Topic: 500/550/650's that followed me home

[rb550four]

  I'm afraid it's more than a little extreme ,it's downright uncomfortable and pegs stick out too far. I should have bought some rear sets years ago, but I lost interest and was off to the next one.  Rear sets are going on the next wish list, after the next 500 project.... this 500 is just too ugly and sad to look at in it's present condition and it's disturbing to the rest of them.
 Haven't decided what to do with this new project, this is a not a high miler engine and it has always been free (unusual right?), my fave 500 engine with the blown head gasket is an easy fix and could go right in it after repair( just got gaskets for it), or there is my last rebuilt  550 engine on shelf that could use a home.  what to do? It would be an easier decision if there was a clear vision of what this one wants to look like when finished...right now , it's just ugly.

 

[rb550four]

  Couldn't stand that dirty / rusty machine , even in the farthest corner of the shop. I always know that it's there...waiting.
It's chrome surfaces were rusty enough that I didn't want to reintroduce water to it before removing the rust that was already on it so hitting the local carwash was out of the question. A bag of Dollarstore washclothes, Fantastic to remove oils. Aluminum oxide remover and a neutralizing polish ( from a body shop supply outlet) applied to 000 steel wool for removing rust from chrome. Paper towels and Clorox wipes to remove pigeon crap. Mothers polish and WD 40 for cleaning up everything else. 3hrs later the rims fenders and other easy to get to chrome is clean enough to buff (doesn't look bad right now  but always looks better after a buffing). The rest is spray and wipe paper towels for 1st wipe, wash clothes to get the film off. Then, it'll be time to tear it down and deal with individual pieces without getting filthy.
  I like to wash every piece in mineral spirits to get any oil residue,wax, or grease off them.  Then prep the frame parts for paint. After that is painted and drying , it's fork time.. again, each part gets a mineral spirits wash, buff, seals, oil and a new pair of dust boots  and it's almost ready to start reassembly. Got some allballs roller bearings  on the shelf for the neck.  Mineral spirit the wheel hubs and install new wheel bearings and rear brake shoes ,and it's almost roller time.
  Some guys like to lay the engine on the floor and fit the frame onto it, then balance it all on a lift and start the assembly process. I like to not balance a wheel-less frame on a lift , but have a roller ready to accept the engine in an upright position. I may be older, but I can still lift a 500 engine into a frame easy enough
  Still haven't decided on which 500 engine yet. Think we'll try the fave 500 engine first, I know the lower end and tranny is good. Don't know if it'll be any more involved than a head gasket and fresh paint, we'll see...yeah, I 'll go that route first. Sounds like a plan.
   

[Sdsbassist]

PICS

  Couldn't stand that dirty / rusty machine , even in the farthest corner of the shop. I always know that it's there...waiting.
It's chrome surfaces were rusty enough that I didn't want to reintroduce water to it before removing the rust that was already on it so hitting the local carwash was out of the question. A bag of Dollarstore washclothes, Fantastic to remove oils. Aluminum oxide remover and a neutralizing polish ( from a body shop supply outlet) applied to 000 steel wool for removing rust from chrome. Paper towels and Clorox wipes to remove pigeon crap. Mothers polish and WD 40 for cleaning up everything else. 3hrs later the rims fenders and other easy to get to chrome is clean enough to buff (doesn't look bad right now  but always looks better after a buffing). The rest is spray and wipe paper towels for 1st wipe, wash clothes to get the film off. Then, it'll be time to tear it down and deal with individual pieces without getting filthy.
  I like to wash every piece in mineral spirits to get any oil residue,wax, or grease off them.  Then prep the frame parts for paint. After that is painted and drying , it's fork time.. again, each part gets a mineral spirits wash, buff, seals, oil and a new pair of dust boots  and it's almost ready to start reassembly. Got some allballs roller bearings  on the shelf for the neck.  Mineral spirit the wheel hubs and install new wheel bearings and rear brake shoes ,and it's almost roller time.
  Some guys like to lay the engine on the floor and fit the frame onto it, then balance it all on a lift and start the assembly process. I like to not balance a wheel-less frame on a lift , but have a roller ready to accept the engine in an upright position. I may be older, but I can still lift a 500 engine into a frame easy enough
  Still haven't decided on which 500 engine yet. Think we'll try the fave 500 engine first, I know the lower end and tranny is good. Don't know if it'll be any more involved than a head gasket and fresh paint, we'll see...yeah, I 'll go that route first. Sounds like a plan.
 

[RAFster122s]

Great news RB, keeping you off the streets again for a fortnight or two...
Seriously, it is good to hear of your progress...imagine it will look very nice in no time.

[rb550four]

David, it does feel great to be in the shop again.

Pics....Yes there are pics, I've been backfilling some of the recent picture free posts now that I know how to do it.

