Hello, Im happy i stumbled upon this forum, its the perfect place for my tastes.
I purchased my 1976 cb 550 about 3 years ago. I live in southern california, in the armpit of the traffic nightmare that california has become famous for. I think I bought it for around $500 from a guy that his wife told me he had an old bike that he never rode and might sell it. I previously was riding an 85 honda shadow 500 and on my way to work it spun a bearing. I was in desperate need of another motorcyle, it was my only transportation at the time!
So I take a look at this guys bike, and it was in excellent shape for being so old. However, it ran rough, was hard to start, and lacked any power, but neither of us had a clue what was wrong other than it was "old". So i buy it off him and it became my daily rider. Im a bmw mechanic, but not an experienced motorcycle mechanic. At work I pulled the carbs and found that one of the main jets was completely clogged, basically causing a dead cylinder. The bike ran like a completely different one after running on all 4 cylinders! It had a lot more power than before.
One day on my way home on the 405 freeway, the worst traffic congested freeway around imo, i was in the far left lane, the car pool lane, and i hit the throttle, the chain broke! Luckily it locked up the transmission, not the rear tire. I was five lanes away from where the emergency lane should have been, but there was not even one there. I some how coasted over and by the time i coasted from 70mph to a stop, a new emergency lane started up again. I think I can say I almost died that day.
Well, the bike has been sitting since then for about 3 years now. I got married and have 2 kids in that short time, so it was put on the back burner,, plus I thought it locked the tranny up and i didnt care to learn how to split a case or whatever you do on bikes to work on the engine/trans. Well, I finally decided to tear into this project, because I loved this bike even more than my more powerful honda shadow from before. So I take off the countershaft cover and was expecting the worst,, all that happened was the chain folded over itself and jammed inbetween the case and the shifter shaft. Some of the case flashing got turned into pieces,, but I used a die grinder and a cutting head to smooth the edges to hopefully prevent cracking of the case.
Just yesterday I installed a new $100 chain that required me buying $30 of chain tools- that was a joke, but it is an o ring chain,, hopefully i never almost die again just because of chain issues. I still have to buy sprockets , if i can find them.
I started the engine up, amazingly it ran on 3 year old gas. I flushed the gas tank out and replaced the fuel filter.
So now I feel like i just got handed a free motorcycle,, its cool because its just sat for so long, and now i should be able to ride it soon. Its got some issues, which ill post questions on seperately,, but im happy just to hear it run and not be puking oil out of a damaged case.
I'll take some pics soon when my wife finds the lost camera card.....
I dont know what i want to do with the bike, keep it original looking , or start changing things.
Just last week on ebay, i dont know if any of you all saw it, there was a 76 550 drag bike from the early 80's that the guy said was running 10's back then. I'd like to get my bike running some where between where it is now, and there. just a little more power...
nice meeting you guys
