Topic: If it works good, it looks good...right?

[Danno]

hey bud give us the serials off that motor so we can see what you really have parts bikes are notorious for having had engine swaps and other crappy stuff done to them just curious

[seanbarney41]

Danno, not exactly sure what you are concerned about...I'm the one to do the engine swapping here.  Just a reminder or maybe you didn't read the whole story...I recieved a wrecked but otherwise clean 550k in payment for work I did...then bought a 550f as a donor bike to repair it. The k's frame and frontend were very bent and deemed not repairable.   So, what we have now is a 550k engine in a f frame with a strange mixture of f and k cycle parts.  There is no pretense of originality.  If you are concerned about a theft or some other illegality, I would be glad to pm you some serial numbers.  I have titles for both bikes...

[seanbarney41]

...I'm really close to done with this 550...just needs carb adjustments and paint...paint is supposed to be done next weekend.  Carb adjusting will require some decent weather so I can test ride.  Gave myself a scare when I first started it and the oil light wouldn't go out...until I put it in gear!  Yup, I had the neutral light bulb in the oil light socket and vice versa.  Overall, the bike runs and rides really nice!

[seanbarney41]

Pulled the motor on my 750 for some cleaning, inspection and if things look ok, new gaskets...I decided that the leaks have just gotten too messy.  I'm guessing it's those darn cam tower pucks.  I can see the inspection turning into a rebuild though...I have an extra motor that will get tossed in there if I don't get done by spring...

[seanbarney41]

I am currently in the process of cleaning this lump so I don't have as much chance of getting crud in the internals...what a filthy mess!  I got this slick engine stand adapter along with a cb750 basket case

[seanbarney41]

the basket case 750 is in need of a frame as the one it came with is badly bent.  Other than that, it's all there except for some small details.   I plan on putting it together as a stockish build as soon as I find a frame.  I love the faded original paint...

[seanbarney41]

check out this frame damage

[seanbarney41]

Ohh yeah...I got some more 550 parts too...so I will probably be puttin' another one of those together too...Got this tank with it but I would like to know what bike it is from

[seanbarney41]

Here are some picture of the 550 all painted and put together (except for the gas cap)  The color kinda came out a disaster but looks good anyway.  It was supposed to be Flake Sunrise orange but somehow we got sent candy gold.  Anyway my painter tried to mix up his own and it's closer to ruby red.  It does look more orange in real life.  I swear, every time I see it, the color looks different.  Anyway the flake and the candy are breath taking in real life and the buyer was happy with it.  I had time to ride it a bunch and it runs and rides superbly.  The handling is just a real pleasure.  I now see why guys love these smaller fours cuz they are light and nimble and the 550 mill is so rev happy.

[seanbarney41]

...as far as my 750 cafe, I tore the engine down, measured, and inspected.  I'm gonna need new rings and one exhaust valve was a little leaky as evidenced by pouring a cup of gas into the port and watching for seepage into the combustion chamber.

[seanbarney41]

let me know, if you see any trouble areas.  After micing the pistons and cylinders I found very little wear, taper, or ovaling.  The measurements are well within spec except for the ring gap check where you square up the ring in the cylinder and measure the gap.  Is it normal to see that much evidence of blowby on the sides of the pistons below the rings?  ...a couple more pics...

[seanbarney41]

On to my basket case 750...well I found a frame and it came with a whole bike attached ...it ran sorta...I definately got enough part to put together a patinaed stocker now

[seanbarney41]

The bike has some interesting parts...chromed stock swingarm, what I think are cb450 gauges?  ...and... Hayashi wheels

[lucky]

i always use the sparkplug socket in the tool kit. maybe you could try an 18mm socket from a 3/8 drive set. length might be the issue so i would try putting the socket on first and then the rat#$%* onto the socket. pain in the ass when you dont have the right tools!

as far the one cylinder not firing, ill bet its the slow jet. instead of taking the carbs all the way off, maybe try to just take the slow jet out while its still on the bike. not that hard, you just have to be careful around the floats.

i dont know, just some thoughts

Who would use 1/2" drive on a motorcycle?

[Mugen_Stumpo]

hayashi rims looks f* good

[seanbarney41]

yes, yes I think so too.  Had to try 'em on my cafe racer.  So here it is with my spare engine installed.  The Hayashi's feel just a little bit lighter than stock spoked/steel wheels but I have no scale to weigh them with.  They appear to be very well made.  Google search turns up tons of info on their car wheels but very little on their bike offerings.  There are a couple threads on here from 2008 and earlier, Yamiya sells 'em new for over $2000 and an old ebay sale where a nice set went for $1500 or so.  It appears mine may have been painted or powder coated black as all other examples seen where a gold/bronze color.

[Retro Rocket]

Great score on the wheels Sean.....

[seanbarney41]

thanks RR and Mugen...I thought about selling them until I saw them on my bike

[Retro Rocket]

thanks RR and Mugen...I thought about selling them until I saw them on my bike

They look like keepers to me too.....

[Stev-o]

+1...those wheels look great.

[seanbarney41]

It' been quite a while, so I figure it's time to see what I have been up to...not much.  It seems like I have just been spinning my wheels trying to keep my junk on the road.  I have now been riding my cafe bike hard for several years.  Can't really tell you the mileage 'cuz I'm on my fourth speedo, with numerous cables, and months at a time without it even hooked up...one starts to lose track.  Best guess is somewhere over 50,000 miles I've put on it, and it had over 20k when I got it.  The regular engine is torn down needing only rings and some valve work but I want to do something fun...not much money for that though.  I've kept it on the road with a spare k7/8 motor that is probably leaking worse than the original.  Through all this I managed to accumulate more than  enough parts to put together a whole 'nother bike...so tonight I'll show some of the trials and tribulations of that.  Picked out some lowers to use and got busy.  Didn't take long to get the front end together.

[seanbarney41]

This bikes wiring was the worst disaster I have ever seen.  Every single connector had been changed from factory to these cheap plastic crimp connectors.  Amazingly, everything worked.  But no way was I gonna rely on this stuff.  I decided to use the wiring harness from my basket case with the bent frame.  This ended up causing some big delays as I ended up using a '76 harness on a k4 bike with a k3-k5 right hand switch.  It took forever to figure out how to combine all that and bypass the safety switches and get the headlight and tailight working.

[seanbarney41]

Anyway, got the wiring semi sorted, good enough to ride and trouble shoot further so I continued putting this thing together

[seanbarney41]

This bike is intended to be mostly stock appearing but I did end up with some slight rear fender mods.  The clean stock fender I had, turned out to be bent pretty bad, I just didn't notice til I got it mounted.  So then I used a slightly less clean one, and slid up under the seat further to hide some nastiness and for a shorter look.   Then I got crazy and used a small tailight that had come into my possession some how over the years.

[seanbarney41]

Cleaned up the swingarm and rear wheel...could use some new spokes but I ain't spendin' the cash right now.  I dig the chrome swing arm.
Here's before...