

But it worked out anyway. The Rebel 450s had this weird issue sometimes where the starter motor would "fall out" of engagement as a little spring would lose its tension over the years. There is no fix to this problem that doesn't involve removing the engine from the bike. From what I remember reading at the time, it was basically a 50/50 chance of your bike having this condition. Well, this one did. The starter would engage maybe 3/10 times, to the point where I would often bump start it to avoid mashing the button like an asshole in the parking lot for 30 minutes after running an errand 200 yards from my house. So, I was fixing to take the motor out of this thing anyway. Turns out, that starter was far from the biggest problem. Silver lining?

My pal helped me source a spare engine on ebay for something like 500 dollars, which was a lot back in 2016, especially considering I'd bought the bike for 1200. But, my heart was in it, so I got it shipped freight to the bike shop I was working at at the time, I loaded the engine in the back of a Honda del Sol (lol) and a few days later, voila. Heart transplant. 

New engine installed. The shitter in the background is still at that house to this day.

This was the first time for me ever replacing an engine. I did it all on my own, which was pretty daunting at that time, and I was proud of myself. Looking back on it now, I guess this bike introduced me to a lot of "firsts". 

And wouldn't you know it, but after filling the carbs, the thing started, and it ran better than ever. After earning my "Replace Engine" Boy Scout Badge, I wasted no time in ripping up the roads like a banshee with my new bride. 

Now, I was committed to this thing.

I was in love...

Not much happened, or needed to happen, with this bike for a long time. The biggest change that got made after my initial makeover was a new seat cover, which was an excellent gift from my mom, who had Brody help her get it done while I was away that summer and was put back on the bike for me to notice when I got it back. A really sweet thing, and I've loved that seat forever.  

The name Judy came straight out of a friend's mouth. Taylor Allison and I were getting lunch at an outdoor cafe and she was staring at the bike on the other side of our table. I told her I'd been debating several names for it and without even asking any of the options she just barked at me, "that bike's a Judy and you know it". And I knew it. I had named the KZ750 Rhonda, in large part, because I loved the idea of it being able to accompany the Beach Boys song. "I wonder if there's a good 'Judy' song too," I asked. 

"Is Elvis not good enough for you?" Taylor asked flatly. 

There wasn't much to do after that. I had a runner, and she had a name. I rode the bike as it was like that for a lot of years, and it got dirtier, but other than that I never changed anything on it for a long time. 

This bike does take the credit for starting me on my trend of taking machines place they weren't designed to go, which now seems to be my signature. Maybe part of it had to do with having two dual-sport bikes that never ran, and the associated frustration of that making me say screw it. Andrew at Bixby Moto was also a big influence at the time, and he would regularly convince me to bring the Rebel, street tires and all, out to the desert, one time taking it to the top of a crumbling flagstone hill that I was sure was going to kill me. 

 

photos by Andrew Hopkins

 

Regina and I took the bike in the pickup truck to a vintage MX race with Hell on Wheels one year, and when a flabbergasted Meatball asked me if I had a number plate, I famously replied, "sure don't - but I have a license plate!" 

 

Photos by Regina Velasco

These days definitely made me a better rider, and Judy gave me a ton more confidence, on and off the road.

 

In 2017, I decided to bring the bike with me to a ranch job back in Wyoming. I'm not sure why I picked the Rebel for this task, but I guess I didn't have as many options back then. That entire year was filled with crazy adventures that that bike will never live down. I had a girlfriend that year that thought it was pretty cool! Just shows how little she knew. 

 

 

After that job was up, I brought the bike with me to Washington for a fall spent riding in the snow and rain. Probably the single worst experience I ever had on a bike was during this season, when I had to ride from Portland to Seattle during the middle of the night in monsoon conditions. We're talking several inches of freezing rain. I was so desperate for relief from the rain that I started tucking behind semi truck trailers and riding in their rain shadows. I have never since had a bike stop running on me from being choked out by water. That was definitely one of those "why am I doing this" moments of motorcycling. 

 

 

I am positive that the wet conditions that season are what contributed to the exhaust pipes eventually rusting off, more on that in a minute.  

The bike traveled thousands of miles on a hitch carrier on the back of my Tacoma that winter, which seems a dicey, and it was. But the setup never gave me an ounce of trouble. Those racks are rated for 500 lbs, and this bike is just over 400. Always worked out great as long as you adjusted your driving.  

 

Western hospitality in Montana

 

Needless to say, when I eventually brought the bike back to where it came from, it had seen a lot, and had a hell of a lot of stories to tell. But she was about to get a break for a while. 

The exhaust fell off one day - literally - having rusted out from the inside. So I hacksawed right behind the bend at the headers and got some nice steel pipe to mock up a new set of drags. I didn't have access to a welder back then, so I took the package to a local muffler shop owned by a trio of brothers from Eastern Europe. Those dudes were hilarious and really helpful, I could tell they were probably jazzed to work on something interesting for once. 

 

This was the first time I ever painted an exhaust white, which I think was Andrew's idea. I've done it on a few bikes since.

