Topic: James' 77 550f.

[OneWheelDrive]

Hey luceja,

I've got a couple of 550 parts bikes here in Portland. 74 and 76.  I'd be happy to part with the pair of them or have you come take a look for parts.  one is pretty rough...heads are off.  The other is so/so, with valve cover off.  Both are in frames without tanks or seats or bars.  No telling how long they've been sitting, but I'm local and price is flexible.  Maybe even willing to trade for help with my own bike one day.  Send a PM if you're interested.

Wow!  What a kind offer.  Sorry to hear about your troubles.  I am currently holding the $hitty end of the stick from a mistake that I made all on my own, so I know how you feel.  Sometimes you've gotta learn the hard way.  Honestly, if it were my bike, with that much damage, there would be a donor motor going in there.  I can't imagine the cost or effort involved to bring that lower end back to safe and running order.  Drink a Rouge Brewing Hazelnut Brown for me.  Good luck!

[luceja]

Hey luceja,

I've got a couple of 550 parts bikes here in Portland. 74 and 76.  I'd be happy to part with the pair of them or have you come take a look for parts.  one is pretty rough...heads are off.  The other is so/so, with valve cover off.  Both are in frames without tanks or seats or bars.  No telling how long they've been sitting, but I'm local and price is flexible.  Maybe even willing to trade for help with my own bike one day.  Send a PM if you're interested.

Wow!  What a kind offer.  Sorry to hear about your troubles.  I am currently holding the $hitty end of the stick from a mistake that I made all on my own, so I know how you feel.  Sometimes you've gotta learn the hard way.  Honestly, if it were my bike, with that much damage, there would be a donor motor going in there.  I can't imagine the cost or effort involved to bring that lower end back to safe and running order.  Drink a Rouge Brewing Hazelnut Brown for me.  Good luck!

A beer is definitely in order. Truth be told, opening up the bottom end and replacing parts isn't a big expense  - the worst part is cleaning up all the hondabond or tearing a gasket and having to replace it, but since there's so few miles on the gaskets they tend to come off easily. In my parts pile I have decent extras of all the damaged parts (unless I have to replace the crank, since I don't have another good crank and bearing set lying around) so it's really just a matter of dissemble, replace, assemble. Then again.. I seem to think it's no big deal to put these motors together, but I seem to always miss something.

Jinx, thanks for the offer, very cool. PM sent.

[luceja]

When I rebuild a motor, it may not last long, but damn does it ever start on the very first kick. Pulled the motor Monday, fully tore it down, replaced most of the transmission, installed and back running again Friday night.

[fastbroshi]

...so it's really just a matter of dissemble, replace, assemble. Then again.. I seem to think it's no big deal to put these motors together, but I seem to always miss something.

When I rebuild a motor, it may not last long, but damn does it ever start on the very first kick. Pulled the motor Monday, fully tore it down, replaced most of the transmission, installed and back running again Friday night.

Maybe that's the problem right there.   It doesn't hurt to take your time and be thorough.  If you keep doing things the same way, why would you expect different results?

[luceja]

Maybe that's the problem right there.   It doesn't hurt to take your time and be thorough.  If you keep doing things the same way, why would you expect different results?

Funny, my lady says the same thing.
That last post made me sound pretty foolish, but the truth is I ended up getting the tear down done by putting in a ton of time over the week. There was lots of intentionally taking a step back before big assembly steps and contemplating.

The first disaster I had, with the forgotten paper towel, seems like it was because I was doing the work in chunks, spread out over time, so I forgot little things I did. The second time was the opposite- I simply put something on wrong without thinking about it enough, probably from rushing. It feels like I split the difference this time, but there's always an infinite number of things I could have checked, could have double-checked.

I definitely get really excited at that moment where you put everything together, doublecheck everything, turn the key and the motor just catches instantly, hence last night's post. But yeah, might be wise to check my pride until I'm really, really doing things right.

[fastbroshi]

Understood.  I can relate to the anticipation of getting it to run maybe making you forget some things. 

[luceja]

A few notes-

I think I've finally gotten the top end together with (cross my fingers) no oil seepage from the passageways. I swapped out the lower o ring that goes around the oil jet for a thicker o ring, and put an extremely conservative amount of hondabond on both sides of the gasket mating surfaces above and below the cylinder just around those oil passages... not enough to squeeze out and become a blockage or anything. Having split this case so many times in the last year, I've gotten a really good sense of how little hondabond you actually need. Every time I've done it, I've realized I needed even less than I thought. Anyway, looks like a little help from hondabond might be what was needed, since fresh gaskets and o-rings didn't do the trick.

