Topic: 1972 cb500s - Thing1 & Thing2 (work resumed)

[Valhad]

The S3 looks good,  I have H1 fever bad, selling my CB550 to buy one.

Yes, those masters can be a #$%* to rebuild.  Calipes, on the other hand, are much simpler.  Sometimes, a good cleaning is all they need, as long as the piston isnt badly pitted. Odd that no fluid comes out with the bleeder screw out.

Got an H1 picked out? :-)

The brake problem seems to be actually in between the master cylinder and the caliper. Fluid pumps out the master cylinder, but not out the line into the caliper. Until i took a closer look, i thought there was just a single hose. I now see there's a junction and fittings and whatnot... my jam up has to be in there somewhere.

[Valhad]

Nothing terribly exciting to report, just keeping track of my progress, such as it is. 

I did get my brake issue sorted out - I found my "plug" at the bottom of the lower rubber hose, where it meets the short hard line.  About 1/2 an inch inside that hose was some kind of obstruction.  I managed to clear the line, then flushed it, which let my caliper do its job and grab the rotor!  ...unfortunately, the caliper then didn't want to let go.   So off it came, and I cleaned it up and out, reassembled it, and bled the system, and I have a working front brake!  Two steps forward!

I went to start the bike again just to hear it run, and after several seconds of failing to start I bumped the headlight switch to high beam and everything went dark.  Looking at the fuse holder, it's clear that it is badly melted, and I'm pretty sure it was fine last time I looked at it.  Hopefully the fuse holder is the only thing I somehow "cooked."  One step back.

[Valhad]

The brake thing was actually resolved a couple weeks back.  The fuse holder was melted a few days ago.  But today was a good day.  I found a real nice guy on Craigslist, over by Fort Wayne, who had rebuilt a couple cb500s, and had at one point begun stockpiling parts bikes and parts.  He's moved on to KZ1100s as his new favorites, and wanted to get out of his whole collection of cb500 and cb550 stuff. 

I don't really have room for all of this stuff, but he made me a good deal on the lot, so I packed up my pickup with everything he had.  I figure I'll pick out about 1/3 of it that I might actually need, and start offering the rest on here and/or ebay to defray my costs, and hopefully help out some fellow enthusiasts.  Here's a sneak peek of the quantity of "parts" I hauled home - not counting the stuff you can't see that is all over the passenger side of the truck cab.


Tomorrow, I'll start making some kind of inventory.

[Tews19]

I'm interested in some stuff if you want to move them.

[rb550four]

I'm seeing allot of boxes , full of goodies even better!
Are those 2 bikes in the back of the truck new to the collection or are they the twins?
 Lucky man, I always wanted to pick up some twins, heard stories about it, not that lucky yet. Congrats.

[Stev-o]

Interested in a nice, original seat.

[Valhad]

I'm seeing allot of boxes , full of goodies even better!
Are those 2 bikes in the back of the truck new to the collection or are they the twins?
 Lucky man, I always wanted to pick up some twins, heard stories about it, not that lucky yet. Congrats.

Thanks! They are two "new" bikes, amazingly also both 72 500s. Just parts bikes, although one of them is pretty complete and only has 7k miles. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with all this stuff. My "twins" aren't this short on parts.

[Valhad]

I'm interested in some stuff if you want to move them.

I absolutely need to move some of this stuff.  I didn't get to making an inventory yet - just unloading all that and getting it stowed was enough for me this weekend. I'll start in on the inventory tonight, probably, but let me know what you need and I'll set it aside if I find it.  The boxes are full of 500 and 550 parts from various years, so I'll probably need some help identifying exactly which parts/years I'm looking at in some cases.

Interested in a nice, original seat.

I got a useable seat pan out of this lot, but that's about it.  Sorry Stev-O.

[Tews19]

Always interested in tank and side covers! When does the inventories begin? !

[Valhad]

Always interested in tank and side covers! When does the inventories begin? !

Inventory will begin tonight, when I get home from work - probably after dinner.   But I can tell you that I got 0 sidecovers in this lot - but I did get two tanks.  Neither is in original (or usable) paint, but either might make a decent canvas to start from. I haven't tested either tank for leaks, but certainly will.

Tank 1 is in primer.  It had some body work down to it, could still use just a little smoothing out in spots before going to paint.  It has what I'd call light-to-moderate surface rust inside.  More than you get from instant flash rust, but no scale.

