Author Topic: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...  (Read 8543 times)

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Offline alacrity

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My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« on: August 05, 2012, 12:23:36 PM »
Fellow geezers will remember the lyrics to the Gilligans Island TV show theme... where they went for a "three hour tour" and ended up stranded on that fake desert island.  Well this "little weekend project" has blossomed and ballooned morphed into a far bigger deal than I estimated... by a lot.  I'm entering month 9 and am barring some error on my part or some undiscovered broken thing I missed along the way, I may actualy be nearing the end of the gestation period.  I think a Labor Day Weekend inaugural ride isn't out of the question.

The back story:
(some reprinted from the new member section).

After skulking around here and cherrypicking great info from the braintrust I stopped and thought, "I wonder if this is what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the internet?"

;-)

Seriously - a great wealth of info and a huge number of good people here.

I started this project because a friend of mine had taken this bike in on trade at his shop, thought about using it as a ratbike/shop bike, but then decided it was too slow for him.  So when I told him I wanted to do a resto-project (it had been a while since I've done a big project) and probably make a cafe racer, he pointed me to the snotter in the corner and the related boxes o' parts. It was pretty nasty and generally had the appearance that it must have spent most of the past 30 years (last registered in 81) at the bottom of a septic tank.   We made a deal and off I went.

I spent a week cleaning it.  Layers and layers of scum and hours of scrubbing... ugh.  I had never worked on a bike that smelled this badly.  Cars yes -- once I did an old Jag xj6 that had a noxious mix of old and new animal feces under the rear seat (whatever it was that was using the car as a toilet entered and exited via a large rust hole).

Anyway, after hours of janitorial work on this p.o.s., I determined that it would run (roughly, but ok), so I began the disassembly, the reorganization of stuff, the hours of online parts perusing and sourcing, ... those of you who've done it know what an amazing time-sucker these things can be.

And it has been a rewarding/fulfilling blast thus far.

Early on I decided that this was gonna be the first bike (or car) I was gonna do that wasn't about performance/speed. It's a cosmetic exercise mostly, with efforts being made to help with turning and stopping. Ergo I'm gonna leave the engine alone (it had 19k miles on it and while not perfect, has pretty good/even compression etc). I may someday decide to change the cam or up the bore or whatever, but for now, it just needs to run and go through the gears.


I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2012, 12:25:06 PM »
continued:
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2012, 01:03:50 PM »
continued
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2012, 01:06:42 PM »
continued
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2012, 01:23:10 PM »
continued

Getting the old races off wasn't super easy...
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2012, 01:32:47 PM »
continued - master cyl rebuild and polishing work
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2012, 02:00:35 PM »
continued
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2012, 03:00:07 PM »
continued
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline rb550four

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #8 on: August 09, 2012, 07:21:35 PM »
When you said the bike looked like it was in a sewer for a while, I expected something like this
 
or

This is how I usually find them ,I would be happy to have a project that was as clean as yours was.
  And I just wanted to say it is looking really nice now and I know it was allot of work ,nice job!
I was wondering about the first picture, is it beneficial  for brakes to switch the forks and attach the rim on backwards or was PO in a rush?
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 11:43:11 AM by rb550four »
A few Honda 500's, a few Honda 550's, a few Honda 650's, '72 cb 450, a couple 500/550/650 hybrids, and 2001 750. 
  550 Snowbike -Somebody had to do it.
  http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,101678.0.html             
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php/topic,137317.msg1550907.html#msg1550907

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2012, 11:33:26 PM »
Well the bike looked that nice because I spent about 4 hours washing it before photographing it amigo.

And I don't think the P.O. was in a rush. I think the guy I got it from got it from another guy who had it in boxes.  And when the guy I got it from assembled it, he sort of just figured it out -- didn't check books or in here etc.

It worked. It was just weird.

I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2012, 11:41:22 PM »
The old coils weren't good, and the wires coming out of them had been chewed up by rats or whatever the hell it is that eats japanese rubber.

Enter the Dynas.
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #11 on: August 22, 2012, 11:47:49 PM »
This was a nice "gift" from the P.O.   This is the main "hot" line that SHOULD be fused, but was just mashed together and wrapped with black tape.  There were no fuses on the bike at all.


So, I put in a fused link and tidy'd it up.

What else.  Oh yeah, the tank has already been painted (I needed to mock it up for matching seat vinyl and bridging the gap to the tank from the pan), and even though I got almost all the rust out of it, I decided to coat the innards with Caswell's.  This is great stuff, but it's clear, so it shows whatever you might have left under it.  They recommend covering the tank with gladwrap, then tin foil, then glad wrap again.  That's why it looks the way it does in the pic.  Do you think my wife will miss that plastic organizer box?  ha ha.
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2012, 12:10:32 AM »
Ok, makin' progress visually (not just the 9million little things that eat time but don't look impressive in pix).

