well this blog has been left to languish for far too long. Since my last update the ca95 and the cb550f have been sold and I've moved to lausanne. All is not lost though, I've got a new bike and it's in need of some sprucing up in the looks department as well as some tuning. The new machine is a 1978 yamaha sr500 and will be gracing the pages of this blog shortly.

until then I'll be leaving a few pictures up just to show the completed dream and the final state of the cb550 during it's great american roadtrip.

It runs!

i pulled the plugs and they looked damaged from hitting the piston or something so i drilled out washers to fit them and tada a few milimeters made all the difference.

She runs like a champ. I took her around the block once or twice and all the gears work. The transmission is stiff which is normal by all accounts ive heard on this bike. On my second victory lap the old back tire's tube gave out and i had to push my new ride home though. It's only normal that my triumph is tinged with a little embarrassment, that's the way this whole restoration has gone.

New tubes are gonna be the last thing i get and then i suppose ill try to unload it on some vintage bike aficionado.

Boiled the carb in vinegar and water and it's spotless. I've figured out the problem and it's the damn toys r us power wheels battery. It probably thinks its grilling some poor 3 year old when I'm drawing that much current and it just cuts off. Once it's replaced It'll run.

I'll get to that after my road trip though. Anybody reading this can follow my exploits at my twitter account and I might update this blog once or twice too.

got it to run but it bogs down after a few seconds. It doesn't look like its the valve clearances and the ignition is timed correctly. I might have to boil the carb or something like that.

stay tuned i suppose

I have keys! Thanks to Todero's lock shop on 16th and federal! The locksmith there really has a passion for his work and as soon as he saw the antique I was holding he got excited about making a key for it. He only charged me 20 bucks and finished the job in a day. If you ever need anyone to do this kind of work on an obscure old lock this shop is the place to go.



The ignition works! After spinning the starter with the spark plugs out I saw nice big fat blue sparks. So already 2 of the major elements of combustion are in place: Spark and compression. The next step will be adding oil to the crankcase, putting some gas in the tank and trying to fire it up. I've cleaned the carb thoroughly and the float valve should work. I don't want any nasty gas spills and that stuff is so expensive these days that every drop is worth it's weigh in gold.

Wish me luck

this electrical crap is driving me insane. I got a powerwheels battery from toys r since nobody carries 6v stuff anymore and tried hooking everything up. That stupid battery cost me 45 bucks which is a little steep but not as bad as what I would have had to pay for something resembling an oem battery.

The switches all work as does the starter and the front headlight. I haven't tested the ignition yet and the tail light just wont come on. The neutral light bulb is burnt out and both my voltmeters aren't working... plus im broke... hey ain't life peachy.

Ok... so the countershaft arrived in the mail and was installed without any hiccups. After the engine was reassembled and most of the corrosion cleaned, I painted it aluminium grey with engine enamel. I tore the rest of the bike down to basically nuts and bolts so that all the blue stuff could be painted over and I could polish some of the fasteners with the wire brush. Due to lack of funds the paint job ended up being a krylon can number and not a powder coating as i had originally intended.

I stopped publishing as finals approached. Sorry this has dragged on so long. Reassembly only took about 15 hours or so...

The seat is still dirty with black paint despite my best efforts with acetone. I wanted to bring back the original red but I might end up painting it black again. The seat needs a new cover anyway.


after engine removal



painted


another side view


front wiring


assembled


just for an idea of the size

i was able to get the flywheel off by following the advice of a fellow motorcycle punk. He told me to just use the rear axle and tada it popped right off. SO now I can finally determine for sure what caused this poor little bike's demise. It looks like a massive bearing failure. Half of the bearing is actually missing and the primary drive must have gone out of alignment causing a huge amount of friction on the other end. The strain from the motor actually sheared the other end of the primary drive right off.


So it probably didnt have enough oil at the time this happened or the bearing was defective. Usually the don't just split like that.


The kickstart mechanism doesnt seem to have suffered much



The cam chain tensioner is in good order

¨

Heres a shot of the upper crankcase with the new part in place after having replaced the worn strip of metal that holds the bearing in place



The lower crankcase was filled with sludge and aluminum shavings... never something you want to find in your oil while you're doing an oil change.



