Topic: Just another 71 CB750 K1 (After over a year, I finally got some 4 into 4 pipes!)

[edhaeuser]

Painted the oil tank and picked up a few odds and ends so I could put a few more things together.  The big things to go are to finish the carbs and find some pipes.  I'm not ready to spend $1800-$1900 for a set of repop HM300's though.  I am waiting to see if David Silvers ever gets the HM341's in stock again.  At least they were under a grand the last time they had them in stock.  Lots of time consuming detail stuff to get together yet.  In the meantime,  here are some photos of the pretty stuff on the bike.

[edhaeuser]

Question.

I picked up these blinkers thinking that they were for a K1.



But, this is the mounting area on the bike.  From what I see, I either have the wrong blinker mounts or the wrong grab bar.  Can someone tell me which s right and which is wrong?



Thanks!

[cheftuskey121]

Ed, gorgeous color. almost makes me wish I repainted mine the gold that it already was!
I think you have the wrong bar. there are some year discrepancies I am sure, but my K1 has the single sided grab bar that goes from the shock to the rear winker via the bracket pictured on that winker. if you look at the parts fiches I believe it shows the single grab bar I am talking about.

[edhaeuser]

Ed, gorgeous color. almost makes me wish I repainted mine the gold that it already was!
I think you have the wrong bar. there are some year discrepancies I am sure, but my K1 has the single sided grab bar that goes from the shock to the rear winker via the bracket pictured on that winker. if you look at the parts fiches I believe it shows the single grab bar I am talking about.

Thanks Justin, I kind of figured I have the wrong grab bar.  Anyone out there have an original K1 grab bar to sell?  Just found an aftermarket one from David Silvers for $21.00!

[Nerdos]

Regarding the DSS 341s: when I bought my K3 last year I decided that the pipes were one of the first things I was going to buy since, to my mind anyway, the 4-4 system is iconic and I could not imagine doing my rebuild without such a system.  Within days of getting the K3 the repro pipes disappeared from DSS's website so I called them up and asked them when they hoped to have any more in stock.  The girl at DSS said hopefully some time in 2014 but could not be more precise.  Instead I ordered some genuine 341s from CMS and they were very pricey.  This was October last year.  I did notice a whole load of out of stock items appear on DSS's website a few days back but with a stock level of zero assigned to them.  341s were among the out of stock items listed.  All of those items have now disappeared again but it did make me wonder if they were expecting a consignment from China/Japan.  Obviously this is DSS England I am referring to.  Good luck finding them.  I'd have preferred repro over genuine Honda.

[edhaeuser]

I'm working on my carbs.  I soda blasted and ultrasonic cleaned the carbs and bracket.  I am going to leave the carbs themselves natural finish.  What do you folks think about the bracket and throttle assembly.  I think I may leave that natural as well.  here is a pic to show what it looks like now.  The other option is to paint it the same color as the engine cases.  What do you guys think?  I keep going back and forth on the paint option.

This thing is getting so close to finished that I can taste it. 

[cheftuskey121]

It looks good natural. I painted my bracket and my cabs the same VHT paint I used on my wheel hubs, fork lowers, and engine block. I really love the way the painted carbs look and the cured VHT paint is completely impervious to gas. Just a thought. 

[edhaeuser]

I got my carbs all together and mounted on the bike.  There was a little head scratching involved as I had taken them apart months ago.  My wintergreen treated intake boots were still nice and soft from the soaking they received.  I was not happy with the results on the airbox boots so I have new ones on order.

I have some questions on the wiring harness and throttle cable routing.

I originally had the wiring loom routed up the left side of the head tube, but it seemed that the horn wires would not be long enough.  Then I tried the right side and the brake pressure switch wires seem to be too short.  Does anyone have any input as to which side and general location for the harness?  Is it supposed to be inside that triangle gusset like I have it routed?  After looking at this some more, I think it should run on the left side outside the triangle....that seems to give me the best reach.  I am still looking for input though



Does this throttle cable routing look somewhat right...except the one pointing more upwards could run from over the coil to under the tank bung.  that seems to be the path with the shallowest bends? 

[cheftuskey121]

If no one else beats me to it I can take pictures later for you Ed

[edhaeuser]

If no one else beats me to it I can take pictures later for you Ed

Sweet! Thanks......if you have to remove your tank, don't worry about it though.

[cheftuskey121]

If no one else beats me to it I can take pictures later for you Ed

Sweet! Thanks......if you have to remove your tank, don't worry about it though.

I have to take it off anyway. Time for a tuneup!

[edhaeuser]

Well, I have a #### ton of updating that I should do.  Let's just say that this old bird may or may not have seen a couple hundred miles of tarmac in the last three days.  more about that later.

I rebuilt the carbs some time ago.  The slides were stuck tight when I started.  I loosened them up by soaking the carb bodies in carb cleaner overnight.....the kind that separates and makes a protective layer on the surface of the cleaner so it does not all evaporate.  After a good soak, I was able to work the slides out without too much resistance.  I soaked all the jets in the cleaner also.  Then I soda blasted the bodies and bowls on the outside to get them nice and clean looking.  After the soda blast, I soaked everything in my little ultrasonic cleaner to clear all the soda and any residual gunk out of the passages.  While everything was soaking, I bead blasted, buffed, and zinc plated the the choke hardware as it was grungy looking. Put it all back together and all was right with the world......well almost.







I ordered some nice doodads from Yamiya and David Silver Spares....new switches, brake master, mirrors, superbike bars, and grips. Obviously, new cables throughout the bike. (I was going to try to piece some old switches together, but they were just too far gone)



Plated the brake line hardware as well





I repaired some emblems with broken pins because I am too cheap to buy new ones :-)  I used roofing nails that I cut to length and glued them to the emblems.  I ground out a slight depression for the nail head to fit in the emblem so they would fit flush.