[rb550four]

   So today I got back to that little red 500. It came with no drivers pegs, it had some kind of funky footboards... had a pair so they are changed out. carbs are cleaned up and all passages are open, set the float height and put them back in.
   This is the most complete 500 I have come in contact with yet,I've seen some extra parts that I wasn't really sure what they went to, never saw them before.  Most of that machine is pretty clean now and looks more like a survivor than a pigeon dropped barn find.
    I was interested to find out why the former owner stopped riding this machine ,the son of the owner said it was a starter button issue .  So I pulled the plugs....ugggh. That had to have been some of the trouble...changed them out and put on new caps. was gonna change the oil and filter but it looks like the last owner was craze with the oil change  and had that filter bolt wittle'd down  to an 8mm or less, so that will be some fun for next time. Clutch not working well , will have to check  the rod,ball and all that stuff first to see if the trouble is on that side of the case. If it's not that side the clutch will be inspected next , Cleaned up some connectors under the sidecovers while I was there, it's the pin type plug connectors, only ran into one of those before...still have most of that one ,just in case.
  I was thinking of the easy way, just swap engines but, it looks like I'll fire this one up and see what it does  first. Plans always a changing. There was GOOO in the tank and the carbs , it was last filled in 87, Shook out the flakey stuff and dropped a gallon of mineral spirits in the tank to dilute the gooo and bring it back to a liquid form that can be more easily and thoroughly cleaned out....got it sloshing around in the back of my pick up for a couple days till it pours freely. good news, this tank doen't leak. I had 2 tanks turn to swisscheese this year including that kawi tank on the 500. I really liked that tank.

[RAFster122s]

Por15 can seal some swiss cheese on tanks effectively, Caswell does a nice job too.

Sent you a pm about a seat, you get it?

[rb550four]

  David,
 Didn't receive the PM, can you resend?
I did the POR after cleaning the scale from the inside of the tank with a couple lbs. of bolts and other hardware on a 550 tank a few years back, Thought I got it all out. Last month it looked a bit bumpy and felt like a cucumber. so I sanded the paint off to see if the light coat of filler had failed...oh my hundreds of pinholes.Everywhere! So I started to solder these tiny holes....ran out of solder about 3/4 through. I had to ask myself if this is really worth it? Then thought , what a waste it would be if it failed after paint and I may have had another chance at a better tank, and paint that instead.So I posted in "wanted" that I'm looking for tanks and seats. I've never had enough decent seats. That green Kawi tank on a 500 always felt a little thin to me.  I was checking all the tanks, saw some rust bubbles in the paint and  I poked my finger through the top of the tank. I'm hoping that this doesn't become an epidemic around here.
  The little red 500 has had 1 gallon of mineral spirits in the tank since last night. dumped it out today. This tank seems to be puking large chunks of varnish out of the filler hole when I turned it over , so I refilled it with fresh mineral spirits...tomorrow it'll get dumped out and get laquer thinner, nothing can survive that.

[RAFster122s]

Acetone will strip many of the lightweight tank liners, won't really touch Caswells. (might soften it if left in a long time but won't strip it very quick if at all...)
That really sucks on the tank issues.
I have a nice CX tank the PO put a liner in and was a huge chunk in the top, didn't realize how much until it was failing and I dumped 4.5gal of acetone in it to strip the liner. It popped the seal on the petcock cover I was using and I lost the Acetone, rookie mistake. But, it had enough time in the tank to free what feels like a pound of liner in a mold of the top rear of the tank...bouncing around in the tank now.  That really ticked me off.
Going to have to figure out a secure way to pull the liner out without sacrificing a petcock or losing that much acetone again. It is pretty expensive and I think the drug makers use it in one of their drug processing methods...

Hopefully you will want to give a home to this cb500 seat. It is an orphan here.

Glad the varnish is coming out...might be an OK tank after all.
Good tanks are starting to get harder to come by I think.

[bryanj]

If it has pin connectors it must be an real early 500K0, any chance of PM me the vin and engine numbers plus the date on the vin plate to put into my data file I use to date UK bikes that don't come with vin plates. You are welcome to a copy of the list if you want.
Thanks
bryan

[rb550four]

  Bryanj, you must have the earliest 500 here.
I'll  take a look at some numbers, I'm know that  I have another engine that came with pins( That I've changed out to the blade version years ago) in a 500 somewheres around here that may or may not have been rebuilt yet. I'll check in the not rebuilt shelves first and see if there are any low numbers hanging around.
  I'm not hip to the data bank idea yet. Is this information on all early 500 s so there is a record of current owners and location to get a count on survivors like Royal Enfield does?  I've heard that group is tight and knows the location of all but 700 of those machines and pool resources to produce runs of parts that no longer exist.
   Okay, I checked the not rebuilt yet shelves , the lowest numbers there are 1oo6941 and 1075700, the rest are 210's. I'll need to go to a different location to check the rebuilt 500s, I may do that later on today. Any of that at all interesting so far?

