Topic: Bankerdanny's 1976 750F1

[Bankerdanny]

So, when I left off my narrative a couple weeks ago I had gotten the bike running briefly, secured a replacement tank, an 18" rear Lester, and 2 muffler options for the stock header, an OEM from a 750A and a Kerker that may or may not work on the F. I had new sidecovers from Frankenstuff, installed Superbike bars, a new ignition switch, braided front and rear brake lines, and rebuilt brake calipers.

My next repair was to the starter button housing, which like my 550F has completely disintegrated. I ordered the same 3D printed replacement housing that I used on the 550. It worked, but not as well as the 550's did, but at the time it was sufficient to get the button working so that I could use the electric start.

Over the next couple of months things moved slowly. When I first pulled the carbs for cleaning I found 125 mains in them. Stock is 105 and I couldn't think of any reason to have jets that big. Initially I just threw in the '110' jets that came with my carb kits for test ride purposes, but I ordered real Keihin 108 and 110 jets from Jets-r-us, ultimately installing the 108's and holding the 110 in reserve.

I also continued to have issues with my starter button despite the new housing. Some investigation revealed a frayed yellow/red wire that runs to the solenoid, so that was resoldered. I also had managed to drop the ball bearing that moves the metal plate as you press the button. I grabbed one from a spare high/low switch, but it was too small. Fortunately being a parts hoarder can pay off, and I found a replacement in a drawer of misc crap and it worked. So problem solved (at the time, sadly it wouldn't last).

[Bankerdanny]

The next project was to fix the headlight bracket. For those of you that aren't familiar with the F0 and F1, it doesn't use conventional ears on the fork to hold the headlight and turn signals like every other SOHC4, including the F2/3. For the fist 2 years of the 750F there is a bracket welded to 4 rods that slot into holes on the top and bottom triple tree and a 12-14" tube is welded to the lower front for the turn signals to attach to. In the case of my bike, someone had dropped it at some point and the turn signal tube had broken off of the rod and been welded back on cocked.

I don't have a picture of the whole bracket, but here is an illustration from the parts fische.

The the turn signals as I got it.

Then here is a picture of my VERY poor welding job.

Finally the reinstalled bracket. The weld is ugly, but the signal is straight.

[Bankerdanny]

Next up was to make the bike presentable to ride for a while. So I painted the rear cowl from blue to a dark red in the same ballpark as the Antares Red tank and found a peel off style paint for the side covers that is very close to the OEM dark grey. I hadn't installed the Lester yet, so here is where it stood ready for me to enjoy for the last few months of riding time here in Chicago

[Bankerdanny]

One last post for tonight and I will wrap it up tomorrow to get it where it stands today.

One other thing I had to do was replace the rear master. The F1 shared the master (and most other rear brake components) with the wire wheel GL1000's. My rear master worked like crap and replacement masters are hard to find and expensive when you do, so I ordered a rebuild kit that was supposed to work. I got my MC apart, but the replacement piston was slightly too large. I tried to gently re-size it, but (and this will shock nobody) that didn't work.

I finally just decided to replace with a modern one from eBay. I poked around and settled on a very inexpensive one from China that says it is for a GSXR. I had to make up some adapter brackets from some 1/8" plate I had sitting around, but in the end I was able to make it work. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of anything but the installed MC.

I am going to skip ahead in the narrative a bit here. The MC is held in place by a single bolt at the top. I tightened it quite a bit and it seemed to work fine. But over time it would loosen slightly and the MC would rotate clockwise when I pressed the brake pedal. This drove me nuts until while on a 1400 mile trip to South Carolina in 2019 (I'll cover that tomorrow) my Uncle looked at it and said, why don't you just install a bolt through the lower hole of the original bracket, which is slightly behind the MC to serve as a stop? I sourced a bolt from my Uncle's supply, ground a flat spot where the MC would touch, put a nut on the back side to hold it in place and the MC hasn't shifted a MM in the past 18 months.

[Bankerdanny]

Voting for BOTM is in process so I am going to wrap this up.

The last mod I made in 2018 was to install some smaller turn signals in a carbon fiber look from Cycle Gear. I really like them, they are quite bright and don't dominate the rear of the bike like the originals did.

I rode the bike for rest of the summer and in October 2018 the baffle blew out of the Kerker so I decided I would just upgrade the whole system the following spring.

[Bankerdanny]

March-June of 2019 was quite busy. I got tires for the Lesters and replaced the rear wheel bearings since I didn't really know what shape they were in. I also installed a smaller rear sprocket to get the RPM's down a bit on the highway. While trolling Craigslist for Honda parts I found a guy outside Indy with a roller F3 that he wanted $100 for. I wanted the front end to swap mine to twin disks, so I hooked up a trailer and headed down. He also had a set of Accel coils (which I tried fitting up but couldn't get to fit) and RC Engineering 4-1 exhaust so I bought those also, although didn't end up using either one.

I also decided that the tail light was too big and I sourced a cheap LED replacement with 2 round lights that I though would work better with the tail.

I ordered a new Nissin radial master cylinder to for the new brakes and sent a set of 550 rotors and the spare rear from the roller up to Jeff at Godffery's Garage for drilling and thinning. He also countersunk the rotor bolt holes on the fronts so that I could use the stock bolts without fouling the speedometer drive. I got them back a couple weeks later along with pistons and seals for my front calipers. I ordered a set of braided lines from Venhill via eBay (highly recommended as they come with screw on banjos that can be clocked however you want) and all the parts were present to make the swap. I had done the tapered bearing conversion when the bike was at Motoguild the prior year, but the F2/3 fork legs are the same diameter as the F0/1, so after installing new seals I just slid them into the existing triple.