It sounded OK. Not very deep-pitched, but it was loud and had that throaty voice like all Hondas seem to. For whatever reason, it seemed way louder than the KZ750 with open pipes.  

 

  

Regina getting a shot for "Return to Death Valley"

 

 

 

  

  

As it was, I wouldn't be back to California for several years after that, and with that new exhaust, it got mothballed to await some other day... 

After being away for many years and slowly edging my way deeper into the chopper world, I came back to Judy with fresh eyes and a wild hair up my ass and decided I wanted 2 things: an extended front end, and a tall ass sissybar.

The extended forks are one of my more proud ideas; I wanted to do it cheap, so I spent something around forty bucks on a set of XR250 forks, disassembled them and frankensteined them into the Rebel lowers. There was a little bit of crackheading to get it to happen, but at the end of the day it worked, and I've ridden a few thousand miles since and it hasn't fallen apart. So yeah, as far as I know I'm the only guy running 8" overs on a Rebel 450 and it costed me $40. Follow your dreams.   

 

 

 

 

With new tire installed. I was amazed that this actually worked.

 

With the new added length, the kickstand was unusable. A quick stop at Brody's fabrication funhouse rectified that problem.

 

$2 worth of steel pipe = no more gangster lean

 

For some damn reason it took me a really long time to remove the rotor from the front wheel, I guess because I had myself convinced that I was going to lengthen and reinstall the front brake, which seems ridiculous now. It bugs me seeing that rotor still on in so many of these photos. 

Anyway, with the forks and stance nailed, it was time to move on to new dream no. 2: the sissy bar.

A few bucks at Industrial Metal Supply got me everything I needed for a scratchbuilt rack, and with Brody's help it came together pretty quickly. 

 

The whole thing was done up with 1/2" twisted square stock, strap, and some wrought-iron fencing accents. Ghetto as hell and perfect for this bike. 

 

Quick test to make sure the lines were right (hint: they were)

But there was a lot of empty space, and I wanted to do something artistic.  

The fish was a weird choice. Brody and I had a long-standing inside joke after a geezer at a gas station once asked me what kind of Harley my bike was, and we decided later that the only real answer was that it was a Harley Fishhead, and started calling the bike that amongst ourselves. But mostly, I just thought it was an outlandish thing that would confuse people on the road, which is always my main pejorative. I think I also liked the implications of the bike having something to do with garbage.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dug it, so I painted the bar black and did the fish in white, also adding a Teletubby topper to it.

 

photos by Brody Cox

 

I'm thankful that I managed to get some good photos of it after painting and finishing it, because it didn't last long. I rode out to meet Alex Suarez on his Ninja one day, and I noticed a stress crack developing on the bottom of the bar nearest to the mount. I wasn't really sure what to do about that at the time, so I rode very carefully the rest of the day, hoping not to aggravate the crack and get it welded back up. Well, turns out the whole sucker broke off somewhere on the highway. A sad goodbye, but a funny one. To this date it's probably my favorite thing I've ever welded, lost in sacrifice, a tribute to the 405. I like to imagine that somebody has it hanging up on their wall somewhere, or better yet, I'm gonna find it in one of those weird antique shops in the desert 20 years from now with a paper tag on it that says "VINTAGE 1940S FISH SKELETON TRENCH ART WWII" and selling for $300. 

 

 

Since the sissy broke, I've never replaced it or even really considered doing so. I guess it feels like bad luck or something...sometimes when things die, you just have to let them go. I don't love sissys on swingarm bikes anyway. Speaking of swingarm bikes, if I do make any more changes to this bike, it would probably be struts. At some point fairly recently I switched out the Shadow shocks for a set of old Bridgestones I had left over that used be on the KZ750. They were a couple inches shorter so really emphasized that long front end, but they ride like shit. So I think struts might be fun to slam the back down but help the ride from pogoing as much as it does. Besides that, maybe if I get real bored some day I'll try cleaning up the OEM wiring and stripping down some of the controls. Other than that, I don't see much need to touch anything.  

As of 2024, the last thing I've ever done on this bike was adding a set of free Sportster mufflers onto the homemade pipes. It took me an hour to do and looks pretty good, although my hopes at improving the "weed whacker"ness of the sound didn't really pan out. Oh well. I need to paint the mufflers to match, but I'll do that when the pipes wear down a bit more and need repainted anyway.

 

Not much more to say. So that's Judy, still fighting for that no. 1 spot in my fleet, and winning it most of the time.

In a lot of ways this is one of the dumber things on the road, but gosh dang if I don't love it. It can feel a little gutless sometimes on the long stretches, but it's quick AF off the line and beat a Triumph America in a quarter mile, so there's that. But mostly it's a ton of fun around town. I've considered selling it MANY times over the years (always when a new bike comes into the picture), but I always back down once I imagine my life without it. When I'm in the middle of tearing shit up in the garage at 10PM and I need to run to Home Depot five minutes before closing, this is the bike I take. Every time.

 

 

Sometimes I still think about that dumb bitch that thought he was pawning off a stolen, roached bike on a stupid kid. Maybe he thinks the scam worked, and I lost the deal. 

Well. Look at us now...