[luceja]

just some pics -
mocking up seat leather. the lady and I cut up an old chair - the leather is too brittle for long term use, but I'm enjoying making something temporary instead of being a perfectionist. Also running the shelby dowd front wheel temporarily while I work on the stock front.



Another rebuild shot.



Gratuitous parts shot.



Gratuitous garage shot. My buddy is working on his xs650 there.

[fastbroshi]

Sweet barn, I'd kill to have my 650 sq ft garage back.

[luceja]

Sweet barn, I'd kill to have my 650 sq ft garage back.

Life would be much less enjoyable without that little one car garage... it holds those four motorcycles, 5 people's bicycles, and an offset printing press shop with two presses and a ancient paper cutter that could probably cut through a stack of cast iron pans. Basically you have to move the motorcycles out to do anything, but I'm grateful for the storage. At my previous house, I had a 3 car wide, story and a half ceiling, car and a half deep garage with a full loft over one of the car bays, and all I had to put in it was one car, one motorcycle, and some bicycles. If I had that now, it'd be a goddamn motorcycle factory in there.

[luceja]

just writing some jetting info.

I'm back down to 38 pilots, screws leaned way out to 2.5, 110 mains. I was surprised it was still acting rich down low with leaned out stock pilots, but talking to mark linder (if I understood correctly) the stacks may be pulling more fuel through via friction, as opposed to just vacuum, so I'm going to try dropping the pilots and a step, but as-is, it's totally rideable and enjoyable right now - no weak spots. The only oddities are a few signs of richness down low: needs zero choke to start, a bit of stumbling/ 8 stroking at idle, sooty plugs, won't return to idle when hot without blipping the throttle. I have to note that I've changed jets since last sync, some of the idle symptoms may just be that.

I am, however, hearing a little popping out the exhaust off throttle, which would be a lean pilot symptom. Hmm.

[luceja]

Also, made a new mold to lay up another seat - wasn't happy with the first one. A little short, narrow, and sloppy.

[luceja]

for the folks who were interested in the seat-making, here's where I ended up:

Re-did the on frame mold for the seatpan - a little wider and longer this time, flat on top:



laying the glass - I went thicker. First layer was the weave, then lots (5?) of build layers. I also was laying strips of the weave along the rim every layer or so - I wanted it to be strong at the edges.



here's the profile of the pan:



where it meets the tank:



prepping the mounts:



Which look like this on the bottom:



this on top:



in the back they slip under my fender mount:



and in the front there is a plunger I made on the lathe (not pictured) that locks into a cable release thingy from some other bike:



did 3 layers of rebond, glued down, rough shaped with an electric knife:



And then finally, Ginger at new church upholstered it.. she's amazing:





The color is... unique. Originally I was going for brown, but two years later, I've seen plenty of bikes with the exactly seat style in brown, and thought I'd try something new. My lady was encouraging that maroon color, so that works for me. Something unique without being overly gaudy, I think. Could work into a nice paint scheme.. though with a bare tank, it looks suspiciously like this bike.. http://www.bikeexif.com/honda-cb750-4

One my my main goals was to have the seat exactly follow the tank's bottom line to emphasize what I think is the signature design cue from this generation of motorcycles.. it's hard to capture in a photograph, but there is an unbroken, curved line created by the tank and seat from front to back that is exact to the mm, and the seat conforms to and exposes the frame's line , just coming half way down the frame's top bar, exactly. The cross section of the seat conforms to the opening in the back of the tank, and the back profile angle of the seat curves down to follow a line to the fender. The length of the seat was chosen to balance the length of the tank, when viewed in profile.



The consequence to designing the seat to follow these lines that are already part of the bike is that the seat is very thin compared to the tank, which makes the bike more tracker-brat flying fist looking than I intended, but I guess that's cool right now?

Anyhow, extremely happy with the bike. I'm amazed how strong the engine is - it's a total joy, and there's still lots of crispness to get back by leaning out the pilot circuit.

There's still a list of small things to do - just polished and rebuilt the front wheel with new spokes/bearing, currently polishing and rebuilding a rear wheel with cb750 rim. Paint work, replacing the (occasionally slipping) clutch plates, etc, etc, on and on.

Also - random note - do not use jasco on plastic side covers. I may have ruined my otherwise fine side covers for this bike.

