Hello all.
So I've just registered for the site, after having lurked here for some time. I've always found this forum to be a neverending font of priceless information, so I figured it was about time that I registered and contributed.
I am the owner of CB750 unit number 1023907, a die-cast K0. I purchased this bike sight-unseen, many years ago. The story goes something like this: I'd been considering buying a bike for quite some time, and one day as I'm getting ready to leave on a business trip, a friend calls me up and says that he found a bike that he was sure I'd love. It would cost me $300, but I had to commit right away as the owner wanted to get rid of the bike right away. Now, I had to leave THAT DAY for my trip so there was no way I was going to be able to see the bike first. I had some concerns about buying a vehicle that I'd never seen much less test-driven, but then my buddy says "I'm so sure that you'll like this bike, that if you do not like it, you can have mine and I'll take this one." I'd driven his bike before (a Kaw KZ750LTD) and knew that I liked it, so at these words I was sold. I told him to go ahead and buy the bike for me.
I was out of town for about a week, and lemme tell you it was a long week. When I came home, he rode the bike over to my house (I talked him into doing so during a breif pause in the rain we'd been getting all that day). I was blown away when he rode up on this blue chopper right out of the 70's! This marked the beginning of a love affair that continues to this day, almost 15 years later.
The bike had +8 Forks by Frank, a Fibre-Mold tank, Corbin king+queen seat, struts, and one gnarley flat slick tire out back. The bike had obviously had a lot of love devoted to it, but by the time it reached me it was really showing it's age. All the rubber was brittle, the wiring was a mess, and surface rust has set in. I rode the bike around like that for a bit, then the first winter I rolled up my sleeves and started the long reconditioning process.
At first I concentrated on reliability issues (blowing fuses on the way to work sucks!) and on slowing the corrosion process. Carb rebuild, wiring fixes, and so forth. A couple of years into it, I pulled the motor for a rebuild, and at the same time repainted the frame, tank, and side covers. During this same period I developed a fondness for Honda's in general, so helped my then-fiancee restore a CB350K4, and rebuild a pair of CM400 Hawks for some friends of mine. A machinist buddy of mine helped me out with welding and parts fabrication. We shoe-horned a CB750 front end onto the fiancee's 350 in order to get the disc brake, that was a fun project
He also whipped up some billet trees for my 750 during his downtime at work.
Fast forward to three years ago. While traveling on local roads at around 50mph, I must have (near as I can tell) sucked something through the final drive chain. The chain didn't break, but it did come into contact with the engine case just forward of the sprocket. This area had been previously broken, and re-welded. The result was some severe cracking below the final shaft, enough to cause about a half-inch separation at the case mating seam. Needless to say the bike was down for the count.
Currently, I've acquired a 1971 crankcase (K0 cases being so hard to find) and am in the middle of a swap. Since I had to tear down the bike, I decided that I would go ahead and do all the things I'd always wanted to while I was at it. So, the frame (which had already been well-molested over the years) is getting a rake job to correct the excessive trail and level out the bike (had just been over-forked with no rake change), relocating the passenger pegs, upgrading the electrics, and so forth. Also aquired a pair of invaders and some harley fenders that I like. I'm currently at the "no two parts bolted to each other" stage, and am just waiting on the weather a bit so I can lay down some paint on the cases and start the build-up. Wife graduated to a Shadow VLX back in 02 so we have something to tool around on until the chopper is back on the road.
Anyway, glad to be here.
mystic_1
