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

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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.

test post

This blog is hereby declared opperational!

I've created it to document the process of restoring a honda dream I bought in mid december. I also own a 1977 CB550F that I'm turning into a bit of a frankeinbike so that motorcycle will probably be featured on here too.



So here's my progress with the dream so far:
I've taken pictures of the removal and disassembly of the engine so far and those will be my next post. The quality is somewhat lackluster since they were taken with the webcam thats integrated in my laptop.

The most obvious problem with the engine of the dream is the transmission counter shaft which looks like a part of it is missing. The oil seal around the shaft is bent and it the rubber on it is pretty torn up. The counter shaft must have been moving when it happened. This might have been the result of a nasty bump back in the 1960s. hahaha. Some hippie must have taken it offroad or something. The guy I bought it from told me it had sat in a garage since the 1970s and he wasn't the first owner. His uncle fixed pretty much everything and he had shelves upon shelves of broken tvs, a couple of old cars, literally tons of stereos and this little bike.

One of the wires to the points condenser was caught in the ignition advancer mechanism and that could obviously have put this machine out of commision as well. I don't really know how this could have happened other than someone disconnecting the wire or tampering with the points. There really is only one point though since this engine only fires once every 360° of crank rotation. Should I just refer to it as a point? It really is a modest little engine and kinda funky looking.

The single carburetor looks like its in pretty good order. The float valve is stuck and will probably need to be replaced. but all of the jets and passages look clean. There wasn't even any gunk left in the float bowl.

Once all of that is squared away the engine should be in running order.