Author Topic: My Renewed CB400F  (Read 3160 times)

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Offline vames

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My Renewed CB400F
« on: August 21, 2011, 09:17:46 PM »
I didn't document this along the way, but here are some pictures of my renewed 1975 cb400f. I've had the bike for about 7 years in New York City and it was always kind of snotty with a faded and dented blue tank, patchy chalky engine cases, cracked headlight bucket, leaky forks, crappy original rear shocks, leaky washers on the head bolts, busted tach and PO wiring from hell with a lot of twist&tape connections.

But was always reliable and fun, and it never left me stranded, and I absolutely loved the bike and rode it all over the place for years. So when I moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn last year, I joined a garage near home and figured I'd do some much-deserved cleanup: renewed the wiring with connectors from Vintage Connections, solid-state regulator and a new rectifier, cleaned and dielectric greased every ground and electical connection, mini tach and speedo with idiot lights built into the face, tank painted black (by forum member Johnny5) with original decals, drilled rotor (by forum member elcheapo), added CL350 fork boots, generic chrome headlight, replaced copper crush washers and retorqued head bolts, cleaned carbs, rebuilt forks and did a mediocre polish job on forks, front caliper, engine cases and switches.

It's finally all back togther and running really great -- I took it down to the Velocity show in Williamsburg and people checked it out. Success!

Here's some cheap cell phone pictures -- I'll take more soon with a real camera and post soon.





Offline RickB

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2011, 10:49:28 PM »
Great bike. I like that you kept the defining characteristics of the 400F but added your own flare. Looks nice.

Offline vames

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2011, 10:48:22 AM »
I think the stock CB400f look -- the rectangular tank, the awesome seat and the pipes -- is just too good to try to improve upon. I never liked the big clocks and the stock red/blue/yellow colors, so that's mostly what I targeted (along with oil leaks, bad wiring and grime). Honda should have made this bike in black to start with!

I think I'm eventually going to get it down to a speedo-in-headlight-bucket setup to make it even cleaner up front. Also trying to think of a less obtrusive tail light. Any ideas welcome.   

Offline Kanticoy

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2011, 05:02:26 PM »
I dig the black a lot man!  That makes one down off of my list of what colors I would have liked 400f's to come it....I wanna see White, Honda sunburst orange, and the metallic olive of the 350f now and I'll be a happy man!

Good job on keepin' the baby 4 going!

Offline sopo400f

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2011, 06:21:16 PM »
Very nice! Please post some more pics..
1975 cb400f blue

Offline RickB

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2011, 09:38:15 PM »
I've seen guys mount a small Lucas style tail light up under the rear of the seat, it keeps that stock look but slims it down a bit. I'll see if I can find a photo/thread.

There's photos of an SR500 floating about right now that has a custom speedo-in-headlight setup that I thought was quite nice. I've never seen it done on a CB400F before, but if you could find the right speedo and headlight bucket, with a bit of careful work you could combine the two easy enough.

Whatever you do, take photos!

Rick.

Offline vames

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2011, 07:30:39 AM »
I'll be taking the bike out this weekend and will take some pictures to show off.

Offline jaguar

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2011, 07:52:44 AM »
I'll be taking the bike out this weekend and will take some pictures to show off.

thats if larry doesnt try and steal it...lol
You are at the shop with larry and phil?
Im friends with larry and down there alot.

Offline JustinLonghorn

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2011, 08:42:38 AM »
Yes sir, I can dig it.
"So you had better do as you are told
You better listen to the radio"

My Super Sport Build

Offline vames

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2011, 09:56:41 AM »
I'll be taking the bike out this weekend and will take some pictures to show off.

thats if larry doesnt try and steal it...lol
You are at the shop with larry and phil?
Im friends with larry and down there alot.

Yep. Machina cycles. Larry won't steal it -- he only likes mopeds far as I can tell.

Offline jaguar

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Re: My Renewed CB400F
« Reply #10 on: August 24, 2011, 10:32:21 AM »
I'll be taking the bike out this weekend and will take some pictures to show off.

thats if larry doesnt try and steal it...lol
You are at the shop with larry and phil?
Im friends with larry and down there alot.

Yep. Machina cycles. Larry won't steal it -- he only likes mopeds far as I can tell.

this is true....someone has to talk some sense into him...lol
maybe ill see you down at the shop

very nice bike