OK, here we go again. As you all know, F's definitely aren't my favourite CB750's (particularly the F/F1 which I bought new in 1978, they were so reviled here in Oz that the big Honda shop in the city couldn't sell them, so when the F2 was released they heavily discounted the F/F1, and as a strapping young 18 year old, it was all I could afford, even though I really wanted a Kawasaki Z1) but I'm not just biased towards the F's, I detest the K7/8 as well, even though I know they were all good bikes. To me, they just don't appeal.
So why did I buy it? It'll be a flip bike, I got it cheap (not 500 bucks cheap like in the US or Canada, but $3500 AUD was cheap for here where poorly restored K2's sell like hot cakes for 15 grand) and intend to spend the absolute minimum on it, and will sell it this year, along with as many of my other bikes that I don't really need to take with me to the grave.
The back story is always interesting, this was a police bike originally. The seller, Peter, bought it in the 80's ('82 we think, but he's going to hunt around for the original paperwork to confirm) so he thinks it would have had one previous owner between the cops selling it off, and him buying it in "as new" condition from a car yard. He'd just sold his K2 and was going through sellers remorse when he saw the blue F2, so he bought it, and rode it every day (was his only source of transport) until 1991, when he parked it in his garage. This is Pete in the pic beside my little truck.
F2 Wednesday 25 January 2023 2 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
He'd gotten married and bought a house, and the bike stayed in a corner of the garage, pretty much forgotten until Pete's son, Al, offered to sell it on FB for him. I was lucky because they'd advertised it late at night, and I start work at 6am, so was trawling thru FB marketplace when I saw it for a pretty cheap (not super cheap, but about half of what I reckon I can get for it running, with a tidy up) so shot him a message that I'd take it for the advertised price, and coincidentally I'd driven my truck to work, as I had to collect another FB bargain, a big old air compressor, and Pete only lives about 8 miles from where I had to go, so I said I could collect the bike right away. He called me and we had a chat, he texted me his address and I drove over and picked it up.
Pete's one of these really fastidious types, the polar opposite of me really. Even though he hadn't ridden it he'd gone out to the garage every couple of months and started it until it ran out of fuel, which is what probably saved the tank, it's dent free, and rust free, unlike most F tanks that leak like sieves when stored with fuel in them. When he couldn't start it any more he'd kick it over a few times every few months to stop it locking up. He'd had it under a tarp and was horrified when he lifted the seat up and realised that the seat base was a rusty mess. He thought it was the tarp that caused it, but I explained that it would have been caused by the battery gassing off under it. Anyway, he found a "take-off" seat in the US, the seller had fitted one of those fugly "King and queen" butt buckets, and had hung up the original seat, so Pete installed it into his ducktail, but never put it back on the bike in case it rusted out again, instead he kept it in his spare bedroom.
Likewise, he wanted to replace the cop speedo with a standard speedo, so he bought a NOS ND speedo for it from the US, plus the rubber gasket and hardware, that he threw in with the bike. The original tail light base was rusty so he bought a NOS assembly as well. Also he included the original owners manual and tool kit, which is always a bonus, plus the big arse police issue crash bars, and some other stuff I haven't looked at yet.
F2 Wednesday 25 January 2023 5 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
He gave me a brand new Clymer manual and an interesting book on restoring Honda fours.
F2 Wednesday 25 January 2023 9 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Anyhoo, I transferred the cash into his account, and took off. It's an unofficial long weekend this weekend, Thursday was "Australia Day" (well, until all of the various small, but loud minority groups, the hippies and the intellectuals get it changed, or cancelled completely) and being a Thursday everyone was taking Friday off. The downside was that traffic from Pete's place to mine was diabolical, and by the time I got home in my little non-airconditioned truck, I was sweating like a rapist.
Luckily the wife wasn't home, so I was able to unload it and hide it, but of course, unloading a 500 pound motorcycle with no brakes on your own is about as much fun as being on death row, but somehow I got it off without damaging it, or killing myself. It did give me some incentive to finish building my motorcycle loading device, which I'll start again shortly, and was good to give me an idea for mounting the electric winch that I bought, off to one side with an arrangement of pulleys on a small bracket at the front of the tub, because there's not quite enough room centre front of the tub to allow the winch to be mounted there for a big bike, with the tailgate closed. I've got an old home gymnasium weight machine rotting in my back yard that I've "inherited" from my musclebound son to provide the necessary hardware and some handy pieces of steel tube.
F2 Wednesday 25 January 2023 7 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
Of course, I should have stripped, inspected and reassembled the whole bike before I attempted to start it after it's sat for 32 years, but instead I threw a battery in it, dumped a gallon of fuel with some fuel system cleaner into the tank, reattached the fuel hose when it ran out over the engine and driveway (oops) and kicked the engine over a few times with the ignition off to pump some oil up to the head, then turned the key on, and cranked it, and eventually, it fired right up! Woohoo! The throttle cables are frozen so I cranked on the idle screw so that it would actually run and not just fire, and of course the exhaust is off the bike, so I could see that it was running on all four by the flames shooting out of each port. I only ran it for a few seconds because the oil light stayed on.
I'm assuming that the oil pressure switch is stuck, but didn't want to risk damaging it, so today or tomorrow I'll drop the oil, and the oil pan, pull the pump, clean the screen, prime the pump, reinstall it and install an oil pressure gauge and a new filter and oil, fix the exhaust (weld up a rust hole near the collector) or try to install a nice English Marshall "Deep Tone" exhaust (off a DOHC 750, I think?) that I've had hanging up in my garage for a few years, and fire it up again. I'd forgotten to put some ginger beer in the fridge so I poured myself several whiskies, and concluded that it was indeed a pretty good day.
F2 Wednesday 25 January 2023 9a by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
I'm taking the Moto Guzzi Californnia 3 that I've been working on for a ride today, but when I get home (and providing that replacing the coils has fixed the erratic running I experienced last weekend) I'll get back to the blue F2 and drop the oil and have a look in the pan for any nasties, hopefully it'll be good. Peter did say that it was starting to blow some smoke when he originally parked it so the engine might need to come out, but hopefully some fresh oil and a decent ride will sort it, the oil that's in it was pretty black.
Luckily I have a professionally reconditioned F2 head here so if it's suffering from the time honoured F2 valve/guide issue I'll be able to fix it, but if I don't need to, then even better. The bike has done around 50,000 miles so it could well need a freshen up, but I'm hoping that I don't have to, the engine's never been out of the frame, and that's the way I'd like to keep it. More soon.
F2 Wednesday 25 January 2023 8 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr
