Parts arrived

Some new parts arrived from Halcyon and David Silver Spares. Hand luggage courtesy of my mother-in-law (thanks Maggie!)

Halcyon mirrors are going to look great!

Couldn't resist those bling valve caps

Can't stop the coffee racer

No, seriously... I crashed it into the back of a Toyota Fortuner last week, proving that 35 year old wooden blocks do not compare well with triple disk Brembo brakes. I thought I was compensating for the added stopping distance required, but obviously not enough. Earned myself a smashed headlight + mounting ear and a nice fat bruise on my upper thigh. Not to mention the bruise on my ego, or the dent in my wallet the Fortuner bumper's going to make! Makes me appreciate how effortlessly the BMW obeys every rider input, and I'm now set on a dual disk conversion for the Honda.

Sometimes it really feels like this project is going backwards far more than it's progressing.

Smashed headlight bucket + replacement (off a late model 550K)

Just some pics

The clubmans are mounted upside down again, and the riding position is actually quite comfy. I will switch them around again soon as I get a chance though...

Mirrors have arrived at their destination in Weldon and will make their way here in about 3 weeks time as part of my mother-in-law's luggage.

Braided brake lines are about to be ordered from Slingshot Cycles, and I've sent a query off to SpeedMoto to check the measurements of their fork boots. I they fit, I may just get a pair of their white Gran Turismo grips:

 I'd prefer to have them in ivory to match the paint scheme I have in mind, but perhaps I can dye them...

Fork Rebuild

Well, I had a frantic 2 weeks but managed to get everything sorted for roadworthy and the bike is now registered in my name. Big milestone... now I can relax a bit and take my time to figure out what next.

In the mean time, here's some detail on how the fork rebuild turned out.

Taking them apart was relatively easy, apart from getting blasted by stinky old fork oil! I opened the LHS drain plug very carefully, but nothing came out. Not even a drop. Fine, I thought... let's check the RHS... WHOOOSH!!! It sprayed smelly black fork oil over me, the floor and halfway up the wall!

Pumping the LHS produced about 3 pumps worth of clear water before any oil drained out. Pretty messy business, but I got them cleaned up and taken inside to assess the damage. Here's the LHS one.

LHS: Pretty badly pitted

Pitting, close-up

More pitting on the back

The RHS was fine, so I decided to try a repair job. Bought some Pratley's Steel quickset and set to work wet-sanding the pitted areas with 220 grit and WD40. Cleaned the oil off thoroughly with undiluted Clean Green, and then some lacquer thinners to be sure.

Pratley's Steel Quickset applied after sanding

I let it dry for a good 24h and then carefully wet-sanded it again, first with 220 grit, but then switching to 400 and eventually 600 as it got close to flush with the surrounding surface. I only had one plug come unseated, but I just repeated the process and it stayed put the second time around.

Here's the completed repair (the black specs are from polishing the fork lowers... i should have wiped it off before taking these photos)

The patch on the right is the one that had to be redone

I was pretty freaked out by the stuff I took out of the forks. They contained what can only be described as  grinding paste. I'm surprised they weren't worn down more. The fork seals were a bitch to remove, but I eventually got them out pretty easily with a tyre lever. No damage to the walls.

Yuk!

Polishing the sliders was hugely rewarding. I can see how you can get addicted to polishing all your aluminium bits. Wasn't going for mirror finish here, but it came out very nicely.

220 grit wet-sand and coarse Moore's disc on Dremel

Started with 220 grit and coarse Moore's discs on the Dremel for the curvy bits, then worked up to 600 and 1200 grit before polishing with a wheel fitted to my drill.

Now I just need to find the right fork boots. Nearly R500 for an original set from Honda SA, or dust caps for about R160. Given the sad state of the tubes, I think I'll rather go with boots as they'll provide more protection. These ones would not fit, so I returned them.

Have to find some soon though!

• Upper diameter: 48mm
• Lower diameter: 58mm
• Length: 200mm (max)

Roadworthy, Take One

I took it to a testing center for a first attempt on Saturday. Didn't expect it to pass, but thought I'd get a To-Do list out of it anyway. Shocker is, they only give you 14 days to correct it... I thought it was 6 weeks!

Here's the list:

• Leaking forks
• No chain guard (I removed it for cleaning)
• Hand grips loose 
• Accelerator not returning
• Hand grips too low
• Chain needs adjustment

The tester also told me I had to "put all the fairings back on, a child might come and burn their hands on these exhaust pipes" (sic). He obviously had it confused with a Gold Wing or something, but relented when I told him he's looking at the original configuration, and I'm sure the missing side panel (battery cover) won't provide much protection. I could tell he was one of those guys that really enjoyed having some authority bestowed on him... probably gets beaten up by the wife at home.

