Topic: Terry's Effing F2, return of the prodigal SOHC4?

[Trevor from Warragul]

All you need to carry these days is a mobile phone. Remember the days when you had to find a pay phone, or knock on someone's door?

[The Sovereign Man]

Well for them days I don't have roadside service...every day,  and no phone anymore.. I just keep running points..
Why wait for a pub to be open, just pack a few emergency beers..

This man understands life.

[Terry in Australia]

Yeah, I think I must have been pretty lucky "back in the day" Trevor, the only breakdown I ever had was coming back from the Bathurst Easter TT in 1987 I copped a nail in the back tyre of my Harley Sportster just out of Wodonga on the ride back to Melbourne, and rode it from servo (gas station) to servo pumping the tyre up until we got to Pete's crazy cousin Harold's place, where we took the wheel off in Harold's driveway, wrestled the tyre off, fixed the hole with a bicycle tyre repair kit that Harold had in his garden shed, and rode the remaining 200 miles to Melbourne, incident free. Even when I blew my first K1 up (a "mechanic" used silicon in favor of new gaskets) I managed to ride it back to (almost) home, before it died completely.

But I digress. The weekend was lovely spring weather, even if it did go so fast. Saturday was a bit of a fizzer in that I spent half the day looking for my heat gun so I could re-attach my blinkers and tail lights with those fancy heat shrink/solder joiners, which I think are the best thing since sliced bread. I eventually found it in a box with some leftover parts from the Swamp Rat build, but that wasted a ton of time, so apart from fitting the rear blinkers and the spacer for the exhaust bracket, that was a far as I got.

Sunday was better, first job was adjusting the valves. The wonderful thing about hacking the frame on a CB750 is that you no longer are at the mercy of those pissy portholes on the cam cover, you can just pop off the cam cover, and well, the world is your oyster.

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Surprisingly, they weren't too bad. I like to err on the side of too much clearance, than not enough, and all but one or two were just about spot on. I have the memory of a goldfish, so as I adjusted each one, I marked it with a white paint pen.

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

A very easy task, so I celebrated by ratting around in the Tardis for a better valve cover, and found one on my spare F2 engine, so I just swapped them out. I did think about painting it black first, but decided that it was unnecessary.

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr   

I meant to pull the carbs off and rebuild them, but then I just got lazy and grabbed a spare set from the pile. They've been sitting awhile.......

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Fear not though, dear reader, I wouldn't let the team down with #$%*ty old carbs like these, until they'd had a nice hot bath in the ultrasonic cleaner.

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 9 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

That pic was taken once it was out of the UC, flushed with clean water, blown dry with compressed air, sprayed with copious quantities of WD 40, then put into the industrial over for an hour @ 100 deg C to make sure the WD 40 found it's way into every nook and cranny. These carbs were actually seized from sitting, so by the time I pulled them out today, was happy to be able to work them for a couple of minutes and free everything up to where the slides snap back into place now. sweet. That was it for Sunday, being Fathers Day here in Oz I had to come inside to be showered with gifts (booze, of course) so apart from trying on the airbox, I fitted one of Cliff's sidecovers, the good one. The one on the other side that cliff gave me was buggared, and the one on the bike looks like it was home made from fibreglass, so I might have to find a better one, on the 'bay.

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr     

[Terry in Australia]

So today was another beautiful day, but of course a man has to work for a living if he wants to own a gazillion motorcycles, so I didn't get back into it until late this afternoon. Yesterday I'd found 4 rebuild kits in Spotty's esky (beer cooler) of PD carb parts, so today after ensuring all the circuits were clear with WD40 and compressed air, I rebuilt them, reset all the float levels, adjusted the air screws and called them good.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 carb rebuild 7 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The OEM manual's F2 supplement and the factory F2 parts manual came in handy.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 carb rebuild 7 Sep 2020 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

They all looked pretty good, but as it was getting dark, I put them back in the oven to keep the dust out of them, and I'll install them tomorrow.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 carb rebuild 7 Sep 2020 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I'll probably have to put the rubber "horns" from the airbox to the back of the carbs in some hot water to re-shape them back to where they're a good fit, as they're a little out of shape, but that's easy, and PD carbs run super lean so need the airbox and filter assembly as a basic "choke". I remember Clint fitted some fancy brass velocity stacks on his F2 Cafe Racer, so I had to increase the main jet size from 110 to 140 just to get it to run past idle. Hopefully mine will run like a new one! (but it probably won't.......)