I decided to go with the stock fork ears instead of some other way to hang the headlight -- mostly because the fork tube tops look like hell. I think they're way to messed up to clean up and I didn't wanna have to spring for new ones.  These are straight, just ugly, so the fork ears and gators will cover all that up.
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2012, 12:18:27 AM »
My old swingarm collar had been battered half to death by the lack of grease and bad old honda steel bearings.  I found a pretty clean one on ebay (thanks motoreno).

My rifle bore cleaning tool, some patches and hoppe's solvent worked like magic to get all the old crud out of the collar.

Then when it all was clean and freshly greased, the powdercoated swingarm with the new bushings and endcaps went on perfectly. I had to loosen the engine mount bolts (read that in a tip here earlier), and then it JUST BARELY/EXACTLY slid into place.  I lined up the holes with a screwdriver and then the big double zerk bolt just slid right through. Snugged it all up, greased it, loosened it all, worked the swingarm up and down 200 times, more grease, retorqued everything.

Oh and last thing - it has been so hot here that the milk crate melted. I wanna get this thing on its tires before the crate collapses any more.  :-)
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #14 on: September 16, 2012, 06:18:28 AM »
progress...
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline Spike

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #15 on: September 16, 2012, 09:39:07 PM »
Looking great!.  What part number did you find for the Progressive front springs?  I haven't seen a listing for a CB 500 anywhere.
Any road...anytime
IBA# 6154
'73 CB 500
Concours C14
BMW R100/7

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #16 on: September 26, 2012, 02:21:00 PM »
I used the springs for a cb550.  They seemed too long at first - and really I won't know if they're "right" till I ride the thing, but they seem to balance the damping circuit properly just boinging them in the garage.  I'm actually gonna write this up for a certain magazine... will provide links.

:-)
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #17 on: October 31, 2012, 09:02:23 AM »
moving forward... Engine is looking "right" to me...

rewiring and checking/cleaning all connections in the multi-colored spaghetti in the headlight bucket...

Found a really cool NOS custom chrome (made in japan) handlebar clamp from back in the early 70s.

The hollow bolts that came with these aftermarket bullet turnsignals are too short to go through the double wall frame sections... so I got some brass plumbing 1/8" "nipples" and re-threaded them to match the 3/8-16 pitch of the turn signal body.
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #18 on: October 31, 2012, 09:08:25 AM »
I hated the available aftermarket "breathers" -- which are just basically screens that drip crap on your engine.

So I took a page from the race prep book and decided to plumb in a catch can.

It's a cafe racer, right?  And a Japanese one... And it's black and brown.. so this can seemed quite appropriate.

:-)
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #19 on: October 31, 2012, 09:14:02 AM »
Dime city-sourced gauges (with proper mechanical internal process) and aforementioned NOS top clamp.

:-)

The gauges have TINY finicky little wires but it all works.

And I found this flasher unit at my local auto parts store -- see thru, solid state, $13. Works perfectly.
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #20 on: October 31, 2012, 09:19:32 AM »
I made a hybrid from the stock seat pan and an aftermarket tail section that was sent to me by a remarkably cool person in Wisconsin. 

My talented friend Louis Loyola (Loyola Auto Upholstery - 310-322-8789) who specializes in vintage hot rods but also does some bike work, did the seat pad and cover for me after I finished building the hybrid seat (yes it flips up and locks into stock receiver like stock.


I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #21 on: October 31, 2012, 09:20:13 AM »
My OTHER talented friend, Luis Lopez shot the bike with a custom rootbeer metalflake that I had mixed up at a custom paint shop from PPG bases.  We finished it with a few coats of semi-gloss clear.
I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline iron_worker

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #22 on: October 31, 2012, 11:14:22 AM »
I really like the detail work you did on the engine and carbs. Great ratio of polished to paint.

IW

Offline alacrity

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #23 on: October 31, 2012, 05:03:24 PM »
Thanks!   :D   Now I have a few more (dare I say it?) things to finish.

-small intermittent leak from #3 carb overflow tube.
-recheck valve gaps now that it has been run a few times.
-recheck static and dynamic timing.
-resync carbs (again)...

I recently restored and sold a 77 cb750f, and am nearly finished with a (former basket case) cb750k5.  This is a place to share, learn and enjoy.  I am grateful to and for 99+% of this site's membership.

Offline Mr.Paynter

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Re: My Cb500 project -- the continuing saga...
« Reply #24 on: November 02, 2012, 06:02:59 AM »
Looking gorgeous!
1973 CB500 K2 - needs a whoooole lot of work.
Some other, newer bikes.