Author Topic: Lil Red finally shows her age  (Read 1055 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Lil Red

  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 98
Lil Red finally shows her age
« on: May 24, 2012, 05:02:47 AM »
75 400f. After months of being facinated to park the little bike and not find a drop of oil dripping anywhere...it happened...I suppose with the rising temps and...well...me wailing on the thing (if only she didnt LOVE it so!)...I noticed a drip on the floor. Looking up btween the rear wheel and the motor, theres all this like oil sweat on the rear of the engine that finally heated up enough in sufficient quantities to start a general drip. There also seems to be a breather unit of some type that should be attached to the airbox bottom. It's sheared of at the top and has holes in it....As does the airbox bottom.. I'm gonna remove the air filter and take a look at that oil separator pad beneath the air filter...maybe seal everything with duct tape and the white breather an as well...see if that fixes things.

Offline Lil Red

  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 98
Re: Lil Red finally shows her age
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2012, 06:41:57 AM »
Problem solved, theres a long sheet metal screw at the bottom of the air box under the air filter. It goes down into the middle of the breather draws it up and theres a dowel to locate and lock it in when the screw is tightened. Used a cut square of vacuum cleaner hepa filter for underneath the screen that snugs down also under the stock air filter. Should wok as designed now. Now to see about the exhaust leak at the header union...had to hacksaw the Emgo muffler to get it to fit as its bigger than one and three quarters...some kind of putty or maybe exhaust tape?

Offline sir funk

  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 65
  • 75 CB400F
Re: Lil Red finally shows her age
« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2012, 08:58:42 AM »
Used a cut square of vacuum cleaner hepa filter for underneath the screen that snugs down also under the stock air filter. Should wok as designed now.

Stock there was a piece of foam there under the airbox to sit in that location.  The foam in my airbox was completely crumbled, which is no surprise, it being 37 years old.   I used a couple of scraps of microfiber as my impression was that foam was chosen to filter, and also to soak up the oil that gets shot up there from the crankcase -- the hepa filter media will work just fine as well.  The main reason I put in the effort was because without anything in there, the oil was shooting up and dirtying the bottom of the air filter. 

Note that if your setup is still like stock, there is a rubber hose coming down from the airbox in that breather assembly, that has a rubber end that you can pinch to empty out any other accumulated crap and oil.  You may want to check it to prevent any additional red herring oil drips.


Offline Lil Red

  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 98
Re: Lil Red finally shows her age
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2012, 09:09:01 AM »
Yeah, I wondered why nothing ever came out of that squeeze hose. It was just spraying out over open seperator that was just hanging there not scewed into the air box. I guess the spray into the filter materialis pretty strong...I'll check the airbox after every ride make sure the hepa filters up to it. If not I'll cut up a sponge or something, maybe some scouring pad stuff or that soap pad stuff you use to clean stainless steel...but without the soap.

On edit: STEEL WOOL!....Geez...old age...and probably the gas fumes from the fuel petcock...ORDEAL!....ha ha...Im feelin high high HIGH!
« Last Edit: May 24, 2012, 09:16:56 AM by Lil Red »

Offline lucky

  • Really Old Timer ...
  • *******
  • Posts: 6,717
Re: Lil Red finally shows her age
« Reply #4 on: May 24, 2012, 11:44:26 AM »
Problem solved, theres a long sheet metal screw at the bottom of the air box under the air filter. It goes down into the middle of the breather draws it up and theres a dowel to locate and lock it in when the screw is tightened. Used a cut square of vacuum cleaner hepa filter for underneath the screen that snugs down also under the stock air filter. Should wok as designed now. Now to see about the exhaust leak at the header union...had to hacksaw the Emgo muffler to get it to fit as its bigger than one and three quarters...some kind of putty or maybe exhaust tape?

Why don't you just  fix it correctly?

Offline Lil Red

  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 98
Re: Lil Red finally shows her age
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2012, 12:28:41 PM »
The breather problem? I did fix that correctly...turns out that someone had maybe removed the filter housing and did not bother to screw the breather assy back on...theres a place in the breather/separator where the screw pulls it up into the air filter box...the muffler, well I hacked it just a bit too far up, I used some muffler tape around the header collector outlet (about two wraps around) to snug it up and tightened the clamp and it's good to go.