I like your attitude Chef, you'll do just fine. So, what's next?
BTW, Yolanda is my wife's best friend and she is hot!
thanks Stev-o! I try to be meticulous in everything I do. over detailed is better than half-assed in my book. there will be many frustrating nights. we all crave instant gratification and most of the time is doesn't come. I've already had three very frustrating moments and I've only owned the bike for 10 days!
next up I FINALLY got the carbs off. this took 2 hours. 2 hours of nonstop tugging. got some pb blaster on both sides of the boots, tried using rachet straps behind the carbs attached to the frame to pull the carbs off.....nothing. was about to give up. rocking them up and down and pulling constantly I was sure my hands were going to slam into the frame but nothing budged. I used a hair dryer to heat up the boots best I could and eventually got the #4 carb to slip out of its boot just barely and used leverage from a flattip screwdriver to carefully ease the boot off. then i gave one last up/down tug and off they came! whew. talk about frustrating!
against the better judgement of Stev-o and I assume many others I decided I want to deal with my carbs. its my bike now, and its my problem and duty to make sure they are clean. I wanted to know these inside and out and after much reading and following a VERY good guide (can't remember the link but it was a link from this site.) got them all apart and separated/labeled. I have a rebuild kit from cb750supply.com coming. I soaked each bare carb body (after careful dis assembly) in simple green and cleaned the outside with a toothbrush (the dollar store is my friend for stuff like this). all of the passageways seem clean...but that isnt good enough. I have a soda blaster and an ultrasonic cleaner coming my way. theyll be done when they are done
I do have a question about the floats though. mine looks brass colored but I'm pretty sure they aren't metal. how so I clean these safely and effectively? I also have a float height measure gauge? coming too.
a note: the PO had the #4 carb float needle upside down in the float valve. what a doofus. that carb has a whitish hazy inside compared to the other yellow/dark ones.
when I was reading about taking out the slides I thought my carbs were broken or different because the were not coming out. I had to eventually use a LOT of pb blaster and give the bottom of the slide a good leverage push with a flat tip screwdriver. I didnt damage or scratch anything in case anyone was wondering. this would explain why when I try to twist the throttle initially nothing really happened. those slides were so stuck in there they didnt move with the linkage? sorry about all these terms, I am still learning.
so right now the carbs are waiting to be properly cleaned and then reassembled. going to put the needle clip in the #2 position from reading in hondamans book. he said these K1's ran rich and leaning them out that way allowed the user to get better gas mileage and not foul plugs as easy (at least thats what I took from it).
now the second breakdown I almost had was changing the spark plugs. if you actually read this far you are thinking....whaaaaat? well the two outer ones were normal sized (I bought the cb750 spark plug wrench from cb750supply.) and I was able to get those out. cue the madness. the two middle ones were murdering my brain cells. they were not the same size as the outer ones.....I was barely able to reach aroun there to begin with. things are tight on this engine! and that mini a-frame there at the front. not friendly to long plug wrenches! thankfully my dad has a slew of plug wrenchs and deep well socket. I was able to find SOMETHING to get ones out after an hour or trying different ones and taking pictures trying to see down there myself.
then I had to get the other one out. it was not the same size. so now we are at 3 different sized spark plugs for a bike that has 4 spark plugs.....
I wanted to walk away and quit, I tried everything I had there. I even marked the top with a sharpie because I thought I got a wrench that fit and wanted to see it I was moving it. nothing. I kept thinking "what am I doing here. I can't even change spark plugs on my bike and i want to REBUILD it???" finally I revisited one that I guess fit and got it out. looking back I can laugh but it was so frustrating. here are the 4 plugs. none of which are recommended in the bike, and only 2 match....
now the most recent thing to depress me was the gas tank! I opened that thing up and my heart sank. I've seen all these thread where people open them and they look good, or even great. mine looked like it was warn torn Poland. rusty can't even begin to describe it.
after fighting the petcock! had to destroy the filter it was rusted and crudded over so badly. got to the inside and didnt even know there were two screws there to hold the petcock in. I'm telling you you couldn't see anything in the petcock. was able to remove the gunk and fins that there were two screws! pb blaster for an hour or so, then light tapping with my impact driver and finally got those out. no damage to the tank. so I did research and decided to try "the works". well I put it in there for an hour swishing it around and then poured it out into a container. my tank laughed and "the works" and told it to go work somewhere else. sigh. then I looked closer and there was this dark brown tar-like sludge in there. no clue what it was. feeling desperate and not wanting to go out and buy anything else (10pm) I dumped a whole can of aircraft remover in there. figured why not, the tank wasn't getting any better sitting there. carefully swished it around for about an hour open the cap every now and again to release vapors.
side note: my gas cap is not very tight. I know its not supposed to be air tight because then the gas wouldn't flow but when turned upside down and then flipped back right side up it will leak and drip down the sides. no clue if this is normal or not!
after swirling it around and then filling it up with water to rinse it out STUFF came out. I was so excited. looked back in there after rinsing and it appears to be some old crusty crust tank liner/coating. it was like the titanic in the ocean in there. I can see bare metal now so at least I know it CAN be cleaned!
needless to say I am happy. I did buy the K1 tank in the for sale section though because its much better than mine and it can't hurt to have two especially if its an exact fit.
here is a close up shot of how the chain guard is attached by the footpeg
here is the airbox. i ordered new boots and clamps for it as they werent there before. also got an air filter because there wasn't one in there. if it wasn't for the exploded parts diagrams i wouldn't have known there was one in there. silly I know, but I have no reference for things like this. question:
is there a gasket for the two parts of the airbox, or does it just seal by using the gasket on both sides of the air filter?
got my agm battery in! its not sealed yet because I wanted to do it myself, and not run the risk of getting one that sat on a shelf for x amount of time. also got a smart battery tender for it as well. did the best research I could. I got this one "Scorpion 12v 190 CCA Motorcycle Wet Battery with Acid Pack #sYB14L-A2"
my trusty hondaman book
well that's all for now. need to either fix my petcock, fix the one coming to me on the new tank, or buy a new one. then clean and rebuild the carbs, then get the battery in and wired up and hopefully fire. if not troubleshoot from there. thanks for reading.