Tank 2 is uglier.  It has a busted, locked cap on it so I haven't seen inside, but it rattles quietly, suggesting its got more of a rust problem than tank 1. I'll see if I can't jimmy the lock with a screwdriver and get a look inside.  I seem to recall it had some relatively minor dings/dents.

I will take a proper inventory - but some of the other things that were in all those boxes, that I can remember off the top of my head are:

• a big box full of a bunch of airboxes and plenums etc.  At least 2 complete systems, I think, possibly 3 or 4
• 4 entire racks of carbs, iirc, 2 were labelled as being off '74s
• a box of gauges and gauge mounts/backs
• a box of brake parts, including a couple calipers, and a couple master cylinders/levers
• "honda" tank badges, 2 pairs and two mis-matched
• rusty but solid seat pan
• 3 rear fenders w taillights.  I think 2 of the three taillight covers have a crack, though.
• 2 front fenders (neither perfect, I think one is chopped a little shorter than stock, the other has a couple dings)
• a loaded 550 clutch basket

...LOTS of other miscellaneous stuff. Plus what's actually attached to the two parts bikes. 

The guy I bought this from kept everything, like I do... A fair amount of this is take-off parts, I think, but mostly in decent shape.   I figure once I get some inventory list and pictures going, I'll start a thread in the for sale section.  I'll put a link to it here when I get that up

[Valhad]

as promised, I've started my "for sale" thread here:
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=142299.0
keep tuned to that channel while I make my way through the pile of boxes.

In actual news on my own project, I cracked open my melted husk of a fuse holder to see what went wrong, and found.... aluminum foil!  Some genius had wrapped the fuse in foil, presumably because the 15A fuse that was in there had already blown.  So now I know what happened, at least, and it's an easy fix.  I cleaned up the metal parts of the fuse holder, plugged in a fresh fuse, and everything lit back up.

I think this does suggest that my extra high beam lights gotta go, though.  Alas.

[Stev-o]

I would not count changing a fuse being a fix.  Something made that fuse blow and until the issue is found, it found go at any time. 
PS.  Always carry extra fuses. 

[Valhad]

I would not count changing a fuse being a fix.  Something made that fuse blow and until the issue is found, it found go at any time. 
PS.  Always carry extra fuses.

Yeah, I recognize that. I'm hoping the additional headlights are what was causing it to pull too much juice. I'm planning on removing those and switching at least the tail light to led to drop my draw down a bit. Hopefully that's enough to get me comfortably under 15 amps.

[calj737]

Yeah, I recognize that. I'm hoping the additional headlights are what was causing it to pull too much juice. I'm planning on removing those and switching at least the tail light to led to drop my draw down a bit. Hopefully that's enough to get me comfortably under 15 amps.

Extra headlights/driving lights on the same circuit would definitely do it. Especially if the extras operates in HI mode with the main driving light. That's a lot of current being drawn.

If you desire supplemental front lights, LED projector lights are a better solution. But, you also need to inspect the wiring to the headlight after the extra pair were installed. Quite possibly it has seen way too much heat and is now damaged.

[Valhad]

...

PS.  Always carry extra fuses.

The kicker is that there are/were two extra fuses in the little rubber fuse holder that fits into the tool tray.  Someone just preferred aluminum foil... Or didn't know those fuses were even there.  I bet they felt very clever at the time, riding around on a bike fused with foil, while literally sitting on top of a pair of good fuses. 

[Valhad]

Well, we had a couple of totally unreasonably nice days lately, didn't we?  It was enough to get me back out into the garage and working on Thing 1.  (Thing 2 is still exactly how I got it when I rolled these twins into the garage.  One Thing at a time  )

I hadn't bothered posting in a while, as I've mostly been busy breaking down that big parts lot.  Still a bit of that to go, but most of the good stuff is gone now so interest has understandably dropped off.

Anyhow, I pulled the high bars off Thing 1, as well as removed those extra high beam running lights.  In the process, I had to unhook most of the electrical in the bucket, so I just went ahead and unplugged everything in there, and cleaned every connector, and when I reassembled, squirted a healthy gob of dielectric grease in each socket.

Pulling the control wiring through the handlebars was a bear.  But I greased the wiring up, and got it pulled through, eventually.  Only when I went to reconnect the throttle cables and re-mount the brake master cylinder did I realize what I should know off the bat - I needed all new cables.  Without the extra high rise bars, my cables were comically long.

So, new throttle cables, and I replaced the upper brake hose with one from my new parts heap.  I haven't done anything with the clutch cable yet - it's clearly a bit long, too, but seems less problematic.  I think I've got a good one in my pile, for the day I have that motivation.