I should've waited before turning the Clubmans back around... have just created unnecessary work with the grips. They're apparently "lower than the seat" (bullshit), and my quick glue-job the night before didn't hold up. Accelerator tube is also sticking. Got some new el-cheapo grips from Wicked Cycles (along with EMGO fork boots which may be too small). Might just swap the bars back around just to get it sorted quickly while I focus on the real issue: fork rebuild. 

But that's another post... in the mean time, some riveting pictures of the battery box: 

After some sanding

CoastCote etch primer

Horn

Short-term goal: roadworthy. That meant putting everything together and making sure the basics are all in order so that I can take it for a roadworthy assessment. Don't expect it to pass first time, but at least then I'd have a list of issues to prioritise for sorting out.

Got started straight after breakfast on Saturday morning, and things were going swimmingly until I pressed the horn button and nothing happened. I thought I'd sorted it out since it worked while off the bike connected to an external battery. Some percussive maintenance and lots of swearing followed, until I traced the fault to the switch. 

Opened up the LHS controls to find it caked with a thick greasy paste. The only option was to strip it down completely and clean it out, then figure out if the switch was salvageable. This took a good 3 hours, and putting it back together was no mean feat either. Lots of little fiddly bits that like flying off into inaccessible crevices. 

No pics as I was rushing to get to the testing centre before they closed. Didn't make it. 

In any event, the switch is now clean, lubed up, the horn button has a new spring to facilitate the "flash to pass" function (flashes your headlight, I assume to let the guy in front know that you intend to pass...) and the indicator and dip switches are all a little less "crunchy" in their operation.

Oh, and I received some eBay parts: 4 Emgo el-cheapo pod filters, some fork seals, and the replacement oil filter bolt. Emgo claims to be endorsed "by the winningest team in US Endurance race history". Winningest?! That really shouldn't be a word.

Let's hope those filters aren't the 'failingest'!

  

Clubmans and Rocker Boxes

After I refitted the exhaust, there was a rather loud tick coming from the top front of the engine. I was hoping it was just the exhaust headers that weren't snug, but only got around to checking it yesterday. In the meantime, my paranoia got me to research "ticks" on the SOHC-4 forums. Got myself rather worried.

Luckily, it turns out header 3 wasn't snug enough, so no more ticking! Or rather, no more loud ticking... there are still a bit of clicking going on, but these engines aren't super quiet, so probably nothing serious. There aren't any loud knocking sounds or rumblings like I've heard in some YouTube clips.

Still, I pulled the side valve cover off to check that the rocker shafts were centered in the valve cover. The intake rocker shaft on the RHS was not. This is bad news, as it means that the rocker shaft has been rotating (instead of the lifters rotating around the stationary shaft) and it has worn away a bit of the aluminium housing. In turn, this could lead to some nasty wear on the cams, so it goes on the to-do list. Only problem is, it's not easily fixed. In fact, the only fix is to replace it with a later model year (from about '77 onward, I think) - Honda acknowledged and fixed the problem by changing the fastening mechanism on the rocker shafts.

Haven't got great pics, but you get the idea. That's the end of the shaft peeking out from the valve cover. It's noticeably higher and to the left of center.

Bit depressing, that. But, being a public holiday, I was determined not to get glum, so I tackled something cosmetic and rewarding and finally got the clubman bars fitted the right way round. Makes a huge difference to the stance and overall feel of the bike.

I'm going to order some Halcyon bar-end mirrors from the UK, since the best mother-in-law in the world is visiting family there in September, and they happen to be on sale. Hopefully I can convince her to leave a bit of space in her luggage!

I'm leaning towards round ones, but the angular ones also have a nice seventies feel:

OK, so short-term goal is to get it all road-worthy so I can transfer ownership to my name. Once that's done I will pull the valve cover and have a proper look. Gives me time to order the seal... will have to be super-nice to MiL since I see the list might just keep growing until the end of September!

Sump's full of beans

This story deserves a longer post, but for the sake of a quick update:

I pulled the sump and found a nice fine sediment at the bottom, with the only large particles being o couple of threads from the stripped drain plug hole.

Once I cleaned it, however, I noticed something more worrying:

Yup, that's a crack. Not all the way through, but a good millimeter thick, and it wasn't the only one. Enough to get me hunting for a replacement. Found one for R200 from the nice guys at Two Wheel Mecca. Managed to find a standard o-ring that fitted as a seal. Honda would've made we wait 3-4 weeks and R107, as opposed to R12 for 2 at All Seal in Maitland. Specs: 3.53mm thickness, about 220mm diameter (code 2-266/R4800).

 However, no-one seems to carry aluminium washers. I must have asked at least 5 places!

Anyways, I got a bit carried away with the polishing...