[fastbroshi]

Cool, seat looks great, especially in regards to its relationship to the tank.  Some brat style bikes are done with what seems to be a focus on the seat and end up looking cartoony.  What colorare you thinking for the tank?

[luceja]

Cool, seat looks great, especially in regards to its relationship to the tank.  Some brat style bikes are done with what seems to be a focus on the seat and end up looking cartoony.  What colorare you thinking for the tank?

Thanks and agreed, and I wasn't really shooting for brat style, just a slightly slimmer dimension of the main seat, but I think I overdid it slightly and ended up at the edge of brat territory...  but again I'm really happy with it, especially the quality of Ginger's upholstery.

For the tank, I'm thinking a plain solid color with a old HM decal, in white or off-white, with gloss black side covers, though I've fantasized about doing some more inspired designs on the tank.. but nothing concrete in my mind there.

I'm also brainstorming about using a spare 400f tank I have lying around. I already took a little bit off the tank mount posts on this 550 frame, so the only fitment issue is that I'd have to widen just the very front of the tank's tunnel to fit over the  "A" shape of the 550 frame. It seems to be the right length tank but a better width to match the seat... just a weird idea I suppose.

[fastbroshi]

A nice dark green would look good with that maroon 

[luceja]

I wanted to update this thread to leave some information for folks to find in the future.

Here's more or less where this bike is now:





It's a blast to ride and is rather well sorted out. For the sake of documenting, here's what I'm still playing with:

1. Carb flooding. I get gas flooding not just out of the overflow tubes, but even out the intakes. Appears to happen running or not running. This will fill up the airbox with gas when I had the airbox on, and when I'm running velocity stacks, it just pours out of them. It's usually the lowest (left) carb, but not always. It only happens occasionally. The overflows (tube and hose) are clear. The carbs are very clean and sorted through. The petcock works. The floats are buoyant, are set to the correct height, and the valves definitely stop the gas. The float pins are smooth and clean, and there's no sign of hangup or snagging. I've tested this with the bowls off in several different ways (shutting the floats manually, letting the rack sit in a tray and letting the tray of gas fill up and shut the valves, etc). When testing the rack on the bench, I get occasionally overflow out of the tubes, but never out of the intakes. Only happens occasionally on the bike. When it starts to flood and I can see wet gas sprayed on the side covers coming back out of the stacks, I start shutting the petcock manually to keep riding. Obviously this isn't a good solution. I have a few filthy racks of carbs, I'm thinking about entirely building a new set of carbs and swapping out.

2. Oil leaking. Largest leak is a light leak out of the end valve cover covers, which are 0-ring sealed. I've tried different size o rings, hondabond, etc. There's also a little oil seepage around various areas of the valve cover gasket and the tappet covers. The most annoying is a light oil leak out of the left (low) side of head gasket. This is especially frustrating because I had both the cylinders and the head surfaced and have gone through a couple of head gaskets now trying to get rid of the HG oil leak. Maybe it's just low quality gasket kits. I'm tempted to mill a dowel + o-ring recess into the head/cylinders like I've read about on other threads.

3. Goddamn rear wheel/spokes. I rebuilt the front wheel with a new DID rim, polished hub, new bearings, new spokes, and I've been trying to do the same for the rear. The problem I've hit is that it appears that the 77 on rear 550 hub is different than earlier models, and I've gone through a couple hundred dollars of spokes finding this out. The hub itself is a larger diameter, requiring shorter spokes by a few mm, and the spoke flange is much thicker, requiring a longer bent section on the outer spokes. If you try to use early 550 outer spokes on a late model 550 hub, you cannot bend the outer spokes around the hub to the center of the rim. Since it seems to be hard to find late model hub specific spokes, I cannot be the only person with this problem, but I've found little info searching the forum. For posterity, the flange is about 10mm, which is thicker by about a mm than the hub on the 750 we have here in the shop.The first set of spokes I ordered were just 'cb550' spokes, and I didn't realize that there were two generations of rear hubs. The second set of spokes I ordered (thai/japan ebay) were explicitly labeled 77-78 cb550f spokes, but appear to be identical to the first set. Looking at CMSNL, here are the rear hub parts numbers/generations:

cb550K
cb550k0 (1974) 42601323030
cb550k1 42601323030
cb550k2 42601323030
cb550k3  42601404000
cb550k4 (1978)  42601404000

cb550F
1976 cb550f2 42601323030
1977 cb550f3 42601404000

So, since I have a '77 and my hub is clearly different than examples of the earlier style that I see day to day (wider, larger diameter, different spacers, ribbed reinforcement of drum plate/stay brace), I'm assuming I have the 42601404000 version that's proper to my bike, and that all the spokes I have bought are for the earlier 42601323030 hub. I could order a proper set of rear spokes from buchanans, but I've decided that I can use these spokes I've already paid for by notching a channel for the outer spokes a few mm into the hub where the spokes wrap around the outside of the hub flange.

