Hello everyone!
I’m new to motorcycles in general, but I’m proud to say that my first bike is a red 1975 Honda CB400F! I started looking for motorcycles back in September, but I’m pretty patient, so I decided to wait until the “right” one popped up for sale. Interestingly enough, the first bike I started looking for was the CB400F, and that’s when I stumbled upon this website. Then, after I saw how much of a rarity they are, especially around here, I decided to broaden my search for Suzuki GS500s, Bandits, SV650s, Honda Hawk GTs, and others.
I took the two day training course through the Motorcycle Safety Center of Virginia which helped a lot. I got home from the second day of class with my license in hand, and I proceed to get on craigslist to see what motorcycles had been posted that day. Lo and behold, there it was, a 1975 CB400F not too far from where I live—for, dun dun dun, $600! It looked kind of rough in the picture, but I figure I NEED to go check it out. So, the next day I go look at the bike. The guy is very nice and tells me that the bike had been sitting for about 3 months without any action. He had actually purchased it from the original owner! It has about 31,000 miles. The bike was really dusty and had quite a bit of surface rust, but “oh well,” I thought! He hooked up the battery and attempted to start it; it turned over nicely but just didn’t want to stay started. He tried cleaning up the plugs and that seemed to help a little but it still wouldn’t stay running.
He agreed to let me go get it checked out at a nearby shop, so I did that. They teld me that it would probably need new spark plugs and a battery and maybe a carb cleaning. Also, since the front brake was sticking, they said it would probably need a caliper rebuild and maybe a master cylinder rebuild. They also pointed out some things like the chain which looked a little rough and the head gasket that seemed to be seeping a little oil. The forks seemed to be leaking some oil as well, so they said it would probably need new seals. Also, an oil, oil filter, and air filter change were in store. I took those estimates back to the guy and he offers the bike for $450. SOLD!
The next day, I bought some new plugs and a battery. I put those in, turned everything on, and it started right up! At that point, I was so excited I didn’t know what to do. The only thing stopping me from taking it for a little test spin around the neighborhood was the locked from caliper. So, I disassembled that and took it up the cul-de-sac and back with just the rear brake. AWESOME! Then, I used this site to research the seized caliper issue. I read up on that and it seemed pretty easy to fix. I blew out the caliper piston with compressed air, took out the O-ring, and cleaned everything up. I also made sure the tiny hole in the master cylinder wasn’t clogged. I put it all back together, pumped some new DOT-3 fluid in, and what do you know, I had great front brakes! I then changed the oil and oil filter. I sprayed some chain cleaner on the chain and that cleaned up great and looks brand new. I gave the bike a nice cleaning, wax job, and shined up the chrome.
I went to get it registered and get the titled changed over, and I was ready to go! I’ve been riding it around for the past week or so with no problems what-so-ever. The only thing that doesn’t work properly is the kick starter, which works sometimes but other times it just moves freely without catching. What an awesome bike it is! This website has been a great help over the past few weeks as I’ve been getting all the little bugs worked out.
Unfortunately, two days ago, I had it parked outside of my apartment for about 20 minutes as I ran inside to do something. I came out and saw that someone had backed into it while pulling out of an alley. NOOOOO! It had moved about half a foot and the back tire was sitting up on the curb. Luckily it didn’t get knocked over. However, I could see that the front fender was bent a little. It is probably my imagination, but when I took it out for a ride to make sure everything was still in alignment, it seemed like the handlebars were a little crooked. I took a straight edge over the whole front end and the fork, and everything seems to be fine. However, now my fork doesn’t function properly. It is hard to compress and doesn’t rebound correctly. Thus, it has a very bouncy ride now. Does anyone know what this could be? I’m going to take the forks apart to make sure that there is oil in them and check the seals and springs. I’ll get new seals and add new oil and hopefully that will do the trick. I just don’t know what else could be wrong. Maybe the forks coincidentally leaked dry around the time that the car backed into it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have one more question. What is the best way to support the bike while doing work on the front end? While on the center stand, I tried to use a jack as far forward as possible on the frame, but it wanted to lift the bike straight up, not just support the weight on the front.
Any comments or suggestions are welcomed!!!
-Brent
Here are a few pictures:
What it looked like when I bought it.
It cleaned up well!
WEEEEEEEE!
4 into 1, awesome.
Another.
