UPDATED: 5/30/2011
After the repairs here is where we are at. stock as ever.
Well I bought her for what I figured was a decent number considering the condition of the bike overall. Not perfect but in very good condition cosmetically. The bike did come in a basket, at least the carbs did. In about 1000 different pieces and difficult to track what was and what wasn't missing. what went with what and considering I had never rebuilt a set of carbs completely and specifically a CB500 FOUR I knew I was in for a bit of work, at least to get it rollin.
this is what I got
These are the carbs
and this
so I figured the best way to go about this is to get another set of carbs. Certainly there were many options. Ebay had people charging and anywhere from $40 a set to $449.99 for a completely rebuilt and painted set. Which was the better buy? The ones in your budget. In my case I made a trip to motorcycle heaven. A place called Bobs Used motorcycle parts. Amazing place. I walked in and went straight to the yard.
This is such a small fraction of what they have there. Honda after Honda after Honda.
Well, after some searching I found a Cb500K2 with carbs just sitting there in the sun. Perfect. everything looked to move freely and now I just needed to get them off the bike. I proceeded to go back indoors to tell the gentlemen working that I wanted them. He said $40 bucks!! there your's! ON my way to the bike with one of the yard men to pull the carbs off, the guy told me there is a trailer in the back with thousands of these in there. he said there would be a much better set in there. He pointed to a trailer with a sign that said, no trespassing, beware of bees. Sure enough i walk right pass it and into the trailer. It was like a scene from terminator. I'm walking on hundred probably thousand of carbs. No joke. but after about an hour of searching I found a VERY clean set of 627B's. Super clean.
As I proceeded to inspect the new carbs they honestly look clean enough to put on the bike. no joke. however being a noob to carbs and thinking, " do I really want to go thru this again", I opted for a rebuild kit from Keyster. but first I inspected everything. Most of the carbs looked good when opened except one carb had like an alkaline deposit of something in it. There was no gelled gas or anything, just a white powder in one carb. there rest however was very clean
White stuff.
So I soaked the new carbs in simple green like many have done here and cleaned them up
When done I installed the bits and pieces. Keep In mind
I HAVE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE SO FOR YOU NOOBIES IT IS WAY EASY, DON"T BE AFRAID!!!! if you can put together lego's then you can do this. Now for tuning I haven't got there yet. But installing jets and stuff is not worth 150$ or whatever people charge. Unless its a member here, then it's worth it. HA! support the forums.
more importantly, I learned so much about how this stuff works which is priceless.
getting the float bowl gasket on wasn't fun, and after many different ideas ( White grease, petroleum jelly, praying) I went with what others suggested a tiny drop of super glue to hold them in place. This worked out and gave me a bit more confidence. got the bowls on and off I went.
One thing to keep in mind also is to attached the fuel lines to the "T" fitting between the carbs 1/2 and 3/4 this will make your life easier as they are a #$%* to get on and off under any circumstances.
Finally back to the bike, I don't have alot of automotive tools so this was probably done with the minimum, and used the stock honda tool kit when possible.
I put some gas in the tank and double checked all my hoses and sure enough, with a few cranks it started right up and purrrrrrred like a kitten. I didn't adjust the carbs or anything but it just idled.
notes: I checked the oil and put a new filter and battery in prior to start up, I should have checked the plugs but in my excitement I forgot. Regardless I got lucky and everything seemed good. and being a little crazy i rode it 5 miles to work the last two days. started up from cold easy and rode like a boss.
This week end I have a few things to do, oil change, plugs and synced . There is a leak coming from the shift lever, my understanding this is common and although time consuming, an easy fix I probably won't ride it much till taken care of. Also my tach is jumping all over and I still want to do mods. In the mean time I need to get it dialed in and synced and get this pesky leak taken care of. I move fast so expect this project to move fairly quickly. I did all the rebuild and install all in one day, for a noob I'll take that as good enough.
A couple things I learned so far:
Use this site when rebuilding carbs:
also that I don't believe i needed a complete carb rebuild, and oring kit would have been good enough in my opinion ( an opinion of a guy that has zero experience
)
Don't be afraid to jump in as with the people on the forums and using the search engine, you can find everything
