Topic: Trad's 74 CB550 K0

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Hey Jared,

How is the crankcase swap coming along.  I imagine it's thawing in your neck of the woods.

[Trad]

Yeah Don, It's been warm. Lots of gravel in the roads though. Got my own garage now, just been riding the blue bike with not much progress here to be honest. Mark had the cases stripped and I sent him all the parts. He's a busy guy so it'll get done eventually. Slow and steady and I'm happy with that.

[RAFster122s]

GV

Sorry to hear they did a physics experiment on it despite your best efforts.

You about have to put it on a pallet I guess...

Apparently you have to build a crate for the motor with sufficient crush space forthem to play with... when they have heavy packages they often toss them about. Worse than the airline baggage handlers...maybe they hire them...

I built a crate out of 2x4's to secure it. It was double boxed in heavy duty boxes, completely stuffed with packaging material and also stickers all over it indicating fragile. Apparently not enough....I'm assuming they really dropped the thing for that to happen.

Glad it worked out in the end, looking forward to great progress as usual Jared.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Yeah Don, It's been warm. Lots of gravel in the roads though. Got my own garage now, just been riding the blue bike with not much progress here to be honest. Mark had the cases stripped and I sent him all the parts. He's a busy guy so it'll get done eventually. Slow and steady and I'm happy with that.

As long as you are getting to ride, it's all good!  It's great to have at least one runner in the stable!

[Trad]

So I moved into a nice townhouse a month ago, it has a heated double car garage so I'm all smiles. 
Nothings really setup tool/bench wise, so I've been working out of tubs; When I get a chance to work on this bike at all. Life's been busier than I can ever remember.

Anyway, I ordered all the correct mounting hardware for the CB500 fender from David Silvers, including the rubber grommets and those alloy collars. The parts fiche isn't very helpful there. I used member SohRon's thread here http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,86697.0.html a number of times to make sure I was assembling and routing parts correctly. Sometimes there's more than one way, but one's the way Honda had it originally. Thanks for that SohRon!

So the bobbed and yellow zinc plated fender is on. I was really particular about having the wheel and the fender as parallel as possible. I took my wheel off and double checked the dish on the truing stand. Had to move it a full two mm to the non disk side. Then I heated and tweaked the fender stays to get alignment just right.

Garage by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

K0 Fender 1 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

K0 Fender 2 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

K0 Fender 3 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

Mark has been working on my crankcase, I'll upload some photos from him when I get them. Really grateful he's putting some time in for me.

Direct to calliper parts are in the mail and I'll get to reinstalling the master cylinder with the new pistons and seals. Doing away with the factory pipe connecter that goes from the brake line to calliper. This 35" SS line with a 35 degree connector and short banjo bolt will tidy thing sup nicely.

Weather's been great so I've been out riding bmx, the blue bike, and spending time with family. Sorry for the lack of updates.

[RAFster122s]

It's all good Jared, glad you have the new space and the family is in a good place.  Should make life smooth for a while...and you won't have to worry when you leave them for trips on the BMX circuit when they aren't joining you...

David

[Trad]

Thanks a bunch David, I appreciate the words my friend. This is definitely a safe neighbourhood, out in the suburbs. Peace of mind for sure.

[calj737]

Hidden value is, now you don't have to buy a gun; instead you can spend that money on new parts!!!!! 

Seriously glad you and the family are safe, Jared.

[jaycox]

Where'd you get the front rotor?  It looks nice.

[Trad]

Hidden value is, now you don't have to buy a gun; instead you can spend that money on new parts!!!!! 

Seriously glad you and the family are safe, Jared.

Damn Cal, I really appreciate that my man! Seriously.

Not used to paying through the teeth for rent so not many new parts in the near future.  I'm selling a bunch of extra parts to fund this thing. LMK if you need anything, I'm a hoarder. 

[Trad]

Where'd you get the front rotor?  It looks nice.

It's a stock CB550 rotor. I stripped the paint on the centre, got flange bolts, and had True Disk drill it out. Thanks though.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Well done on the move to the new townhouse.  Peace of mind is priceless.


Keep on keeping on with the bike, Jared.  Then you'll have 2 to ride this season!

[Trad]

Thanks Don. Not this season, too much on the go to think I'm going to finish this during the summer. One more winter, then that's it! Even though I've been saying that for 3 years almost. I'm not rushing anything here, slow and steady. haha.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

This is where having a running bike already in the stable is KEY!

[flatlander]

congratulations! a bit of peace and safety is priceless.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Doing away with the factory pipe connecter that goes from the brake line to calliper. This 35" SS line with a 35 degree connector and short banjo bolt will tidy thing sup nicely.

Since my builds are usually restomods, I haven't bothered using the pipe connectors either -- I, too, have just used modern stainless lines.

[Trad]

congratulations! a bit of peace and safety is priceless.

Thanks a lot! It truly is. Hope you're doing well.

Doing away with the factory pipe connecter that goes from the brake line to calliper. This 35" SS line with a 35 degree connector and short banjo bolt will tidy thing sup nicely.

Since my builds are usually restomods, I haven't bothered using the pipe connectors either -- I, too, have just used modern stainless lines.

It looks way cleaner. What length of Line do you usually go with. The one I found locally is 35" and it just about perfect.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

I just gave my best attempt at measuring my mounted lines -- not so easy when the snake up behind the headlight bucket.  Mine look like they are 35" too.

[Trad]

I just gave my best attempt at measuring my mounted lines -- not so easy when the snake up behind the headlight bucket.  Mine look like they are 35" too.

Yeah, it seems that length is almost perfect when running clip on bars.  Not too much slack but enough to turn the bars comfortably without stressing the line.

The brake parts came in Friday night so I assembled it all. Just need to add fluid and bleed the system. In the time waiting for parts I stripped the powder coat and polished the brake calliper. Kind of with I left it black now after seeing it installed. Too much raw aluminium up front? I may take it off the fork and re-coat it black.

May 15 -1 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

May 15 0 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

May 15 1 by Jared Chilko, on Flickr

[jaycox]

I agree, black might look better.

[flatlander]

paint it black

[calj737]

I would leave it powder coated only because the raw aluminum will oxidize, and you don't want to have to mount/unmount the caliper to keep it from looking like crap.

The rotor hub will already be enough work for your polishing elves 

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

I would recommend powdercoat over paint.  A drop or two of brake fluid will eat off any normal paint, whereas the powdercoat is pretty resistant to stains and solvents.

Something I learned the hard way.

[b.linden]

Hey, nice build! noticed you didn't use the "bent" washers on the sprocket bolts on the rear hub, did you just use thread-lock or nylon nuts or something? is that enough to replace the washers?

[Trad]

Thanks for the input guys. It was black powder coat to begin with and out of boredom I stripped it all away and polished the calliper. I tend to do things like this far too often, it was perfectly fine black. haha Ah well, I'll leave it for now as I got ancy and filled/bled the system.

Cal, there is so much raw alloy on this bike, the polishing ferries are gonna quit. I'm welcoming the oxidization, give it some age.

b.linden, Thanks. I used lock washers and a dab of green loctight. I've done it before and I'll do it again. Never had an issue.