Mine was a mess when I bought it, like usual, beaten, run hard and put away wet. PO did some work to it, all wrong, also usual. I did clean the carbs ,new plugs, oil , the usual stuff.... got it running and sync'd the carbs properly hoping the tapping sound would go away. It didn't, but even so I wanted to feel it on the road to see if I thought that I might be able to like it as much as the rest of the 550s around here, immediately notice that there was no lack of power by comparison , even with with an engine issue.
Tinkered a bit more with it ( but not enough to blow it up) and it only got faster. I notice that top gear was a little less exiting than the rest of them leading up to it ,went on line and asked the night hawk guys what was up and found out about the differences between the 550 and 650 gearing and 650 implant potential. I hate the handle bars, so I had an extra set that are lower and put them on....there hasn't been a decent set of stock bars on a Honda since 1979 650 as far as I know..
Yes , I have that manual and did read bleeding the lifters, I just haven't done it yet cause I was distracted with the idea of 84 650 engine transplant with improved gears, and for some reason work always gets in the way of a better time that could be spent with motorcycles. but it's still on the list of things to do.
Your machine is coming along nicely.
