Topic: Heart of gold? 78 cb550

[kerryb]

I got a call about a cb550 for free.  It sat in the bushes for over 20 years.  Most of it is toast, but I’m interested in the head for my worn cam bearing issue on another bike.  There are 16k miles on it, and the inside of the tank is pristine!, too bad about the huge dent in the tank.  My hope is the head is still good too, but any hints about checking it would be appreciated.

[CycleRanger]

Nice price! 
Still lots of good parts there.
With only 16K miles the whole engine might still be good to revive.
Pity about the tank.

[bryanj]

Only way to check is take it off, and that one should be late enough to have the pinned rocker shafts in the cover

[grcamna2]

This will make a nice restore project 

[newday777]

I've had a dent pro PDR guy remove some good dents from 750 tanks so you might want to check out your local PDR guys to save the tank.

[Flyin900]

That is a low mileage motor that should be investigated futher. These motors are very resilient I believe based on the few CB550's I have experienced.

I just put a 1978 CB550K back on the road after a 42 year sleep with only 7.5K kilometers, or less than 5K miles on the bike. The bike was fortunately storage by the original owner in a climate controlled garage situation with regular cylinder oil spraying for the engine..
I had the bike stored myself for 5 years with a 50/50 mix of ATF and 10W - 40 W Rotella full in the crankcase with continued annual cylinder spraying with my go to product.... "Deep Creep" which is ideal for these types of longer term storage candidates.