Haven't posted in my own thread for over 180 days and get the 'old thread' warning. Been working on the bike the whole time, anyhow.
Since the last post:
Switched back to the stock spoked wheels. Mounting a proper rear master cylinder to use the shelby dowd disc rear would be done best by grafting on modern rearsets with an integral master cylinder and welding mounts on the frame for said rearsets. I acquired two basket cb500/4's, so I'll use those wheels correctly on another bike. I mounted metzelers on the stock wheels.
I pulled apart the whole harness, simplified it, updated most of the connections, moved the ignition switch to below the right triple with an aluminum bracket, moved the front brake switch to the master cylinder, mounted an old smaller honda tail light, made a new bracket for the 500/4 guages, made a mini bracket to hold a couple little harley fitment idiot lights (just neutral and oil pressure), relayed the headlights (relays located under the right coil), rigged up some lockhart turn signals, replaced a faulty blinker unit, wired in a hondaman ignition and wrapped the harness back up.
I ditched the supertrapp muffler because the yellowed brushed stainless didn't look right against the good chrome on the headers, and I'd rather use it on my 400f, so I got the mac 550f muffler. I actually don't really like the lines of the mac muffler and the fitment is bad: the slip over the header is unintentionally tapered, tighter by a mm or so at the end, so it doesn't really seal well.. I made a shim out of aluminum housing flashing and it sort of helps. I also don't know what I was supposed to do with the bracket mac included. I made a Z shaped piece of aluminum to connect the muffler back to the frame.
Then, on to jetting. It ran fine for the few miles I tested with the supertrapp, but with the mac, it couldn't even begin to rev, could barely idle, etc with the stock jets/airbox/filter, showing signs or rich at idle and lean above that (?). I bought a jet kit and a set of dime city stacks and started to experiment. I decided to start rich and lean it out, so I put in the biggest mains I had (130's) and and the velocity stacks, which I wasn't really planning on using on this bike, and it ran great... for about 3 miles.
It bogged and died, and I pulled over and saw the paint blistering and yellowing on the head at the end of the head. It cooled off and limped home and it turns out something got into one of the outside camshaft journals and the end of the camshaft was a molten mess of steel and aluminum. The head, valve cover, camshaft, and some of the rockers were toast. I'll be honest, I think I should have listened to all the people who said to not use glass. I'm guessing some didn't get cleaned out of the oil passage beneath that journal. I don't think it was a clog in the oil jet, since the inner journals were fine. Lesson learned.
Anyway, I have some other heads/valve covers/camshafts, so I had another head surfaced/valves ground, prepped it for painting, and once it's painted and baked, the motor will go back in the frame and we'll see what breaks next.
Meanwhile, I layed the fiberglass for a seatpan today, which was something I was looking forward to doing. I used some tubing to make ridges for stiffness and to center the foam. I didn't put the ridges on the edges because I wanted that to be a flat surface along the frame. The goal here was a seatpan that really confirmed exactly to the frame and followed it's lines without being quite so big as the stock seat. I bought a cable operated seat latch which will be mounted in the front, with a hinge welded to the steel brace I made that goes across the two holes at the ends of the back of the frame. I'm tempted to use a 500/4 tank I have, being thinner and would look more sensible with the thinner-than-stock seat.
turning the frame into a plug:
aluminum tape:
oh, and polished the clutch cover. which reminds me, the damned clutch was slipping when it was a runner.
