A few months ago I picked up a '78 CB550K that I'm slowly getting road worthy for a friend as her first bike.
As I've never owned one of these bikes (or any Honda for that matter), I've had to rely on the help you guys and others have offered.
Through a few missteps and advice from you, I've just about got it running for good.
I replaced the whole points plate, because I just couldn't get the 2/3 ass'y timed. At idle, those cylinders wouldn't even fire. Popped in the new plate, with new points, and it fired up perfectly. Both sets work like a charm. Timed it manually, checked it with a timing gun at speed, and it's just about spot on.
Had some troubles with the carbs. The choke kept getting stuck--it wouldn't actuate. Took the advice of one of the folks here to make sure the blades were tracking straight--found out yesterday one of them was off, so it was rubbing inside the throat. Realigned it, and bam!, it works. Heck, it starts on the first kick.
I don't have air filters for it yet (gonna go with pods to make accessing the carbs easier), so I can't quite tune it perfectly, but I don't see that being too difficult when they get here.
Tomorrow my best friend and I are going to put new rubber on it and service the brakes. I put in a new clutch cable some time back, and that works like butter.
The last major 'addition' will be new throttle cables, as these take a lot of effort to work.
Again, thanks to all of you that helped! I really appreciate it, and so does the owner of this soon-to-be--running bike!