As for jetting, if I recall correctly, I'm running 110 mains and stock pilots and needle, idle screws set max lean, with stock everything except velocity stacks and mac muffler. Bike starts well, powerband is even and strong across, plugs look great. It only needs a moment of choke, and then likes to have the choke backed off, and I have to screw the idle stop in a bit to keep idle going while it warms, and then slowly back the idle screw down as I ride and the motor really heats up. If I'm correct, I think idle is still a bit rich judging by this behavior.. right? Either way, I will likely go back to the stock airbox from the current stacks and modify the mac muffler. I have to say that I'm baffled that it's acting rich at idle with stock idle jets, leaned out screws, and open stacks, and my only theory there is that the mac is causing so little scavenging that it's creating a rich condition.

Very little left to do. I can't believe how much work I've put into this bike - really soaking a lot of time into the details (clean hardware, cleaned up wiring, etc) has made it very ridable and trustworthy. It's fast, it's fun to lean over, and I like how it looks. Happy with this project as it nears the end.

[luceja]

Got the rear wheel built, which has been a long and horrible ordeal. I originally built (clean hub, bead blast fins/center of hub, paint center, clean again, polish, knock out old bearings, press new bearings, lace spokes, true, mount tire, balance) a wheel using a spare hub I had, but realized it was a different generation of hub when I went to swap wheels, so...

Had to break down that newly built wheel to get the rim, then take the my original wheel off my bike, break that down, and do it all all over again.... and then when I went to build the new wheel, realized that the spokes were wrong. Frustrating.

In the end, I just made the incorrect spokes work by relieving a couple of mm of the hub for the outer spokes. I don't think I've created a structural integrity issue, since there's just as much meat left on the hub as there would have been with an early rear hub. I just hate solving problems by cutting up good parts instead of getting the right spokes, but I wasn't going to drop another hundred.

Cut channels for spokes:


had to grind down all 40 over length spokes:


built wheel (cb750 d.i.d rim)


left side (need to make chain guard)


and now just some glamour shots:














Final steps will be to go back to stock airbox and get the jetting correct for that and then paint the tins, and a few other small bits... and then done.

[RAFster122s]

Nice job. Glad she is coming together for you.

[Vinhead1957]

Very nice

[luceja]

Thanks all. I don't feel it's perfect, but I think it came together well, and it is such a blast to ride. It's funny to go back and read what I was thinking when I started it. I have learned so much and have become so much more deeply involved in bikes since I began. I've gone a long way with this bike, and I'm really happy about it.

[FunJimmy]

Great build. The seat came out perfect.
Nice to see such attention to fitment and balance.
It's a difficult task.

Glad you overcame your engine adversity too.
It can be awfully disheartening when things go that far off the rails.

Cheers
FJ

[Bankerdanny]

Tell me about the rear fender. This is something I am thinking about for my build. I'm not a fan of the no rear fender look.

Were you able to just cut off some of the back and rotate it up?

[luceja]

Tell me about the rear fender. This is something I am thinking about for my build. I'm not a fan of the no rear fender look.

Were you able to just cut off some of the back and rotate it up?

I didn't end up cutting the fender - it's just rotated inwards and then held in place by brackets that make use of the threaded holes in the fender. There's one bracket that goes across the frame, across the two holes where I have the tail lights mounted, and the inner part of the fender is mounted across similarly, with a couple of screws that go through the black plastic inner fender.

Here was a first draft of the rear fender mount where you can see the concept, though I redid this in rather wide steel because the passenger's weight rests on it.

[luceja]

Great build. The seat came out perfect.
Nice to see such attention to fitment and balance.
It's a difficult task.

Glad you overcame your engine adversity too.
It can be awfully disheartening when things go that far off the rails.

Cheers
FJ

From you, that means quite a lot. Your bike was one of the examples that really got my eyes wide for sohc4's. I have pictures that I saved to my computer from black when you were in the blue paint days with your 550. Frankly I didn't really know what I was looking at like I do now, makes me appreciate the time you put in all the more. Thanks!