[dave500]

id like an ultrasonic cleaner,decent ones are exxy though?certainly come out nicer than just the old toothbrush and cleaner spray.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Dave, the one I bought was around 400 bucks which I thought was pretty good when you can drop a bank of carbs or a 750 head or cylinder block in it? I saw the same one at Ace Motorcycles and Jeff told me he just uses water and dishwashing detergent, it heats the water up to 50 deg C, and everything comes out sparkling clean, but it's important to spray it with WD40 or RP7 as soon as you can so the caustic in the soap powder doesn't etch the pot metal that the carbs are made from.

[PeWe]

Really quick progress going on here, Terry!
It is soon on the road!
Your next favourite daily rider?

Hope your Covid-19 restriction will change making it possible for longer rides. Maybe restaurants too if handle food and eachother with care.

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Terry, you have always been a closet F'r 

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, thanks guys, yeah I'm not sure if it's the emotional link or just the fact that working on CB750's is so much easier for me than on big Kawasaki's (which are wonderful bikes too, but I don't have a lot of spares, so am always waiting for bits to arrive before I can move forward) but I am really enjoying taking this old pile and turning it into a reliable runner again.

The weather was awful yesterday and not much better this morning, but the sun has finally come out, so after I finish work today I'll do the carb swap and see how it runs, I think one of the coils might be bad, and am waiting for new ones to arrive, as I'm still to-ing and fro-ing between keeping the points and installing my Hondaman ignition amplifier, or installing that new Kokusan electronic ignition. More soon.

[Terry in Australia]

Well I swapped out the carbs after I knocked off work, and it ran much better. I didn't put the airbox back on because #4 carb was dripping fuel, and I spent the best part of an hour trying to fix it. I'd rebuilt these carbs after cleaning them in the ultrasonic cleaner and used all new kits, so was slightly pissed off. I swapped out the float needle first, made no difference. I then swapped out the float, no difference. Hmmnn, could the float bowl itself be the problem? Swapped it out, no bueno. Fcuk. Bleed screw? Nope. Nothing sh1ts me, but this was getting close. 

It was only a slight leak, so I thought, "Why not put the seat back on (geez I'll be glad when the new(to me) seat arrives) and see if it'll actually act like a motorcycle, for the first time in ten years? So I rode it! Yay! Well, up and down the driveway, but as piss-weak as that sounds, this bike hasn't even run in 10 years, and when I bought it two weeks ago the seller had already started to strip it to sell off the parts so it was missing lots of important bits and the engine was locked up from sitting for so long, so this was a huge step forward! I'm a happy boy..........

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[PeWe]

New paint (and graphics) will make it to look really good!
No match for you!

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Per, I did some drunken Ebay ordering last night, and bought a new repro left sidecover and the little plastic part that sits between the frame and chain guard, and I just need the decorative finned cover that sits between the horns to make it look pretty much complete. I will give it a rattlecan respray when the sidecover arrives, and I might put some decals on it as well.

I'm more interested in getting it on the road and riding it and than making it pretty, but that might happen down the track.

[PeWe]

Alcohol help the build progress! Not only race engines that runs better!

A stiff GT or 2 on Friday to celebrate the end of work week can also help when it helps to cool down. The impulse control of ordering things is very low though!!

[754]

Ride it over to show the guy you bought it from..

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks guys, the guy I bought it from is 1000 miles away, so I might not get to show him in person but I posted a couple of vids on FB, and he was 'rapt that it was a goer again.

So what's been happening with "Effie"? Well yesterday (Saturday) was miserable, back to winter with lots of rain and no sunshine. As all of  my work on the old rat  has been out in the driveway, I needed to do a job I could do in the (cramped) garage. What about a frame kit? Well I can't ride it any distance until I replace those frame sections, so why not?

Per mentioned my earlier kit that I made using CB750 fork legs, probably the strongest frame kit ever made, but over engineered to the max. Back when I cut the guts of of the Redneck K2 "Bitsa" to help swap the engine out, I looked at a better, lighter frame kit. Using a 1mm thick cut off disk to cut thru the frame sections, you don't need 75mm of 5mm thick wall steel tube to keep it all in place, so I ditched the used CB750 fork tubes, and found some 2mm thick alloy seamless tube that was a nice tight fit over the OEM Honda support tubes, and some machinable alloy bar that I could machine down to 22mm OD, to fit tightly into the inside of the OEM support tubes. I didn't take any pics of the K2's frame kit, but someone here asked me to post some of Effie's frame kit, so here we go. First of all, I had to turn my machineable alloy bar to a tad under 22mm OD, for a tight fit up the frame tube, to make a "nut".

