I wrote out a whole thing and it didn't post. Ugh 😔 I'll start over.
I'm Buck. Happy to be here! I live in Lindenhurst, IL with my wife, 2 daughters and one daughter on the way. I'm a federally licensed A&P aircraft mechanic, but while I work on aircraft motors every day, I'm really fresh to this bike stuff. I got sucked into it when i was offered a 1974 CB550 with the bike in excellent condition, the motor pulled from the bike and being rebuilt, with about 2500 bucks in mods just ready to he assembled, clean title pit the door for 800 bucks. I took it, though I knew I'd have to learn how to work on bikes.
The guy who sold it to me had the cylinders bored to 60mm with a Dynoman 60mm piston kit. Because they viewed the ring compressors as one time use, they opted to not use any, and wound up bending the paper thin control rings and scratching the cylinders, which required the cylinders to be re-bored to 61mm and another $750 Dymonan 61mm piston kit to accommodate the larger bore. I was warned when I bought the bike about this, so I contacted Dynoman for advise. They told me don't use compressors, do it by hand and carefully. So I did, and I then bent the rings and scratched the cylinders. Luckily I was able to hone the scratches out and buy new rings. I then opted to not listen to them and go on ebay and buy the original OEM base tools and ring compressors as shown in the 550 manual. It worked like a charm, and now the cylinders are on. Every step forward I go, I learn something new but still feel a bit lost.
Another thing that came with the bike (aside from a brand new 4 into 1 exhaust) was new rocker arms, and a brand new Web Cams camshaft with SPECS UNKNOWN. So I called Web and inquired about it. They said he had them grind the cam to STOCK SPECS which I thought was bizarre, so I found a low mileage cam out of an '82 CB650SC to continue the mod instead of using the cam with stock specs. All the info about how awesome that 650 cam goes with the 591cc 61mm piston kit for this bike I got on this forum, so I jumped to become a member!
I was told in anither post to come here and introduce myself, and my bike. I've always loved Japanese 4's, and so I was excited to buy this bike and learn how to work on them by putting this bike together.
I was also told to start a build thread with pictures, but is this the place to do so??? Anyways, again, I'm Buck, I've got a 74 CB550 I'm assembling with very little bike mx experience, and will need all your help! Waiting for the 650 cam to come in to inspect it, and install the head. Idk maybe I'll torque the head on today, but I've read the lobes may require some material to have to come off the head and I'm worried about doing that with the head torqued on the motor. Again, anyways, nice to meet yall and let me know where to start my build thread so I can assemble this bike with the help of the greatest SOCH4 minds in earth!