The calipers had to be shimmed to mount correctly with the wire wheel spacing found on my Lester, but that was easily done with stainless washers. I had to make a bracket for the F2/3 splitter to fit on my F1 triple, but it still only took a weekend to get it all done.

About this time I also installed a Delkevic stainless exhaust and megaphone muffler. Best $360 I have spent so far.

Here is the tail light, brakes and exhaust.

[Bankerdanny]

At this point I am targeting a trip up to Kalamazoo the first week of June for the Gilmore Classic Bike event and a 2 week trip down to South Carolina and back up via Vintage Motorcycle Days in Ohio a few weeks after that. Time to get my stuff in order.

I ended up ordering a repop right control because I just couldn't get the starter button to work consistently even after the replacement inner housing. I also wanted a nice paint job to go with my Lesters and the Delkevic. I went back and forth on a paint scheme, originally planning on a gold or copper, then I saw a bike on-line with a really beautiful blue/gold combo and decided to do that.

I sourced some Bad Azz Blue Pearl and Tweeka Sunrise Pearl (gold) accents over a black base from Roth Metal Flake. Since I don't know squat about painting, I ordered the Rattle Bomb spray can versions. To top it off I got a 2k clear from Eastwood, who has a store in the Chicago area.

I also refinished the tank badges

I was pretty pumped about the result.

[Bankerdanny]

The disaster struck. The day after finishing the painting I set the tank about 1/2 full on the wooden table in the background of the full bike picture above while I did some work on the cables and I didn't set it very well and it fell off.

[Bankerdanny]

I was scheduled to head up to Kalamazoo the next day, so I just left it alone, threw it on a trailer (I was having some issues) and headed up. The show was great and it ran pretty well except for blowing a main fuse. Then after the show when I had trailered back to Sean's workshop it didn't want to start again. At that point I just let it be. We grabbed some dinner and the next day I headed back to Chicago to continue getting ready for the long trip.

[Bankerdanny]

Now that it was home it was time to repaint yet again. I decided I didn't like the gold center on the side covers and would just go all blue with them. I had issues with paint coming off when I removed tape for the stripes and ended up fully painting the tank 2x before I just had to be done. I still needed to get my bags set up, set up a windshield, and install the rack from my buddy's F3 that was sitting in my storage garage.

The clearcoat on the final tank paint didn't cure properly and has a wrinkle finish. 2 years later I still haven't dealt with it and have just ridden and enjoyed.

I had a set of Shoie bags from my 2017 trip to Colorado on my 550, but when trolling Craigslist yet again found another set locally that were slightly larger. The price was quite reasonable so I snapped them up. I also had been sitting on a Memphis Shades cafe fairing that was intended for a Sporty. I had gotten it for $25 at a swap meet in 2016 when I had a project Harley that I ended up selling before really doing any work. I still had the mounts from the windshield I used on my 550 in'17, so I was able to easily adapt them to mount the new fairing. I also had to enlarge the headlight opening since it was sized for a 5 1/4" Harley shell.

It took a full weekend to sort out, but when I was done I was quite happy with the result. I did make one error with the bags, I should have made a flat steel bracket to tie the two together for rigidity. It made it though the trip just fine, but I did have to straighten the brackets a couple of times.

[Bankerdanny]

A couple days after the photo with both bags was taken I was on my way to South Carolina. I won't go into details, but here are some pictures.

The one of the rear tire is after a multi hour ride through the Daniel Boone Forest in Kentucky. As you can see there was not a lot of riding in a straight line.

The last picture is my bike along with Dave The Welder's and his son's and Jerry Griffin (who was camping in that trailer)

[Bankerdanny]

Since that time I really haven't done too much but enjoy the bike. I installed an LED headlight last year that I am mostly happy with. I polished the cam cover and a few engine covers and installed a new clutch.

Today it looks like this. I do plan to repaint at least the tank before Motoblot in a couple of weeks, but if I don't, well, so what, it still looks good.

I do have one thing I REALLY want to do though, here's a sneak peak.

Thanks for reading

[grcamna2]

That a fairing from a Honda CX650 Turbo?

[Bankerdanny]

That a fairing from a Honda CX650 Turbo?

No, it's a Hondaline from  V4 Sabre. It's also basically the same as the one used on the CBX

[grcamna2]

That a fairing from a Honda CX650 Turbo?

No, it's a Hondaline from  V4 Sabre. It's also basically the same as the one used on the CBX

Ok  ,it looks familiar.
I like it;very protective and still aero.

[Bankerdanny]

That a fairing from a Honda CX650 Turbo?

No, it's a Hondaline from  V4 Sabre. It's also basically the same as the one used on the CBX

Ok  ,it looks familiar.
I like it;very protective and still aero.

My thought too. My frame came with lugs on the neck like Honda planned to offer a fairing option then changed their mind. Making up a mount shouldn't be too hard.

[grcamna2]

That a fairing from a Honda CX650 Turbo?

No, it's a Hondaline from  V4 Sabre. It's also basically the same as the one used on the CBX

Ok  ,it looks familiar.
I like it;very protective and still aero.

My thought too. My frame came with lugs on the neck like Honda planned to offer a fairing option then changed their mind. Making up a mount shouldn't be too hard.

That's the 'way to go' as that's a large half-fairing(it'll catch quite a few wind gusts)and mounting it to the frame,especially onto the steering head will give you the most stability.

[Don R]

 I like it.