Topic: Sandcast #97 restoration

[markb]

After a long break I’m finally getting back into it. I have the correct head and cylinder now ready to install in E100. While I was at it I figured I might as well do three at a time. Here are the heads for E100, E748 and E1490. The head that’s in E100 now will go back where it belongs in E1789. I had the heads vapor blasted by Nils at RestoCycle. Great work, very pleased. All three had complete valve jobs too.


Here’s E100’ head. You can see the where the missing spot faced holes are as outlined above. It had to have the tapped hole just to the right of the #2 intake valve repaired. If you look at the picture above you might be able to see it where the gasket surface was broken away.


It had to be welded, machined and helicoiled.

[markb]

The cylinder for E100 had a broken fin and had been bored to 1mm oversize. As I said that’s why I chose not to use it. But since the engine is coming apart for the original head I’m fixing the cylinder too. Here’s a couple of shots of the broken fin.


It broken off pretty deep so there was no way to weld on a replacement fin.


I had my welder build up layers to fill it in.


There was a lot of material to remove. At first I could only get a skinny file in so it took a while. I think I had 6 hours into it by the time I was done.


Here’s the finished product.


It’s not painted here but after I got it painted you can’t tell.


I had it resleeved and rebored too. And like the heads As long as I was doing it I did E748 and E1490 too. After I get 97 put back together I’m planning on assembling E748, E1490 and E1789 at the same time.

[Prospect]

I hadn't noticed that either.  I'll take a look at my E106 and give it a closer look.  Interesting.

What do you use to form the fin into shape?

[kmb69]

VERY nice work on that fin repair.

[Old Scrambler]

Nice Repair Indeed

HONDA is sponsoring the 2019 AMA's Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid-Ohio and will be looking for display bikes.........one or more may be asked to stay a while at the AMA museum near Columbus, Ohio.

[markb]

What do you use to form the fin into shape?

Just hand files and elbow grease.

[markb]

HONDA is sponsoring the 2019 AMA's Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid-Ohio and will be looking for display bikes.........one or more may be asked to stay a while at the AMA museum near Columbus, Ohio.

I've been thinking about going. The only problem is in the summer I do fishing charters on Lake Superior and that's my busy time of year. Nothing booked for that weekend yet but I should get serious about deciding.

[slikwilli420]

Nice Repair Indeed

HONDA is sponsoring the 2019 AMA's Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid-Ohio and will be looking for display bikes.........one or more may be asked to stay a while at the AMA museum near Columbus, Ohio.

Thats awesome! I go every year anyway. Would be neat to have my racer on display though Im not sure I could let it stay behind as it still has a specific job to do, race!

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

+1 Great job on the fin repair.

[754]

What differences do you see between those 3 heads ?

[markb]

The only difference I can see is the missing spot faced holes on the E100 head. As I said earlier I missed that difference when I "carefully" looked them over before. Before I put them all back together I am going to look them over one more time to see if there is some other minor detail that I missed.

[MauiK3]

Wow, what nice work. What luck having that many low number engines.
Love the photos.

[markb]

Wow, what nice work. What luck having that many low number engines.

Thanks. There were a lot of hours of searching. The luck came when I found them. 

[markb]

If I would have done it right the first time I wouldn't have to do what I'm doing now. Oh well. It didn't take me long to decide that I had to do it. Just took me a while to get to it. 

The engine is out. This is just to document that it was, in fact, removed from the frame. Including removing everything that has to be removed first it took me about 4 ½ hours. It could have been 4 hours but I was taking it real slow so I wouldn’t ding anything.


And the wheels are off too. I need to have them redone with the correct spoke nipples. 

[Tews19]

Mark, have you ever scratched the frame and had to touch it up? Or do you simply PC the frame and all the frame parts?

[markb]

The frame is painted. So far I've managed to get this engine in and out with minimal scratches using padding on the frame. The main damage is where nuts and lock washers broke away some of the paint. They will be mostly covered again at reassembly. But yes I have scratched frames and had to do some touch up. Usually pretty unnoticeable. 

[Stev-o]

Nice work as usual...

[Don R]

 I've done a couple fin repairs like that, nice work, it looks really good. 

[bek1966]

New to this site.  What a fantastic project - thanks for sharing!

Brad

[MauiK3]

Markb
I’ve read this whole thread twice. It’s addictive to say the least.
I think you said at one point you were not going to ride it much, are you going to keep 97?
I’m sure you’d be a careful seller if you did sell it. It would be a shame for it to be abused.
What a magnificent restoration. It’s sad what came of many of the early 750’s: cheap choppers, botched customs, etc.
To my eyes, Honda has made several bikes that are works of visual art in stock form:
Early CB750
Early CBX
75 Gold Wing, not quite as attractive as the other two but still great.
What a tribute to your skill and perseverance.
Merry Christmas

[MauiK3]

I forgot the 400 four, pure art.

[markb]

I think you said at one point you were not going to ride it much, are you going to keep 97?

Thanks for the compliments. I need to get it running and hear it at least once but no I won't ride it much. As far as keeping it I'm not in any hurry to sell it but if someone came along with the right offer I would help him load it. 

[markb]

Before I swap the head I decided to split the cases to check out the kick starter. I used plenty of padding to protect from damaging the cases.


Something was causing it to lock up. I confirmed that it was assembled correctly and it worked with the cases apart. I took the assembly apart and comparing the parts to others I have everything looked fine. The only thing I could think of was I had not put any grease on the shaft where it goes through the clutch cover.


I put it back together with different parts and installed a new pawl spring. The only other thing I did was polish the ends of the shaft and lubricated them before reassembling. Then I put it all back together and installed the clutch cover and now it works fine. Could it have been that the shaft was binding in the clutch cover because it was dry?  I could have saved myself a lot of work but I had to be sure.

[markb]

Ok, I might have a change of plans. My next project was to swap the head and cylinder and put in the originals. I was going to put in the o-rings on the bottom of the cylinder and something didn’t look right. So I dug out the cylinder from E748 to compare. The bottom of the sleeves are different. E748 is on the left and E100 is on the right. Besides fixing the fin I had to have the cylinder resleeved and rebored because it had been bored to 1mm over. I’ve got to start paying closer attention.


Externally the E100 cylinder looks the same as the cylinder that’s on E100. So I’m thinking do I want to be correct or original? If this were the only original part on the engine that would be one thing. Clutch and transmission are not original. If you’ve seen earlier posts you know why. The other thing is I tried removing one of the rubber inserts between the fins. The nibs broke off. I think I have just enough to do the head but definitely not another cylinder. Maybe I could find some more. Maybe they would only cost $100. Bottom line is I’m thinking of only swapping the head. I have to do that to be correct.

[MauiK3]

Tough decision but if you eventually want to sell it, the closer to correct and original it is I think the higher the value.
Might be hard to get both all at once.