First Post is a long read, lots of pictures and updates.I aquired the bike in Octobober of 06' from a man on the North Eastern side of Oahu through an add he posted on Craigslist. I met up with him, took it for a spin around the block, low balled him a few hundred bucks and proceeded to drive it back home to the North Shore of Oahu. Since then, I've been at it, molding it into something a bit more sportier. We are all more or less familiar with the 'cafe' style bikes and that is what I am going for. I enjoy the look of the old racers.
Since the purchase of the bike, I have had several ideas that worked well, and some that didn't really pan out as planned. Delayed parts, lack of parts, and simply waiting on other people has proven to test my patience along with taking much longer than I have anticipated to get to where the bike is now, which to be completely honest, isn't as far as I like. Such as life I suppose.
After powder coating the wheels Championship White just before Christmas of 06', it took about three and a half months to get the tires mounted and to source specific parts for the wheel bearings. Not even reputable sources on line had the parts needed (and I could have very well been looking in the wrong place), which almost resulted in me being SOL with unusable powder coated wheels.
Along with powder coating the wheels, I ordered a Cafe seat. I also ordered hand controls from a 2006 CBR600RR that I was going to convert over too, to give it a more modern look. After seeing the hand controls in person, it was deemed that the original ones were actually smaller, plus they are aluminum. I have the CBR hand controls for sell BTW. I also started stripping things off the bike that I felt were not necessary and/or aesthetically incorrect to the look I was trying to achieve.
Gone are the front and rear blinkers, mirrors, kick start, rear foot pegs, chain guard, front brake (damaged), rear fender, rear tail light, rear license plate bracket and I flipped the handlebars upside down to rake out the seating position.
Back to the wheels, it all finally got sorted out and here are several pictures of them here, fresh from the shop. I decided to stray out on the edge a little bit with the conception of them and had the rims, spokes, nipples, and hubs all powder coated the same color. I am pleased with the outcome and not many people have done this. Before powder coating I had whatever needed to be fixed, fixed and had the wheels trued. To pay homage to Honda Racing, the wheels are powder coated Championship White.
I was considering putting on a tire that was a bit more old school that matched the era of the bike, but decided at the last minute that it would probably be best (and safer) to go with something modern. However, due to the size of the wheels themselves, finding a modern tire in the size needed proved to be a bit of a PITA. Fortunately, I found a decent set of Avon's and the price was right - at around $220.00 for the set. Here are some pictures of the wheels back from the shop with new wheel bearings and the new tires:
I was anxious to get the wheels on the bike to take a look at everything but due to weather, mounting them was postponed for a solid week as the sky pissed its guts out. I finally got a break in the weather and here are a few pictures of the wheels on the bike along with the Cafe seat:
Moving along and trying to make some progress, the Islands were slated for some good weather for several days and I took the opportunity to pull the tank and side covers, sand them down to bare metal and start the initial body work. Here are a couple pictures of the bike with the Cafe seat, primered tank and side covers:
Pulling my attention off of the body work, the original clutch was slipping at higher RPM's. The clutch was slipping around 6K RPM's. I felt this not only to be a bit irritating, but figured it was due time to change the clutch.
To my surprise, the springs that keep tension on the clutch plates were 2.5mm shorter than the new OEM springs (via caliper measurements), respectively. No wonder it was slipping. Here is a picture of an old spring (left) and the new spring (right) along with the clutch assembly:
Now that the clutch problem was solved, I wanted to take a stab at adjusting the valves. I immediately realized that I didn't have the proper tools and feeler gauge to do the job. I still have yet to order them. Procrastinating for no reason
not to mention that the tappet covers on the bike were so chewed up that I darn near was unable to get them off with out some serious damage to something or another.
These tappet covers that are on the bike are made from this incredibly soft aluminum. Why? I have no idea, but the original ones looked like someone had their way with them with a hammer and a slightly over sized socket. After much hair pulling and getting ahold of a Craftsman bolt reverse out tool, I got them all out and replaced them with new OEM units.
After being content knowing I wouldn't be able to adjust the valves immediately, I turned my attention back to getting the bike painted. More bad weather. It is Hawaii's rainy season after all.
Fortunately to my luck
, another problem had arose and this time it was in the form of a leaking carburettor. My left most carb was dumping fuel like no ones business. If I didn't turn the petcock off, it would dump the whole tank in a matter of an hour. What a #$%*ter.
