For quite a while, I knew my wife's uncle had an old motorcycle somewhere. For the last few years, I've known it was a CB550. While I've thought it would be fun to buy it off him and get it running again, I have also been neglecting my own bike (78 CX500).
Well, I decided the CX500 would be my summer project. It had very little attention needed to get it back on the road, as it turns out.
Last week, my lovely wife surprised me. She had arranged not just to get the 550, but to have another relative deliver it to our house.
Long story short, I'm the proud new owner of the bike in the title, which has a little over 4800 miles on it!
It's not in terrible shape for sitting so long (last year it was registered 1986), it kicks over, at least. The brake fluid has turned to something resembling Parmesan cheese, and one muffler has rusted through in a dime sized spot. Front forks have leaked oil, but the boots look great.
Right now, I'm cleaning out the tank. What I thought was rust seems mostly to be crystallized fuel. There was just a little bit of extremely varnished fuel in the bottom of the tank.
I assume the next step will be to clean the carbs.
At some point, I have to figure out how to remove the rodent smell...I found a mouse nest in the air box, complete with mummified mouse.
Any tips for any of this are greatly appreciated!