Terry’s F2.2 frame kit 12 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Once I'd machined it down, I needed to drill and thread it for 8mm bolts, as that was all I had in the right length. on my K2 I used 2 x 6mm screws per joint, but that was overkill. Probably fine if just using an external clamp, but unnecessary when anchoring the sleeve to the frame tube. Anyone wanna buy a flute?

Terry’s F2.2 frame kit 12 Sep 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr   

Each of the "Nuts" were tapped up into the tube and manipulated into place for the bolts. They're all threaded internally so that I can pull them out if need be.

Terry’s F2.2 frame kit 12 Sep 2020 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The outer sleeves are so tight that I had to grind off the powdercoat on the frame tubes so that I could slide them over the bare steel tubes and even then, I still had to use a pair off "Multigrips" to maneuver the holes over the threaded "nuts inside the frame tubes.   .

Terry’s F2.2 frame kit 12 Sep 2020 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Then the 8mm bolts were threaded in, and tightened. No need for washers.

Terry’s F2.2 frame kit 12 Sep 2020 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

This morning was just as miserable, so I continued with the frame kit, and made a couple of threaded "nuts" for the frame triangle.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Everything was bolted up, and felt nice and tight again.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Sadly the rust had got under the thick powdercoat, so I had to grind it off too, with a flap wheel on my dad's old dremel tool, then gave it a squirt with some satin black paint just to stop it rusting further.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr.


About this time, the sun finally came back, and I couldn't help but start singing George Harrison's "Here come the sun" under my breath as as I looked at other things I could do. First job was fitting the new cheap arse chinese coils. These things are supposed to fit pretty much any UJM (remember what that stands for?) and I was sceptical, but the only issue was that the rear mount doesn't fit,and it WILL cause the power wire to short out on the rear bracket, blowing the main fuse. What's the fix? Well the OEM wiring harness has an earth wire that mounts on the front coil mount, so all you need in the back end is a couple of cable ties, and it's all good.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr   

I cut the plug wires to length, leaving plenty of extra wire, it's easier to shorten a plug wire than lengthen it, and the coil wires I had on it previously were a tad too short, so I was happy to have some extra that I can trim later, if necessary. Anyway, I turned the key, hit the button, and it fired right up. No issues, but for the occasional "pop" from the exhaust, which was annoying? Ignition, or carbs? Hmmnnn. I'd noticed this earlier in the week, the "welsh plugs" on the carbs were missing? WTF? Could air be entering via the slides and causing this conundrum?

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Well I love my ultrasonic cleaner, so as the day was slowing dissipating, I thought, "Why not clean the original carbs?" They were filthy, but as noted previously the float bowls looked quite clean, so I thought it would't hurt to strip them and chuck them in the ultrasonic cleaner? I thought I best clean it out first though, and when I did, I found these..........

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 7 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Wow, the vibey little cleaner had vibrated these plugs right out, amazing! I reinstalled them and the bike ran better, but a small one is still missing from the left side, so I still needed to clean the original carbs.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

When I stripped them, I could see that the carbs had been rebuilt (poorly) not too long ago, as there were new air screws, slide top gaskets, etc. No "O" rings or washers under the air screws, and the pilot jets had never been removed, and were all still plugged. I threw everything in the ultrasonic cleaner for an hour @ 50 deg C, and once done I hosed them all out, blew out all the circuits with compressed air, sprayed heaps of WD40 on everything, then threw them in the industrial oven @ 100 deg C for an hour. Tomorrow I'll re-assemble them, and install them, and see if the popping stops. If not, the points are getting the flick........... More soon.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 13 Sep 2020 9 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr



 

   

[PeWe]

Good idea with the frame kit rod inside frame stiffing it up.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Per, I'm very happy with the kit, a couple of bucks worth of material and a dozen stainless bolts is a small price to pay to be able to whip the cam cover off to unstick the engine, even it it was a full day's work on my lathe and mill.

One of the things that really bugged me about this bike was the rust. Coffs Harbour is probably a lovely place, but being a seaside town, that salty air does terrible things to motorcycles. I bought a Suzy GS1000S from a lady who'd had it under a tarp in her yard for years in a seaside town once, and the beautiful Yoshimura pipe fell apart the first time I started the engine. A little surface rust I can live with but when something is rotten, it's gotta go. The seat on "Effie" was really bad, the only thing holding it together was the cover and the foam, and it looked sh1t.