The bike wouldn't start and run, though.  It had been running fine, but I couldn't get it to run for anything.  I pulled my gas tank again, and discovered only one of the outlets on my newly-rebuilt petcock was flowing.  Turns out I hadn't de-rusted the gas tank well enough, I guess.  So, this time I went at it with prep&etch, and it seems to have done better.  Obviously, I disassembled and cleaned the rusty gunk out of the petcock, while I was at it. 

Confident in being able to deliver nice fresh gas to the carbs, I hooked the tank back up, and it ran great.  That's when I realized - I could DRIVE it.  I had working fuel, working lights, working brakes....  So I did!

I took it for the very first trip 'round the block.  My blinkers don't blink.  But otherwise, that went well. 

Then I decided to take it a little further - about .5 mile, to the gas station to fill the tank with clean gas. 

Well, I got there okay.  But while I idled in a parking space, waiting for a pump to open up, I noticed that I was pssing gas all over the ground under my bike. 

It's from (at least) one of the overflow tubes. And it seems really weirdly intermittent.  So, probably a bad/sticky float or float needle.  So, I didn't fill it up after all - I just rode back home.  I've got the carbs all back off again already - I didn't even think to take a picture while I (breifly) had it all back together with the stock bars back on. 

Not QUITE as close to being ready to ride as I hoped.  But getting there.

[Valhad]

I took the carbs back off, and found and fixed a cracked drain tube.  I added a Hondaman ignition, adjusted my valves, put some new tires on to replace the original rubber, synchronized the carbs, and took an awesome little ride. Thing 1 is running great! Now i just need warmer weather to really get here.

Still trying to figure out how to get one of these comfortable for a 5 foot tall rider, though. I should have a king/queen seat coming, which i hope helps some. I am willing to try new shocks and pushing the forks up, but not more than an inch or two, and i think the seat width/height is the real killer...

[Stev-o]

Some have cut down the foam on the stock seat, installed a 16" rear wheel and put short shocks on to lower the seat height. 
What makes the bike uncomfortable?  You don't feel you need to have both feet on the ground do you?

[Valhad]

Well, at 5 feet, my wife can't get either foot on the ground. I put the king/queen seat on, which seems to help. Now she can get toes on both feet down. I think I'll probably get shorter shocks, and push the front forks up to bring it down an inch or so.
While getting just toes down might be enough long term, right now she has almost no riding experience being able to reach the ground easier would help her build some confidence.
...also, I really want her to ride with me, so i want to make that as comfortable and enjoyable for her as possible.

[Valhad]

My other option is to let her ride my triple. It's narrower, and easier for her to handle... but it's a little finicky, and I think the steady reliability of the Hondas would be less frustrating and concerning for her.

[Stev-o]

My other option is to let her ride my triple. It's narrower, and easier for her to handle... but it's a little finicky, and I think the steady reliability of the Hondas would be less frustrating and concerning for her.

I hear ya about the a Triples being finicky.  I'm currently rebuilding a '74 H1.

[Valhad]

I thought you might be able to relate.

[Retro Rocket]

If your wife has very little riding experience and is short in stature I would recommend a much lighter bike. My first road bike was a 750 Honda but I was around 5'10" and a fit 16 year old with some dirt bike experience, I was strong enough to hold the bike and maneuver it around but it was still quite a heavy bike.... Just saying, i would be a little worried...

[Valhad]

If your wife has very little riding experience and is short in stature I would recommend a much lighter bike. My first road bike was a 750 Honda but I was around 5'10" and a fit 16 year old with some dirt bike experience, I was strong enough to hold the bike and maneuver it around but it was still quite a heavy bike.... Just saying, i would be a little worried...

Hmm.  Thanks Retro.  Maybe I ought to just spend some more time with the kz250, and get it into prime shape for her.  It's just such a boring little bike... But I need to remember that boring isn't necessarily bad. Something to consider, at the very least.

[Retro Rocket]

If your wife has very little riding experience and is short in stature I would recommend a much lighter bike. My first road bike was a 750 Honda but I was around 5'10" and a fit 16 year old with some dirt bike experience, I was strong enough to hold the bike and maneuver it around but it was still quite a heavy bike.... Just saying, i would be a little worried...

Hmm.  Thanks Retro.  Maybe I ought to just spend some more time with the kz250, and get it into prime shape for her.  It's just such a boring little bike... But I need to remember that boring isn't necessarily bad. Something to consider, at the very least.

The KZ250 would be a far better first bike, lighter, lower and sensible power.....