he is seriously considering making this into a book for posterity... I have it all printed out in a 3-ring binder already- first edition...Glad to hear the thread has been of assistance. Feel free to download anything you wish; that must be some full three-ring!
As far as some kind of book project, I suppose that is always a possibility some day, but it hasn't been my main purpose as far as this thread is concerned. It was conceived and has been produced in order to help anyone who is attempting to piece one of these bikes back together. Ever tear something apart, then have a difficult time remembering where it all goes? Didn't you wish you had taken a few pics beforehand? Well, that's what I'm doing; providing the pictures, and a little commentary to boot. If it helps anyone out, I've succeeded with my purpose and all of the effort has been worth it.
And, not to forget, I'll have one sparkly "new" bike when it's all said and done.
On to the build. This session will cover installation of the exhaust system, and I'll try to use as few pics from that other thread as I can.
The stock exhaust is fairly uncomplicated, but there are a couple of tricks that might help installation go a little easier, and I'll try to cover them in the post. While the following procedure may not be the only (or even best) way to do it, it gets the job done and, after all, that's what we're here for.
Installing the exhaust is a kind of milestone for me because that's where my previous incarnation of this thread fell to pieces, along with the build. It turned out that the frame was tweaked and it wasn't obvious 'til I began fitting the pipes. It was the next to last procedure I undertook, so the bike was 80 - 90% complete when the anomaly was discovered, and it lead to dis-assembly of all the work I'd done and the purchase of a new frame. Here are a couple of shots of the old frame so you can see just what the problem was
What happened was that somehow the exhaust mounting "ear" on the frame had been bent out of position and extended outboard of the frame by about an inch more than it should, which, in turn, twisted and collapsed the down tube. In fact, when comparing the old frame with the new one, I found the difference to be 15/16 of an inch when measuring between the exhaust mount "ears" on each frame. I suspect the PO must have hit (or been hit by) something with the passenger footrest extended, yanking the "ear" out of position... frankly, it's anybody's guess. All I know is that it put the kibosh on that build as I wasn't going to go to all of the time, effort and expense of doing a meticulous restoration of all of the bike's components only to put it all on a bent frame. While an expert told me the frame could be easily fixed, it just wasn't good enough for this build and, in the end, I found myself starting over with a new frame. Such is life. Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you.
But that was then, and this is now; let's go eat some bear, shall we?
First step will be mounting the kick stand (or "side" stand, if you prefer). Here it is, all laid out with its associated spring, pivot bolt, nut and washer.
There's not much to it, so installation is pretty simple. First, the stand is located on its frame mount so that the hole in the stand "ear" lines up with that on the mount (below left)
I added a bit of grease inside the hole (above right), then inserted the bolt. The kick stand itself is threaded on the rear "ear", so the pivot bolt is inserted through the front "ear", then the frame mount, and is then torqued down tight, leaving part of the bolt exposed in the rear. The nut and washer are then added, locking the pivot bolt in place (below)
Note that Honda does not require the lock washer... I included it because, well, that's just how I am...
Once the stand is mounted, the spring is installed. It has an interesting configuration in that the spring "hooks" are offset to the side of the spring coil, rather than extending from the center as in most springs, allowing it to sit fairly flat along the body of the stand (inset)
I've actually seen this spring in two configurations: one like that depicted in the inset, where both "hooks" are offset to the same side, and a slightly different approach where the longer "frame side" hook (or "eye") is centered on the coil, while the shorter "stand side" hook is offset, as can be seen in the above pic. I expect that this is simply a change between years, but either spring will do the job.
No matter how you approach it, installing this spring is, to put it in technical terms, an effing bear. There are substantiated reports of folks using coins between the coils to stretch the spring out to the proper length, but I just hooked the upper "hook" to its mount on the frame (a short metal dowel - it has a groove near its end that the spring snaps into); then, using a good pair of vise-grips, I grabbed the lower "hook" and, with the application of some good old-fashioned elbow grease, moosed that sucker down over the stand mount - a hook extending from the stand "arm" about half way down its length. While it wasn't easy, it wasn't as hard as I expected it to be and, really, anyone with a couple of hairs on their chest should be able to accomplish the task without too much difficulty. I'm not knocking anyone else's technique; I'm just suggesting you try it this way before you go breaking into the piggy bank.
Some folks have reported successfully installing the stand spring by hooking it to its mounts on the lever and frame prior to installing the stand; the stand is then used to stretch the spring as it's (the stand) being positioned on the frame (pic #4, above). The bolt is then slid into position and Bob's your uncle. I tried it this way and nearly pulled the bike over onto myself; to be honest, I may not have given it the shot it deserved as there are those out there who swear by the method and find it difficult to conceive of doing it any other way... at any rate, it's something to consider.
A good side stand spring is extremely important. I was following a friend once whose spring was either stretched out or the wrong part, and somehow the stand managed to fall at some point during the ride (I had seen him raise it as we left the parking lot, so it wasn't a matter of him spacing it to begin with). As we went to make a left-hand turn onto the highway, that stand planted itself in the asphalt like a ski pole and the whole bike did a quick pivot around it before crashing to earth and skidding 20 or 30 feet down the pavement in a cloud of sparks and dirt. I was right behind him on the CL350 and had to do some fairly fancy maneuvering to avoid becoming part of the disaster. Needless to say (but I will anyway) the experience was not good for either the bike or the rider. It happened some forty years ago, now, but he still carries the scars to this day.