After getting the nail and the emblem ready I covered the side cover with plastic wrap and pushed the nail into the mounting hole.  All that was needed was a dab of epoxy and to set the emblem in place until the glue set up.



Ready to install




I installed new sprockets and chain also.

Many other things that I can't think of right now

[edhaeuser]

Did I mention that I may have had this bike on the road?

A video of the first start....since then I have sinced the carbs and timed the ignition.  It does not have as much cam chain noise as the video seems to show.

Pretty darn close on the carb sinc now



Can someone tell me how to embed a Youtube video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ9hV1AmRt4

More to come if I can get some good pictures this evening or tomorrow.

[edhaeuser]

I am still looking for a set of HM300's or HM341's that are reasonably priced.  As you may notice, I ended up putting on a set of 4 into 1's from CycleX for the time being.

[fmctm1sw]

Wow, that thing was a wreck    Great job on it though.  I gave up on finding a nice oem set.  I'm just going to stick with that I have now.  Maybe I'll see something at Barber's

[edhaeuser]

Wow, that thing was a wreck    Great job on it though.  I gave up on finding a nice oem set.  I'm just going to stick with that I have now.  Maybe I'll see something at Barber's

Ha Ha, I am a glutten for punishment!  Maybe the next one won't be as bad......don't count on it though.  You should see the 69 Triumph Bonneville that I picked up for a future project :-)

Here is a preview shot that my buddy took on Saturday.  It is still missing the side emblem here, but I will post it anyway

[MoMo]

Cool emblem repair! ...Larry

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Great looking bike, Ed. 

[Retro Rocket]

Great looking bike, Ed.

+1

[Stev-o]

Great looking bike, Ed.

+1

+1.  Nice job. 

[edwardmorris]

Great work on the carbs! I just finished replating all the carb hardware myself, just need to passivate/chromate convert, then put them back together. I wish I'd taken more pix. I'm debating what to do with the backing plate as well. Not sure if I wan't to spend time polishing it but I'm definitely not painting it. 73Nancy/Ryan at one time suggested that to get back that raw aluminum look, I could spray a very mild acid solution on them, then quickly clear coat after drying. The acidic spray will decontaminate it well enough for the clear coat. I need to bug him again and find out specifics.

[Tews19]

Hey Ed bike looks great! Quick 2 part question,  did you get repop hand controls for Yamiya? Second is if you did can you try something?

Try running the bike with the headlight on then turnoff the headlight with the bike running.

I have the repop controls and found out today the bike turns off when the headlight is off. Not complete electrical loss but no spark.

[edhaeuser]

I'm debating what to do with the backing plate as well.

I decided to leave my backing plate unfinished.  It looked pretty good after the soda blast so I decided to leave well enough alone.

Hey Ed bike looks great! Quick 2 part question,  did you get repop hand controls for Yamiya? Second is if you did can you try something?

Try running the bike with the headlight on then turnoff the headlight with the bike running.

I have the repop controls and found out today the bike turns off when the headlight is off. Not complete electrical loss but no spark.

Thanks Tews!  Yes, I have the Yamiya switches.  My bike runs fine with the headlight on or off.  What year bike is this for?  the reason I ask, is that at a certain point, the US made it mandatory for the headlight to be on when the bike is running.  My son's 76 550F is that way, and we ended up using an older switch and having to rework the wiring a bit to make it work.  Maybe you could run the coil power from a different power lead in the harness.  Something that is powered whenever the ignition switch is on.



I have put nearly 300 miles on the bike in the last four days.  It has been a blast!  I am compiling a laundry list of what needs to be tweaked.

1)  I still need to get the carbs dialed in as far as mixture.  It seems to be running lean at from half to full, so I am probably going to go up one main jet size.  Initially, it was hesitating from 1/4 to 1/2 throttle so I raised the needles a notch and it helped out. 

2)  I need to get new clutch plates.  I decided when I was rebuilding the engine that I would see how they worked out since it is an easy fix with the engine in the bike.  the clutch is slipping a fair amount.

3)  The front fork sliders seem to binding up a bit.  Not sure what to do about that yet.  everything looked good when I put them back together.

4)  I have a bit of the dreaded head gasket leak.  Not bad, but the oil does seep out a bit.  I will leave it this summer and revisit the issue this winter.  I will probably pull the engine and install heavy duty cylinder studs.  I am wishing I had installed a frame splice kit when I built the bike....I was seriously considering it at the time.

5)  The rear shocks I put on are stiff.  Not very comfortable.

6)  I get an occasional dribble from the carbs when I park the bike overnight.    I had installed new float valves when I rebuild the carbs.  I am hoping they may just kind of fix themselves.  My tank valve has a slow drip when I turn it off also....I had rebuilt it with OEM Honda parts.

7)  I absolutely despise the auto chain oiler.  I will machine a plug for that this winter.

I forgot what number 8 was......


All in all, I am very happy with the bike.  It sure turns heads when I am riding through town.  I can't seem to wipe the big as grin off my face whenever I am riding.  I catch myself just looking at the bike quite a lot.  Seems like I could stare at it pretty much all day :-)

I am going to post one of my first photos of the bike again....from the day I brought it to my house from storage for a comparison to the pics that I took while out riding today.



And, the pics from today!













Is it done?  Maybe for now except for a few niggles.  I don't know that I will ever consider it finished until I find a proper stock exhaust for it.  But Hey!  It's on the road, and I am going to ride the snot out of it!

[jerry h]

 Hi Ed,  before and after shots are amazing! Can't possibly be the same bike....    VERY NICE!!

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

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