Topic: op shrapnel now 'black bomber' (I'll stop changing the name, I swear)

[Tretnine]

Here it is. Forum member and fellow Charlottesville resident cvillechopper helped me go up to NoVA to pick up a non-op 1978 cb550k for $300. It didn't run when loaded, but I heard the first rumble of life come out of that old girl today. She idles great. Compression is a little low, but all she needed was breaker points cleaned and adjusted. Now, I'll get some brakes and cables that are still made more from iron and less of iron oxide and be on my way!






I don't know what the hell this guy was thinking. 4 into 4 chopped and turned into lame 4 into 2. Now in the recycling bin. Will the city take crap like this?




(most of the parts actually came with the bike, how convenient!)

I had a set (or more than one really) of 4 into 4 sitting around. Now they have a nice place to live.



I also have taken to calling this thing the black bomber when talking to my wife, so that seems like a better name.

[Tretnine]

I got this bike to go around the neighborhood tonight. She sounds like a real angry #$%* and pulls like a tank. Real throaty. It's a hell of a lot of fun rolling on a gnarly rat bike, I took it out with marginal brakes, no registration, no seat, no tail lights... and no clutch cable - just hammering along. It was fantastic. I'll probably have my face back into it tomorrow. I put the airbox on and it responds faster when you hit the throttle than it did with the horse's ass pod job the previous owner put on there. 2 of the pods actually fell apart, really fell apart, the screen fell off the metal and just lay there on the ground.

This this is called Shrapnel now for a couple of reasons. 1. it looks about like a bomb blew up next to it. 2. It was $300 and I had to replace A LOT of parts with fallout left over from previous 550s being broken into bits.

For anyone who cares, there was no gasket on the points cover and the bike didn't run when I got it because someone made a mustard sandwich out of the points contacts. (or so the yellow stuff in there looked.) The wife and I cleaned that crap out and adjusted it, now she runs like a champ. Or, she runs and only backfires sometimes, usually at low revs. I'm going to change the oil, set the valve clearances and do other basic maintenance then I'm going to take this beast out and see if I can't flog the gunk out of the engine with a little seafoam and a lot of throttle.

[Tretnine]

I set the valve clearances, looked good except for this - obviously had too much clearance at one point.


The previous owner said he had someone do 'carb work' so everything should be set. The overflow tube on the #1 carb flows fast enough to be a gasoline beer bong for a frat house of squirrels. I think he meant someone took them off, was confused by the air box and put pods on with no rejetting. An airbox (with a full set of rubber) was found in storage and installed. The seat is on, tank is on.

backfires quite a bit


Next is fork work and carb tuning. I don't understand how the bottom bolt comes off the fork, I got it loose, but now it just spins. (I'm practicing on a spare set I have around.

It also wobbles pretty bad over 40, I'm going to fix the forks and hope it gets better.

[manjisann]

To get that bottom bolt out, shove a broom handle down the fork tubes. The damper is spinning with that bolt, the broom handle will give you just enough friction to stop the damper from spinning. At least thats how I do it.

Brandon

[Tretnine]

To get that bottom bolt out, shove a broom handle down the fork tubes. The damper is spinning with that bolt, the broom handle will give you just enough friction to stop the damper from spinning. At least thats how I do it.

Brandon

Ah, perfect. I will try this.

[GoatBaSS]

Sage advice on the stick. Dowells will work and a corless drill with the right allen head and your good...

[Tretnine]

To get that bottom bolt out, shove a broom handle down the fork tubes. The damper is spinning with that bolt, the broom handle will give you just enough friction to stop the damper from spinning. At least thats how I do it.

Brandon

Ah, perfect. I will try this.

The broom worked like a charm. The movie I watched on how to do fork seals (youtube) showed a guy with a pneumatic driver. Impact will get you there in a hurry.


New cables have been installed. Now the throttle closes on its own, which is a nice treat. Choke works, but there is no mount for the choke cable, and somehow I can't find one amidst my mass of parts. So if anyone has a choke cable mount (that fits onto the handlebar mounts) let me know. New daytona style handlebars have been installed. Half of a set of braided steel brake lines have been installed. I have to go to the radiator shop to get hard line bits made for this bike and my other sometime soon. A spare set of rims is in the shop getting new rubber and a balance - hopefully that'll pull the remaining wobble and bounce out of the front end.

I also got this thing transferred into my name, insured and all the other required crap needed to drive a bike... legally. I went to the DMV and they hassled me about a bill of sale. Bill of sale? That's the first time anyone's asked me about one... So, I went to a different DMV and they didn't ask. Problem solved.

[Cvillechopper]

Glad you've got her ready for the road.  We'll have to set up a time to get you out to the house so we can synch the carbs and get her running right...

[dilbone]

There's supposed to be a gasket on the points cover?

[Tretnine]

There's supposed to be a gasket on the points cover?

Yeah, mostly to keep mustard out, I guess... I'm not sure why it was so yellow between the points contacts.