This from a part that was so dirty, I initially thought it was spray-painted black! Got it fitted, went for a nice 15min ride (hit 8000rpm a couple of times), got back and no oil leaks. Well, not from the sump, anyway :P

1 Step Forward, 2 Steps Back

Progress:

• Fixed indicator
• Horn's also working again.
• Battery's charged, installed and turns over nicely.
• Exhaust shop welded up the holes in the exhaust. They weren't prepared to guarantee the work... the metal is pretty thin at the joint. It just needs to last through roadworthy, or until I can get new headers + cans made up.
• I sanded headers & applied 3 coats Coastcoat etch primer. It's rated up to 200 degC, which should be good enough for temporarily halting the rust on the headers. 
• Oil changed (Motul 10W40).
• Standard NGK D7EA spark plugs installed (had the cooler burning D8ES ones installed)
• Cleaned & polished some parts:

• Also washed bike, dissolved most of the caked-on grime with a brush and some petrol, and gave some of the chrome on the bike a light polish (no photos, sorry). 

Regression:

• That damn oil filter housing bolt! It was stuck fast. Previous owner had used some blue gasket sealer on the bolt face. I only managed to get it loose by filing the head into a rectangular tab and using a large shifting spanner. Ordered replacement from eBay at half the cost of the original from Japan ($13 vs R277), along with fork seals ($12) and some pod filters ($32 vs R437 for the stock air filter element from Honda).
• After I finally got the exhaust back on, I ran it until hot to check for leaks. Bloody oil filter bolt leaked (no crush washer), so I got an assortment of copper washers from Midas and drained oil again. None of the washers fit!
• One of the washers was the right size for the sump drain plug, so I though I might as well fit it there. Problem is, once the washer was on, the plug no longer gripped the thread. This seemed strange, so I removed washer and refitted. The damn thing is pretty much stripped - it just had the end of the thread left, and this is now also useless. Too scared to tighten it any further (can feel it's about to let go completely), and it's seeping oil. Ack! Haven't got the right size thread tapper to fix it myself, so will have to get it to someone to do it for me. Very annoyed. Seems to be a fairly common problem as well.

Honeymoon revelations

...or "things I learned after I bought it".

I knew from the seller's description that the handlebars and exhaust were non-stock, that the fork seals leaked, and that the dust boots were perished. When I test-drove it, I saw the surface rust on the chrome and some mild to moderate rust on the frame and headers. The horn & the right rear indicator wasn't working, and the RHS side cover was missing.

Everything lathered in WD40

Side cover removed.

On the maiden voyage home, I noticed a mechanical whine coming from the front. It wasn't related to engine speed and didn't change when I applied the brakes, so I figured wheel bearing. Strangely, I did not notice it at all during the test ride. Read up on it, and am now pretty sure it's the speedometer (or its cable) that's desperately in need of some lithium grease. Bit of a bitch to get the housing open, but I want to change the dial faces anyway, so it goes on the to do list.

The bars appear to be clubmans that have been mounted upside down.

The dings on the tank may provide the reason for that!

The rear wheel has a moderate amount of rust, especially on the spokes. The front may be livable, at least for a while.

The battery wasn't strong enough to turn it over. I topped it up and put it on charge. My Optimate charger tested green after about 30 hours... will see how it holds up.

Intro

I bought a bike. This is its story.

We met on Gumtree in May 2011. The seller wanted way too much, so I made what I thought was a reasonable offer. It was declined, and I casually kept an eye on the ad while the weeks rolled by... until the week before my birthday. The seller contacted me out of the blue. He needed money, and counter-offered on the condition that the sale went through that weekend as he was in need of some cash.

It was late on Sunday afternoon when I finally managed to get my first look at it in the flesh: a 1976 Honda CB550F, candy presto red. Didn't look great (more like candy rusto brown), but the price was right, so I asked for a test ride. It was now mid-July, and it had been standing outdoors without any covers, and hadn't been started for about 2 months. It took a lot of tickling to get it started, and then it wouldn't idle. Once it was warmed up, I did a few circles in the parking lot of the complex where it was stored. And stalled it again. Rinse, repeat.

Eventually I worked up enough courage to venture onto the roads, and things weren't looking very rosy. It coughed and spluttered, idled either way high or not at all, and the riding position and controls were totally different to what I'm used to.

Undeterred, I pressed on, and it paid off. After about 5km, we had worked up enough steam to clear the asthmatic passageways, and I could push it between traffic lights. I ended up back at the seller's place with a big grin on my face, and seriously hoping there were no traffic cameras on the route I took.

Done deal. I collected it on Monday 11 July, rode it home in the dark, and parked it in my driveway where it immediately marked it's territory with a splattering of oil. Let the games begin!