Terry's Effing F2.2 6 Sep 2020 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I've repaired Honda 750 seat bases before, and it's possible that i could have repaired this one, but the time, and materials required would have been extensive.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 seat 14 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

So when the bike arrived and I saw how bad the seat was, I did an Ebay search and found a half decent one. There was a really nice one that had been taken off an F2 very early in it's life, but it was way too expensive at $550 USD with shipping and import duty, but I eventually found one for around half of that, that while not perfect, kind of fits in with the condition of the rest of the bike. Today, only 3 weeks since I bought it, the box arrived, and it was just as good as I'd hoped. I quickly swapped out the ducktails and did a trial fit, and I think it looks lovely. Ratting thru the box of bits that Cliff gave me all those years ago I found a good lock assembly with a key, so now I'm a step closer to having it ready to ride once the lockdown is over.

Terry’s Effing F2.2 seat 14 Sep 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The only thing missing at the moment is a tool tray, I saw one in the Tardis a week or two ago but I've had no luck finding it today, so I'll go hunting again tomorrow. I contacted the tyre guys about getting some new Stinko's and they said, "Yep, bring your wheels over and we'll do them on the spot", but I've realised that they're about twice as far away as I'm currently allowed to travel away from my home under the stage 4 restrictions, so I'll either have to buy them and have them sent to me so I can fit them myself, or wait until after the lockdown. I suppose it doesn't matter that much if I have to wait, it's not like I can ride it anywhere at the moment, anyway. Still plenty to do, carb rebuild, fit airbox and new filter, then decide if I install the electronic ignition.

At least it's starting to look less like a wreck and more like a tidy old bike now.      
 

[scottly]

Thanks Per, I'm very happy with the kit, a couple of bucks worth of material and a dozen stainless bolts is a small price to pay to be able to whip the cam cover off to unstick the engine, even it it was a full day's work on my lathe and mill.

Now you understand why my kits based on Frank's design are so "expensive".

[754]

There is a really simple way to test  the stiffness of these  kits..
 Put on only one of the 4 clamps and do this , push hard to left, hard to right, hard up , hard down.. and it will show you..
 If it clamps tight both ways, then it should work for triple  trees  as well...

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks guys, I'm not arguing the benefits of the various frame kits here, if I didn't need to cut the frame to get to the top end of the engine I wouldn't have needed one at  all, but I did need to either cut the frame or pull the engine, so the kit I made solved the problem of filling the gap so that I can move on. I don't have any intent of selling these things, I agree that they're a pain in the arse to make and I don't need the money. Your kits look lovely, so if anyone else reading this is considering a frame kit, buy one of Franks/Scott's, they're great. OK?

Anyway, back to important things, like the progress of the build. So I'd rebuilt another set of carbs and the bike ran better, but it still popped and farted a tad, so before throwing the points ignition in the bin I decided to rebuild (properly) the original carbs that had new components installed, but weren't done very well. None of the pilot jets had been pulled, so were corroded and all plugged. I threw them in the ultrasonic cleaner on Sunday, then flushed, dried, WD40'd, and put them back in the industrial oven to ensure that all the water was out of them. Today I pulled them out, ready to re-assemble.


Terry's Effing F2.2 carb rebuild 15 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr


As mentioned, the PO (or a PO, at least) had installed rebuild kits to each carb and then I guess he gave up when he realised that the engine was locked up. The good thing was that there were new air screws, float needles and gaskets on the slide tower caps, but he obviously didn't know that apart from pulling the pilot jets and cleaning all the circuits, he was supposed to install the tiny O rings and washers with the springs on the air screws, so they would have sucked, literally. I'd put all the tiny screws, jets etc in a sealed jar of stale gas and put them in the ultrasonic cleaner too and they all came out nice and clean, but the pilot jets were still blocked, so I ended up stripping some fine copper wire and using one strand to unplug each jet.

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb rebuild 15 Sep 2020 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Anyway, I rebuilt them properly, set the float levels which were all over the place, set the air screws out 2 turns, and by this time it was getting late, I still had some paid work to do in my home "office" (my comfy chair, a laptop, two screens and a printer) so I packed up for the night. I'll install the carbs tomorrow, and if there's no difference, then I'll dump the points and install the Kokusan ignition and see how that goes. More tomorrow.