With the side stand installed, I turned my attention to the main course: the exhaust pipes. Here they are in nice, sparkly new condition with the mounting brackets and center stand cushion (inset) already installed
I got these from BikeBandit a couple of years ago and paid something like $700 - $800 for them; nowadays, since they're no longer being made, I've seen people wanting stupid crazy prices in the thousands of dollars for a set like this. At this point, they may be the most valuable part of the bike...
Here's a look at the hardware I'll be using to mount the pipes
From top to bottom are the exhaust mount "joints", below those are the joint spacers (or "collars"), then the four copper gaskets, the mounting nuts and split washers, the rear mount bolts, and the balancer tubes and clamps. Smack in the middle bottom, trying to remain inconspicuous but failing miserably, are the passenger foot rests, which I'll install along with the pipes.
I began by inserting the copper gaskets into the exhaust ports
These should fit snugly and hold themselves in place by frictional pressure; if they're loose and won't stay in place, check to see that you have the right gaskets or, more likely, the old mashed up gaskets are still in the port and need to be removed. Gaskets in the ports are a relatively common malady that can cause all kinds of mischief because it's not always obvious that they're still there; they kind of get squished flat and can appear to be part of the port. The gasket area around the port should be flat with no ridges or steps. If you do find old gaskets in your ports, they're easy to remove using a flat-bladed screwdriver.
Now comes the fun part: installing the pipes themselves. I began by laying them out in order on each side of the bike. It's easy to tell which pipe goes where if you follow a couple of simple rules: first off, the mounting brackets are oriented inward toward the bike, so that'll let you know which pipe goes on which side of the bike; and, secondly, the balance tube flanges extending from each muffler should point toward each other, so that lets you know which pipe goes on the bottom (inside) and which on top (outside). The top pipes are installed on the outer cylinders (NOs 1 & 4); the bottom pipes on cyls 2 & 3. Simple enough. The longer mounting brackets are installed on the bottom pipes, while the short ones go on the uppers...
Next, I "hooked" each header in the exhaust port openings so that the pipes were oriented roughly in the correct position. The flange on the end of the header is caught by the port opening and fins and will hold the pipe in place while it's being attached at the muffler
One thing to note about the above photo is that I've slid the joint for each pipe down onto the muffler so that it'll be ready for later. Once the rear mounts are attached, it's nearly impossible to get these things on, so now's the time to install them. They should be oriented so that the step in the joint "face" is pointing forward (inset). It seems like it would be a good idea to actually mount the joints onto the studs at the port, thereby aiding in holding the pipes in position, but doing so causes the pipes to bind and makes installation at the muffler difficult, so they're just sitting there for now, patiently awaiting their moment in the spotlight, all the while tossing out crude remarks about trains going through tunnels, ring toss, and other vaguely suggestive observations of a questionable moral character...
With everything in place, I inserted the rear mounting bolt (with washer) through the hole in the footrest bracket (below right, inset), then through the corresponding hole in the top (outer) muffler bracket (in this case, pipe #4). Pivoting the pipe upward, I aligned the bolt with the hole in the frame mount "ear", then pressed it through, entrapping both the footrest and muffler brackets on the outside of the "ear". With the bolt holding everything in position, I prepared for the next step by installing the balancer tube and clamp onto the flange on the bottom (#3) muffler (inset)
This next bit is a real juggling act. As the bottom pipe is raised into position the header flange must stay in place in the port while the muffler bracket is inserted from behind onto the mounting bolt extending from the rear of the frame mount "ear". Simultaneously, the balancer tube is slipped onto the flange protruding down from the top muffler, entrapping the tube between the mufflers. It all happened so fast that I'm not really sure how I accomplished this feat, but I think I withdrew the mounting bolt until only a slight nub protruded from the rear of the "ear", inserted the balancer tube up onto the flange in the top muffler, and then pressed the bolt on through the hole in the muffler bracket. There's a bit of finagling to do in order to get everything into the proper position, but once it's there it's all held in place with a loosely installed nut and split washer (inset). I don't want to tighten anything down yet as I'll need some "wiggle" room for the next step
I began the final procedure by sliding the joints up the header to their position at the port. The collars are installed around the pipe with the flanged end toward the joint, where they slip into the "step" described earlier. The other end butts up against the flange on the header (inset). As far as orientation of the collars is concerned, Honda doesn't really specify how they should go, either vertically or horizontally; I've positioned them vertically after a forum member suggested they might drain water better that way... makes sense to me, so that's how I've done it
Now, the pipes will have some manufacturing tolerances to them and those big copper "O-rings" take up a lot of space, so when it comes time to slide the joint/collar/header assembly into place in the port not much of the stud is left exposed behind the joint for the nuts and split washers to fit onto. The trick here is to install the nuts, torque them down to specs, then remove them one at a time so that the washers can be added. You don't want to forget the split washers as they're a safety feature, and it's not a good thing to have your pipes coming loose in the middle of a run...
Right side complete; time for the other side, where it's "second verse same as the first" (and if you know what song that line came from and can even sing a couple of bars, you
are old...)
The final step, with everything properly fitted, is to tighten up all of the nuts and bolts I've left loose, finishing up with the screws on the balancer tubes
And there we have it: shiny new pipes for the bike. Here's a shot of the completed installation
Now, that wasn't so bad, was it? No surprises and everything came together as it should (whew)! Next episode will cover installation of the dreaded electrical system, and that will be quite the project, so I expect it will be another two-part post. It includes things like the rear fender and clutch cable, which at first blush might not seem to have any relationship to the wiring, but there's a method to my madness, and I guess you're just going to have to trust me that it will all come together!
'til next time
