Topic: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...

[Spike]

I really like the seat treatment and the retro looking spark plug wires and brake light.  Nice touches!

[alacrity]

Thanks.   

I got it tuned up this week and rode it around some.  Fixed two oil leaks. but now I have an intermittent one from the head gasket or one of the under the head o-rings - left side.  It only weeps after higher than 5k (or so) rpm run.

here is a video of it without seat or side covers... right after timing light and carb sync (which was done at a lower idle.

Gonna ride it in the annual "british" vintage bike ride that starts at Hansen Dam here in LA on Sunday AM.

http://tinypic.com/r/2lxtb3t/6]View My Video[/URL]

[alacrity]

Sunday afternoon. Sunset. After 100 mile flog.

:-)

[alacrity]

I'm about to pull the carbs apart and put in kits. Had a couple leaky needle seats, couldn't really get it synch'd "just right" with my MotionPro carbsynchronizer... and the bike wouldn't take fuel past about 6k rpm.

Check out these pix of the slides.  Would you consider this "normal" wear for a bike that had 19k miles on it?

[alacrity]

A lovely unseasonably warm Sunday morning ride in the mountains above Malibu...

[alacrity]

three more pix.  :-)

[iron_worker]

A very cool bike. Looks like it would be a lot of fun to flick around in the twisties.

IW

[alacrity]

IronWorker:  It absolutely is.  Was out railing on it this morning with some friends. One of my friends was on his R1250gs and we swapped for about 15 mins.  I was sure he was gonna hate it after getting off his magic carpet machine.  But he loved it. He was shocked how well it handled (It had better, since I changed out every bearing and suspension component!)

[Spike]

So it sounds like your spring choices are working for you.  I ended up with Race Tech front springs and NOS progressive rears with HD springs (I'm not your average 150 lb. test rider  ).
My '73 500 is not too far behind. Just finishing up polishing on the covers and then the engine is ready to go back in.  Your photos of the front end, electrical and swing arm rebuild all look very familiar!  Great looking final product with the semi gloss root beer paint!  Nice work.

[alacrity]

Thanks!  The brown is actually an older Porsche color according to my paint guy to which we added a bunch of extra copper metalflake that pops in bright sunlight.  The satin clearcoats make that almost impossible to see at night or in shade -- I like the stealthiness of it.