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb rebuild 15 Sep 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[CB_Jeff]

Terry - nice project, I have an F2 that I have been working on and these bikes are my fave - despite popular misgivings about the Comstars.  Looking forward to seeing how the first ride goes, and if this turns out to be you old bike.
On the new tires, is the local Covid response approach to limit residents to a set mileage from their home?  If so, interesting approach and a bit different than here in New England.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Jeff, I actually like the comstars and think the F2’s styling was an improvement on it’s predecessor, even though I bought an F0 new back in the day.

Yeah the travel restrictions are part of the stage 4 lockdown to limit folks from driving all over the greater Melbourne area and possibly spreading the virus, but as the numbers have dropped to below 50 new cases per day apparently some of the restrictions will be lifted in 2 weeks time, so hopefully I’ll get those tyres, I don’t want to ride too far on the ones on “Effie” now!

[RAFster122s]

I like the std Comstars, the reverse Comstars you can keep. IMHO, the reverse are ugly.

[Terry in Australia]

I like the std Comstars, the reverse Comstars you can keep. IMHO, the reverse are ugly.

Thanks David, I’m the same, the later comstars were horrible.

[Terry in Australia]

Well for the last 3 days I've been on the "Changi" diet, a rather insensitive reference to the Aussie POW's who were treated horribly by our Japanese pals in WW2, many of whom were starved to death. We're all friends again now, so no hard feelings, and with only 500 calories per day intake, I lost 10 pounds in 3 days, which was good. I had to break the diet today though, as I was feeling pretty crappy this morning, and I'm happy to report that along with the return to caffeine and Ginger Terry's, I once again had the energy necessary to do some farting around with Effie, the Effing F2.2.

Okay, so first job was to install the rebuilt, original carbs. As per the rest of the bike, they were in a pretty sh1t state even after the ultrasonic bath and new parts installed, but as they were the carbs off this bike, I was determined to put them on. I used SteveO's "Carb-o-matic" installation tool to fit them into the rock hard rubbers, with the help of a spray of silicon lube, and they went straight on.

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Re-fitting the cables and fuel line only took a minute, and sadly i was mightily ppissed off when fuel started dripping from the same places it dripped from before. Sadly these old carbs are shot. Warped float bowl mating surfaces, stripped threads, corrosion, rusty steel pivot rods, dodgy spring retainer made from what looks to be a length of rusty fencing wire was enough to consign them to the parts bin. Bugger.

Not a huge issue though, for some reason I have 4 complete sets of F2 carbs (or K8, I can't remember the difference?) plus in Spotty's cooler there were the remains of another 3 sets, in all their  stripped and corroded glory. I'd already stolen the new rebuild kits though, but whilst looking through everything, I found what must be the cleanest set of carb bodies I've ver seen, other than the new carbs on my first "F", back in 1978. No rust, no corrosion, and a coat of WD40 had them looking like they'd just fallen off the back of a Honda truck!

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Now I didn't want to pull one of the recently rebuilt sets apart to steal the innards as I was sure I had some new rebuild kits somewhere? Well I did, but what's worse than finding no rebuild kits?

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Yep, only finding 3. Poop. Oh well, I have an even bigger tub of NOS Honda 750 parts that I'll rat thru tomorrow, because I'm sure Jona Oron (previously a member here but is now riding a Harley 883 in his native Israel) sent me some spares for his K7 when I sent him a carb for his Harley, which I'm sure included carb rebuild kits. If all else fails, I'll just clean up whatever I can from Spotty's huge collection of stripped carbs and make up one set, and install them on an outside carb, just in case something fails, I won't need to drop the carbs off again.

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 7 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I'd ordered a new rubber tank holder onner thingie and was a tad pissed off when I found a NOS Honda one in one of my tubs tonight, but it turns out that the CB750 K and F tank holders are two entirely different items, so i'm not pissed off any more, I'll use this one for my K1 build.

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

So that was about as far as I got, hopefully tomorrow I'll find another rebuild kit and rebuild the nicest set of carbs I've ever seen, and hopefully they won't leak,and threads on the float bowl flanges won't be stripped, which pissed me off today. While I was ratting thru my new old stock parts bin #2 I came upon some trick spark plug caps that I've had for years but never used. These things light up when the ignition sends power to the plug, which, apart from making it easy to diagnose an ignition fault, looks pretty cool when it's running.

Terry's Effing F2.2 carb swap 17 Sep 2020 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

OK, so more tomorrow, God willing.