Only one is new, the rest of the gears are acquired from 2 complete transmissions I bought over the years, one of these transmissions was very dirty, but after a good cleaning (Ultrasonic) it seemed that it came from a (very) low miles bike.
I always shim gears, and if you look at the last picture, you'll see that all gears are exactly aligned as a pair. Normally I work on older Honda's (dreams, CB72/77 and CB450's), and in most cases shimming is required to align gear pairs. The CB400F is clearly a more modern bike (at least 10 years difference) compared with these bikes, and Honda learned a lot during those years.
Last week I picked-up my freshly plated parts to collect the bolts I need for putting the engine halves together, they were in a batch of unsorted parts of the mentioned bikes. I added some pictures of stuff I brought to the zinc plater. Every once in a while after accumulate parts to plate (approximately 25 Kg / per batch) it's time to sort the stuff that's coming back. Since I throw in fasteners, springs, sprockets and even larger parts, of the bikes I'm busy with, this sorting takes a while. Pictures of before help me to identify the parts after plating. Before plating I take the time to get the parts as smooth as possible, the result after plating is much better then just throw the parts in.
The price I pay for plating depends on what I want. For example the bolts in the last picture are plated piece by piece (hang-plating), because I want them to be perfect. Putting the same bolts in a rotary plating process won't give this quality. The batch in the pictures is partly rotary plated, partly hang-plated, and set me back a little above 150 euro. It seems to be a steep price, but the value of all the parts I throw in is much, much higher.
These 8 mm bolts (special bolts for connecting the crank cases around the crank) for the CB400F in the left bag alone, are worth over 100 euro, if available. The process of plating takes only 2 to 4 days, cleaning-up and smoothen the parts takes hours and hours, sorting them is also time consuming.
Is it worth the money ?
Before I start a restoration I make a calculation of costs. Restoring this CB400F was on the edge of costs-value when I started the resto 12 years ago. In the past 12 years I acquired parts for the bike to replace the worn or bad parts.
I bought the bike for 1250 Euro back then, and considering it's condition, a good price, even when you add the 65.000 miles on the odo. The first owner I bought it from maintained the bike well, so most parts are in perfect shape (chrome / paintwork).
A simple calculation :
Total cost of the bike : 1250 Euro
Paintwork (not powder coating) frame and a few black parts like triple tree etc : 850 euro's
Total costs of all the new parts acquired over the last 12 years : 2300 Euro
Plating / chroming : 100 euro
Engine work (cutting valve seats) : 250 Euro
Total costs of this bike when ready is 4750 euro's, and that's a lot of money.
In my search for parts for this bike I bought some batches of parts, knowing that I didn't need them all. For example I acquired 2 camshafts, but needed only 1, my seat was nice, but found by accident a NOS one in the box, I bought a batch of 12 intake valves and 12 exhaust valves but needed only 4 of each, 2 NOS cylinder blocks, needing only one, etc, etc)
Many of those extra parts are sold during the last 4 years and until today it gave me back over 1500 euro, but I expect getting more. For example in my search for spokes I bought 30 Kg of unsorted Honda spokes, containing spokes for the CB400F, but also dream's, CB72 / 77 and CB450's, CB750 etc.
I expect to gain another 1000 euro from those parts alone, so the total costs when the bike is ready to ride will be around 2250 - 3250 Euro.
12 years ago this bike wasn't worth that kind of money, but times have changed....
btw, I'm not in for the money, because the hours spend on searching parts, working on the bike are not counted....