[bryanj]

I don't keep a track of owners, just vin and engine against build date. Only the US had Vin tags from day 1 and here in the UK we get a free road tax depending on age so I use the data to tell people if it is worth trying for as our government, as most, does not give away anything automatically.

The 6941 could be interesting as if you look at the top crank case front below the base gasket the very early ones are taller and this is rather like a 500 version of "sandcast" on the 750---not worth a vast premium yet but possibly later.

If you PM me your email I will copy you the list so you can see what I have and that it is not dubious for example 6941 should have built April 1971

Cheers

Bryan

PS I brought mine into the UK from Illinois years ago but minus engine

[rb550four]

Bryan,   1010651,1014217 are the lowest other 500 engine numbers I have on the rebuilds.  I don't know if we have government free bee in the US like you have there, if they did New York state would find a way to tax it anyways, only after the insurance companies got whatever they wanted. It's like having three guys around you ...all with their hand in your pockets. Good thing Levi s come with 4 pockets, must be the extra one is for the Vaseline.

[rb550four]

 Got to spend some time on the clutch on the lil red 500. Opened up the left case, inspected , cleaned , greased adjusted , and polished while I was there. The rod was fine , there were no cracks on the threaded lever, and the ball bearing was there but the cable felt frayed inside, so I used the cable that I recently removed from the fave 500 when it went 550. Now the clutch seems to operate correctly. Guess its "change the oil" time next.

[rb550four]

This week lil' red 500 got 2lbs of nuts bolts and washers in the fuel tank after a couple of of acetone soaks and a mineral spirits rinse,all the gooey stuff gone and what scale was in the tank loosened up by the hardware shaken with vigor for an hour or so. good work out by the way. POR15 on the inside drying for days. Looks good. Leavin it set for a while until I can get around to prep and painting it. No dents to fill so it should go easy. Right. Down to my last set of spare side covers from Franken frankenstuff, haven't seen any posts from him lately , hope he's still making stuff.
  Thought tonight seems like an oil change night. The wittled down filter bolt was never gonna turn with a wrench, or a cold chisel, found center of the bolt and drilled it out. Ordering an aftermarket filter bolt that has a larger head and seems to be stronger than the stock bolt, I have it on a few other machines , never had an issue  with slipping, they do what they are supposed to do. I like that.
   The semi cleaned up exhaust pipes looked okay  but, I didn't get the "hard to get to spots"at initial clean up, so I took them off ,cleaned them up and buffed them...sounds stupid, but I'd rather have them buffed now, then to have the rust get worse and ruin them because I was too lazy to do them right.

[rb550four]

Aftermarket filter bolts came in, filters on the shelf, oil change done. Had some time to polish other parts while waiting,  Lil' Red is looking pretty good. Didn't want to fool around with handlebar controls just for a starter button right now ,so I set a momentary switch under the seat like some of my other 500s. Went through the electric,cleaned up the connectors, getting good spark at the plugs. Lights work ... picked up and installed new flasher unit, points and condensers look new Should all be a go.
  Good spark, fresh oil, clean carbs,good battery borrowed from fave 500 temporarily....threw a half ways decent tank on (til the original is painted), manometer right there.... must be time to fire this puppy up ,sync the carbs and see how it acts. That'll be another day, sun's gonna be out so I'll be roofing. At least I'll have something to look forward to when I'm done. After I'm satisfied with the running of this machine , then it's fork time.

[RAFster122s]

Cool!  Sent you an email...

[rb550four]

Been cleaning and sealing tanks lately , it involved some soldering on 2 tanks...only one seems salvageable,  some small dent filling and stuff like that. Lil Red's tank has por15 drying in it for a week guess it's time to prep it and get it painted soon.
I was thinking that there is enough stuff  around my space that is just not usable, like this one tank, and the cut F frame in the corner, the roached wheels and tires, some damaged forks, ripped seats, seized engines that I haven't gotten to yet....instead of wasting shelf space perhaps I should just assemble this stuff and see how ugly things get...just for fun this winter.

[rb550four]

   Prepped lil red's tank and shot some base coat /clear coat on it. The tank was in very good condition , no dents , the decal and dark background was in surprisingly decent condition too. so since right now I consider this machine a survivor, meaning that it wasn't seized and I haven't rebuilt this engine because I believe it will run in it's present condition, I decided to sand out everything about the tank with the exception of the background and the factory pinstripe because that has survived the pigeon palace it was left in since '87.  This tank was originally olive , then blue shake can and then red shake can paint. Now the tank , my last spare pair of frankenstuff's side covers and a spare tank that I have recently purchased are the sunrise orange color of my fave 500. This make lil red no longer red, can't call it that anymore,guess I'll call it "the survivor". I'll post pics when it's all dry and on the "survivor" , I don't even want to be in the same room with it until it's dry, so far I've stuck a couple of fingerprints in the other tank...it's okay ,it's right on the side panel that will be getting a light sand and the panel blacked out and striped another day. For a $hiTTy tank, it came out pretty good , I think. pics later this week.