Bike is registered and all that. VA needs an inspection for safety, but the blinkers aren't working, so it won't pass. I'll try a new battery and flasher capacitor. I also dropped by cvillechopper's place. (nice shop, man!) we set ignition timing, tensioned the cam chain and did some carburetor sync work. I'll need to read up on how to set fuel/air ratios, because they're still off. She still pops in idle and on the down shift, but pulls cleanly and idles better. (no chain slap/ low end rattle noises any more) I think cyl. #3 isn't always firing, particularly in idle, I'm hoping that's due to fuel mixture.

new tires have also been installed and that makes a world of difference, no more bouncing around and terror of going faster than 30mph.

I also sanded the brake pads (glazing) and the rotor. I used  40-80 grit paper. I used an orbital sander and it seemed to clean up the rotor very well. I still want to get it properly machined, but for the moment I'd say it doubled or better my braking capability. Steel braided brake lines have been added. If anyone is wondering, I had them made at the local, family owned radiator shop. They also told me that they do custom brake lines. Anything I need for brakes I will go there for in the future.

Here's the bike. I'm borrowing the tank from my other bike... so it looks exactly like my other bike, only rougher.


Here's the hard side line for this bike.


And here are new short hard side lines I had made for the other bike. They look pretty good. The rest of the calipers look a bit rough, but making my calipers look pretty will come a way down the road.

[Tretnine]

I spent all of Sunday out working on a carb rack for this guy. Pulled apart, put back together. Now the damned thing is leaking gas EVERYWHERE. Apparently I'm bad at carbs. I was pretty peeved. (read: HoPpInG MAAAADDD!) Anyway, now I'm just curious. I thought doing this was supposed to eliminate problems not cause new ones...

Not sure what happened. This was a different carb rack than the one the bike came with (which leaks, also) and this one I don't remember leaking so badly. But, it was leaking intermittently out of 3 overflows. (bottom nipple.) It wouldn't do it all the time. I thought I put everything back together properly. I did not measure the float heights when I reassembled. Would this cause a problem like this? (It's not ALWAYS leaking, but when it leaks it leaks a lot and fast... drained the tank overnight... should have used the petcock.)

Are there other common mistakes that I could have made? Is it possible to install the needle valves/floats incorrectly? Something else?

[GoatBaSS]

Check the floats. You an install them upside down and the float valves can be installed upside down as well.

[Tretnine]

I spent about a half hour this morning before work and dropped a couple of the bowls. I noticed a bunch of crap in them... and I KNOW that wasn't there when I put them back together. Looks like I need a fuel filter. (And, maybe a new gas tank if there is that much crap in there.) My floats are in the right way, but I'm not sure about all the valves. I'm going to put the fuel filer on that I bought on the way to work and try again. Could just be that I wasn't getting a good seal due to the crud coming in with the fuel.

[GoatBaSS]

Go with filter first. But do yourself the favor of draining the gas and checking the petcock as I have had them clog seven ways to sunday with that tank goop.

[Tretnine]

Betty has had some issues lately. I put a new carb rack on it, because the other leaked so bad it wasn't worth using. It ran hot because I pulled parts from another carb that I had, and didn't realize the clip positions were different between the 46a and the 46c. Either way, for a brief shining moment I had two running 550s, but then, yesterday morning, I went out and adjusted the clips, and it idled beautifully. Only...

Now the bike has developed a severe tap/clack. It's inaudible in idle but it's speed and volume increase linearly with the speed of the motor. Other than the carburetor issues this bike has been treated well this year and seen a tune up, including synch and all the rest. Now, it idles great and still pulls hard, but sounds awful, it makes me want to cry. Compression in the motor is low across the board, about 90, but the #3 has only 80. Ick. The exhaust also feels cold on that cyl.  There is also only about 11k on the motor. We drove it around for a few days rather lackadaisically... and now...  Thoughts? Bad rod? Anyone got a decent motor at a reasonable price in VA?

[Tretnine]

The engine noise nicely sorted itself out. I'm not sure how, but the clacking turned into a rattle then disappeared. I'll probably find something nice in my oil pan. when I get around to dropping that. I've also got a lot of oil, but a full gasket/seal kit is on the way, so I can replace all the ill torqued garbage that's currently installed. I will be using the rope trick and replacing the valve seals, which hopefully are the sources of my top end smoke. It's also got some clacky clack at idle speeds (Less than 1800 RPMs) which I haven't yet sorted out. I need a week of vacation.

[Tretnine]

I pulled the headers after trying to retorque the head bolts. It turned out the exterior head bolt close to the cam tensioner was stripped and could only receive about 10 lbs of torque before just spinning. So, I decided to pull the heads. I smacked it with a rubber mallet, started to pull up and the whole head and jugs came off together. I had to push it back down over the pistons, which I did not like at all. I found a broken piston ring after all was said and one, so I'm not sure if it was broken of if I broke it. I didn't run a compression test right before tearing this apart, so I don't know if compression was low on that particular cylinder or what.

I've got a slew of pictures for your enjoyment. There is carbon everywhere, including atop the pistons and all over the valves. It looks excessive. The next steps are to check tolerances, replace piston rings, replace valve seals, maybe replace the primary chain, retap plug holes... and whatever else turns out to be needed. You'll notice there is marring by the right most valve in one of the pictures and matching marring on one of the pistons. I'm not sure what from but it IS where I found the broken ring.