Topic: 76 CB550F - Oct 2021 - Rear tail light and rebuilding gauges

[calj737]

He means that you aren't lugging the engine by riding in too high a gear with too low RPMs. Its fine to limit the upper RPMs for a break-in, but tooling along at 35MPH in 5th gear to avoid upper RPMs is worse for the engine than running in 3rd at 5,500 at the same speed. (As an example).

[KennyRedman]

He means that you aren't lugging the engine by riding in too high a gear with too low RPMs. Its fine to limit the upper RPMs for a break-in, but tooling along at 35MPH in 5th gear to avoid upper RPMs is worse for the engine than running in 3rd at 5,500 at the same speed. (As an example).

Gotcha- that makes sense.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

He means that you aren't lugging the engine by riding in too high a gear with too low RPMs. Its fine to limit the upper RPMs for a break-in, but tooling along at 35MPH in 5th gear to avoid upper RPMs is worse for the engine than running in 3rd at 5,500 at the same speed. (As an example).

Yep!

[KennyRedman]

Here are a few pics I forgot to post earlier showing the top end rebuild that Hoy Vintage Cycles (and member here) out of Brownsburg did.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Did the shop just do a refresh (original bore) or did they install overbore pistons?  Valves lapped?  New seals?  Just curious.

[KennyRedman]

Pistons were good. New rings and pins, honed the cylinders. Perfect compression afterwards on all 4 cylinders. All new valves and seals, and he sent the head out to cut the valve seats.

[CBGhia]

That's a good looking bike!  I loves me some 550s.

[KennyRedman]

I pulled a bonehead move last night.

Spent some time working on my bike last night before all the basketball games started and my buddies came over, and got it running pretty nicely.  After my friends left about midnight, I thought I'd take a quick ride out a few miles to see how it did on the road.  On my way back home about 12:30, the bike started to stumble as if it was running out of gas, so I reached down to flip it to reserve.  Which it was already set to. D'oh! 

I had to push it about 2 miles to the closest gas station, cursing and laughing at myself for being to impatient to check how much fuel I had in there before I excitedly took off.

Lesson learned!

[CBGhia]

Been there.  Always sucks. 

[bwaller]

With a new engine, the mere fact it was only a momentary fuel starvation problem is reason to be happy. 

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

I had to push my 750 about 1.5-2 miles.  No fun in that!

[KennyRedman]

Looks like I haven’t been in here for a while, but I think it’s time for me to pass this bike along to someone else. It’s been an awesome 5 years, but I need something more modern and something I don’t need to wrench on as much- not that I don’t enjoy it! But kids and work get in the way of just riding around the country side!

Expect a post in the classifieds sometime this summer. I did happen upon an NOS muffler that a dealer had up in his loft. It’s so much better than the after market 80s muffler it had.

Not exactly sure what to list it at. I noticed that I accidentally deleted most of my pics in this thread. I’ll see if I can re-upload them to my server.

[Shtonecb500]

I pulled a bonehead move last night.

Spent some time working on my bike last night before all the basketball games started and my buddies came over, and got it running pretty nicely.  After my friends left about midnight, I thought I'd take a quick ride out a few miles to see how it did on the road.  On my way back home about 12:30, the bike started to stumble as if it was running out of gas, so I reached down to flip it to reserve.  Which it was already set to. D'oh! 

I had to push it about 2 miles to the closest gas station, cursing and laughing at myself for being to impatient to check how much fuel I had in there before I excitedly took off.

Lesson learned!

i used to complain about pushing my 550 until i had to push my 750.

[KennyRedman]

I pulled a bonehead move last night.

Spent some time working on my bike last night before all the basketball games started and my buddies came over, and got it running pretty nicely.  After my friends left about midnight, I thought I'd take a quick ride out a few miles to see how it did on the road.  On my way back home about 12:30, the bike started to stumble as if it was running out of gas, so I reached down to flip it to reserve.  Which it was already set to. D'oh! 

I had to push it about 2 miles to the closest gas station, cursing and laughing at myself for being to impatient to check how much fuel I had in there before I excitedly took off.

Lesson learned!

i.

I used to complain about pushing my 550 until i had to push my 750

I bet! At that point I would’ve swallowed my pride and called someone. Lol 😂

[KennyRedman]

I got the new Scorpion battery put in, but the starter button isn’t working for some reason. The switch works to cut it off however.

I jumped the solenoid and got it running for the first time in over 5 years.

It’s definitely going to need some TLC

[KennyRedman]

Turns out there was a loose wire from the switch. Now it’s starting right up!

Just rode it a couple of miles around the neighborhood. Felt great!

[KennyRedman]

Does anyone know how to stop the rattling of the Oil, Neutral, and High Beam lights? Can i put something inside there to tighten it up?

[Shtonecb500]

where is your idle set? There should rubber dampers inside the dummy lights to keep everything still.

[KennyRedman]

where is your idle set? There should rubber dampers inside the dummy lights to keep everything still.

I’m still working on that- it’s about 1,500. It’s more prevalent when I’m riding than when sitting at idle. I’ll check the inside then.

[KennyRedman]

Turns out that the rattling is not coming from the lights themselves, but from the thin metal decal plate on top.  The adhesive is coming undone, and it's only held on by the lower left corner.  I'm going to attempt to get some 3M adhesive or CA glue and activator under there while not bending or creasing it. 

Also, I've been cleaning it up a bit, and am ready to do some timing adjustments and carb syncing this weekend.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Nice looking bike!

[KennyRedman]

Nice looking bike!

Thank you. It’s been a long time coming!

[KennyRedman]

Looks like it was just barely hanging on by a bit of glue in the corner.

Now I gotta reassemble it like the Infinity Gauntlet.

[KennyRedman]

I swapped out my chewed up gas tank latch with a quick-latch button. It’s pretty cool.

https://quik-latch.net/collections/ql-25-series-mini-quik-latches/products/black-anodized-mini-quik-latch?variant=16184956190777

I’m not exactly sold on the way it’s currently attached to the tank, I’ll figure some else out at some point. If anyone here has any ideas, please let me know.

YoU can see what I tried first, but at was about 3/8” too high, so I used the washers around the clip. Kinda janky, but it works and looks great! Much better than the old one (last picture)

[KennyRedman]

Today I’m starting to tune it up since I’m making it road-worth finally.

Looked to adjusted the cam chain tensioner, and it hadn’t changed any.

I adjusted the points and timing- set them both to .014. They were way off and it made a huge difference. One gap was .008 and the other was .024 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Definitely aftermarket points, and the screw heads were ALL chewed up. Wtf?

I did the static timing and that helped too. I realized that my motor wasn’t grounded correctly, because I was getting some funky results. Fixed that and bingo. Maybe tonight I’ll get a timing light and get it dialed in perfect, or as close as I can.

Oh, Changed the oil, too.

Next will be the carb sync.


I did find a cut or broken wire in the headlight bucket. Not exactly sure what it goes to yet.