[RAFster122s]

   Prepped lil red's tank and shot some base coat /clear coat on it. The tank was in very good condition , no dents , the decal and dark background was in surprisingly decent condition too. so since right now I consider this machine a survivor, meaning that it wasn't seized and I haven't rebuilt this engine because I believe it will run in it's present condition, I decided to sand out everything about the tank with the exception of the background and the factory pinstripe because that has survived the pigeon palace it was left in since '87.  This tank was originally olive , then blue shake can and then red shake can paint. Now the tank , my last spare pair of frankenstuff's side covers and a spare tank that I have recently purchased are the sunrise orange color of my fave 500. This make lil red no longer red, can't call it that anymore,guess I'll call it "the survivor". I'll post pics when it's all dry and on the "survivor" , I don't even want to be in the same room with it until it's dry, so far I've stuck a couple of fingerprints in the other tank...it's okay ,it's right on the side panel that will be getting a light sand and the panel blacked out and striped another day. For a $hiTTy tank, it came out pretty good , I think. pics later this week.

Well, if you used 2k clear urethane you should not be near it or in same air space with it while it dries without a mask. The stuff can kill you and it doesn't take much when concentration s are high.


What do you do on tanks that have dents? Do you have a stud gun to pull most of the dent out or do you have Paint less Dent Removal skills like Calj737?


Sunrise Orange Flake is my favorite color for the 550s and 500s.


David

[rb550four]

  No, I haven't gotten a stud gun yet, but I should look into it soon, seems like the best way to pull dents to me. I don't know why I don't have one , it's going on the list. Been doing some heat and cold stuff  with limited success, I've been relying on filler to make up the difference, I have got to get with the program here. Skills like Cal ? few people have skills like Cal, he eats this stuff for breakfast, retains all Honda related information and is very generous with his knowledge , and has a good sense of humor....I'm more the stumble around the shop kind of guy doing things 10 different ways before I'm happy with the outcome and always pressed for time....That time thing usually blinds me from some obvious things, like a stud gun.  But once I'm happy with a way to do something , I'll do that every time. Stud gun.....I'll bet once it's in the shop, I'll be doing that every time.
  2k , haven't used it . I always use automotive paints....thinners, paint and hardner, got to wear a mask with all of that, it'll crystallize in the lungs. Any painting without a mask is just asking for trouble, even just the fumes in clothing ,hair and skin is toxic and should be removed and washed thoroughly as soon as possible. That stuff can take you out.
 My sunrise orange flake with pearl isn't the same as Honda orange flake, but I like it.
 
Working on pics , this is the survivor now

[rb550four]

   and this is what is was when it followed me home

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

She was a dirty bird, but now she looks great.

[rb550four]

 Thanks, it 's coming around but nowheres near finished yet. I have the usual  parts on order like fork seals, gaitors, petcock, and master cylinder kit... I was hoping to be able to fire it up and give it a run before it gets cold and snows,  but it got cold yesterday and snowed a little last night. I didn't hear any sanders go by, so maybe there is still a shot at a ride or two if I can get this finished up soon. I never run on these roads once they've been sanded...not safe and will need to clean everything all over again. Might just have to wait til May when the roads are clean again.
  I HATE WINTER! ....just felt the need to make that clear for the first time this year.
This summer the road crews in the Adirondacks have been very busy laying down fresh asphalt on allot of roads that look like a blast to ride  next year. Can't understand why they did so many roads. They started in a few places in the middle of freaking nowhere , paved it to an other nowhere place that probably doesn't even have a name, no signs to anywhere with nothing along the way...It's like riding through a forest on a ribbon of smooth asphalt for miles and miles. I never know when I should stop because there is really no destination just billions of trees and the occasional deer or two, or ten that jump out in front of you every now and then  just to keep you on your toes, I guess. I just backtrack when I get lost and feel lucky to find civilization again. My daughter moved up there a few years ago, I still don't understand why, but , it's a decent place to ride if you don't mind getting lost in the woods for a while. Every time I go up there, it seems like I see the same bunch of worn looking guys riding around on Harleys, they look like they had a destination to get to.... I wonder, really,  just how long they've been out there?

[RAFster122s]

You know what they say don't you RB?
90% of Harleys are still out on the road. The other 10% made it home to their garages...

Unless you want it to be a double entendre...then it is 99% and 1% made it home...