Once I get the gasket set I ordered it's reassembly time. For now I'm concentrating my efforts on cosmetic things. The fender which was bent, a common problem with these 60s fenders the internet tells me, is now straight and the clutch and brake levers along with the handlebar perch have been repainted. Pictures of that to follow.

here's the cb550F with the new tires on there


I guess this is a good time to describe this bike since I've done a little work on it.

The points have two springs instead of one to increase the dwell time and this makes for a sharper engine tune at lower and higher rpms. The front disc brake is off an xs850 as I mentioned previously. The ignition coils are from a 77 gl1000 and produce a higher voltage spark than the stock coils. It has cafe bars on it I got off ebay. The carbies have pod filters on them instead of the stock airbox and the thuderous exhaust is from a cheap aftermarket kit for the xs850. It sounds vicious though and isn't as restrictive as the stock pipes. The filters and the pipes make it easier for more air and fuel to flow through the engine and as a result it's slightly more powerful and sounds a lot nicer.

Modifications coming up for this bike include some hard bags fabricated from 20mm ammo cans, a 12v socket, an ammeter, some fork gaiters and possibly an oil cooler.

Alright here's the new rubber for my cb 550f. I got wide white wall classic tires from maxxis.


The rim has a disc brake I cannibalized from an xs850. It works better in the rain and dissipates heat from the brake pads better because of the cuts in the disc. Plus it's a lot more stylish than the old dinner plate disc brake that was on there


I'm also cooking up a 12v socket that I'll hide underneath the side cover on the battery side. Theres a 7.5 amp inline fuse in the fuse holder and a little switch. I won't install it until i wire in an ammeter for the main fuse though since I've heard that these early honda charging systems were pretty anemic and I don't want to drain the battery completely with this dumb gadget. It'll be useful for when I'm travelling since I'll be able to keep a charge on my cell phone and other things.

the results of the reverse electrolysis on a part was in a shameful state of corrosion. It's shiny now. All thanks to a charger and some baking soda. I'll have a pick of the basement sink setup soon.



a shot of the crank case on the verge of being split. I'll need to dismantle the cam chain tensioner before I crack that sucker open and to get at it I'll need a flywheel puller. Oh well... just an excuse to get another tool. I'll take any I can get!



A shot of the front end. It's now dissasembled.



The smaller parts are in little sandwhich bags but the bigger ones are laid out in some kind of pattern desgined to resemble logic...



Poor emasculated little thing



A shot of the carbie. For some reason two metal screens were brazed into the outer wall of the velocity stack. Some other basement mechanic must have thought the air filter wasn't enough.





A mouse had actually made it's nest in the space between the air filter and the frame. We found a peanut.

I finally found a use for science! I got the idea of using some of the electrochemistry I learned last year to take the work out of the tedious removal of corrosion from the chrome parts. By hooking up the rusted part to the cathode and a chunk of expendible metal to the anode I can reverse the oxidation process as long as there is some kind of electrolyte in the solution the two bits are in. Right now the chrome from the lower left fork is being cleaned by a a useless old cell phone charger in my basement sink! It's only generating a current of .6 amps at 3 volts though. If I really wanted to get cooking I could use a car battery charger or something at 12volts.

I found a very thorough website on the kz400 with a few confidence inspiring engine rebuild tutorials amidst the massive heaps of other useful information on the model. I've seen these things up on ebay and craigslist going at around $300 and from what I've read they're definitely worth it. The model might not be as aesthetically pleasing as a candy colored cb350 but it might be slightly more rideable and mechanically sound with that vibration cancelling system incorporated into the engine.

I love the brochure picture with these two wholesome looking 20somethings pulled off to the side of the road. Even by the end of the 70s they were still trying to make biking look like it wasn't for people who used smashed jack bottles as wall calendars and killed people that stared at their tattoos of flaming snakes popping out of a skull shooting dice.

kz400.com

Even though I don't own one it's helped a lot to study how service manuals and tutorials describe stuff like this, so I do it as often as I can. I didn't know much of anything about bikes until a vt500FT I had gotten as cheap transportation broke down in the outer banks (NC) last july while I was on a road trip. I had to go through a hellish/character building ordeal to get it back to PA. I have made it a point since then to figure out how these machines worked down to the last nut and bolt. I'm not there yet but I've come pretty far. Too bad it was stolen from right in front of my house just as I was starting to appreciate it. That bike went through a lot in the year that I owned it.