One Friday night, I had nothing planned so I unbolted the carb assembly and headed into the house to tear them apart to see what the deal was. It takes only four bolts to take the carbs off the engine, and they all come off at the same time. Pretty sweet. Taking my time I went over every piece and thoroughly cleaned it, along with taking measurements to see if everything was within factory specs. None of the floats were...
The carb that was dumping the fuel had a poorly calibrated float. The factory specs for the float in regards to the float bowl flange are supposed to be 21mm (if I can remember correctly) as you will see in the picture. Before I adjusted the float, it was at 25mm. Way too much. With all the floats adjusted, I cleaned out all the bowls and all the needles and put everything back on the bike. Problem solved:
With that solved, we finally got some great weather for a good three weeks, but unfortunately a friend of mine whom had paint guns I was going to borrow, decided to take a trip to Brazil to do a bit of surfing. So that got postponed.
Moving up to this weekend, he was back in town and the weather was expected to be good. I took the opportunity to get everything prepped and painted. I thought it wasn't going to take very long, but it ended up taking me about ten hours. Maybe I'm slow =) All I know is, is that it's the first time I've shot something and it was definitely a great learning experience. I could see myself becoming quite good at it in a controlled environment.
Doing this paint job "Island Style", I got my buddies compressor and gun, and shot everything else in another buddies back yard. Plenty of bugs, plenty of wind, and plenty of dust... Regardless, I think it came out quite well. Here are several pictures of this last Saturday and Sunday (today) 04/21 and 04/22:
Here is the tank and side covers with two coats of blue base:
Here is the tank and seat all taped up to get a Championship White racing stripe to match the wheels:
Here are the side covers with the new decals and ready for clear coat:
Here is the tank with the racing stripe along with new decals ready for clear coat:
Here are several pictures of the tank and side covers with two thick coats of clear (light was fading fast...pictures are a bit dark):
Today I got up early, went surfing :thumbup: then finished the painting. Since the clear cured over night, I hit it with some sand paper and wet sanded it, then hit everything with three more coats of clear. Here are a couple pictures of the parts on the bike, just before it rained on me and more or less the finished product in regards to painting:
So there it is...in all it's glory...kind of. She still needs much more work. As you can see, the seat needs to be upholstered and I'd like to do that myself. Something comfortable yet thin. I've been talking with a leather distributor about getting a yard of white leather, yet I don't know how to do this so it will be a learning process as I go, hence getting a yard of leather.
Along with getting the seat upholstered, I still have yet to order the Yoshimura exhaust, clip ons, powder coat the engine and frame and take care of some small appearance issues. It would be nice to get rid of the OEM tach and speedometer and replace it with a small digital unit. I'll have to source that to see if it is possible and cost effective. There has to be something.
As far as the engine, I'd like to keep it relatively OEM, but see myself building up a spare in the near future with some quality Yoshimura parts that are available. As of late, I've been experimenting with A/F ratios, spark plug gap, plug temp ranges, and timing. Pretty fun stuff.
Small Update: 05/21/2007:I have been riding the bike more or less on a daily basis. My main mode of transportation (Toyota 4 Runner) is for sale and have not been driving it. Over the past several weeks, I've been having a bit of fun messing with the carbs, spark plug gap, timing and the points. I had her running like a top for about five days and for no appearant reason, she runs very flat up top and at partial throttle, stumbles around a little bit.
In a previous and seperate post, I commented on several different tests that I performed on the ignition system and found that my 1.4 coil was very suspect and possibly on it's way out to pasture.
On that note, I felt it was time to bring the bike into a bit more currant state. I just got off the phone with Z1 and ordered the electric ignition, coils and wires by Dyna. Rob, one of the sales reps there was super cool to talk too. Nice customer service. I was thinking of the 8mm supression wires but opted for the 7mm supression wires instead. I'll hopefully have the parts on the bike this weekend. That would be wicked. Total for the electronic ignition, 5 Ohm coils and spark plug wires shipped from New York to Hawaii is $270.80. Cant beat that. Also, even though messing with the points is fun and easy (have a dwell meter) I simply cannot dismiss the appeal of using an electronic ignition. Not to mention that a decent amount of members on this board have had outstanding results with it.
