Trainwreck

Replaced the intake rubbers last night. No wonder it wasn't running properly, the old ones were installed incorrectly and that had damaged them. With the new ones the engine is running a lot better.

So this morning I started working on the steering bearings. D*mn what a mess... At least half of the ball bearings were missing at the lower bearings, a few at the top. The lock nut was missing at the top and where the locknut was supposed to be the thread was damaged. The bottom of the pin was damaged too because of the missing ball bearings. On top of that the pin turned out to be to short, so I'll have to find a new one somewhere. Unbelievable. This guy should get a restraining order to never ever get any closer that 50 meters from a toolbox. Pretty sure he rode it this way....

The idiot.

yay or nay?

Started this morning by loosely fitting the fairing.

Had to make an all new frame for it

and a few hours later:

Still some work to do and not entirely convinced it looks all that much better than without the fairing.

Was he serious?

And he is the previous owner. I wanted to replace the worn brake line in one of the pictures in the previous post, but ended up replacing the whole front brake. And don't forget that he thought it would be fine to ride the bike without the rear brake installed.

Before I started:

This is one of only two bolds holding the brakes in place. It's supposed to be held in place by 4 and this one wasn't tightened correctly, it was bend and as you can barely make out in the photo: about to shear off. Incredible....

This is the reservoir cap. All the missing pieces of rubber are in the brake lines somewhere. So I replaced all the brake lines.

Had a 'new' brake cylinder and new blocks at hand.

One of my better investments:

And the end result. The bike is a lot lighter to push and the brake handle a lot stiffer.

Not entirely happy with how the brake lines are running now, but I'll first need to find some clip ons before I can sort it out.

Priority list

I'm trying to get the CB on the road before I do any (possibly unnecessary) more work. So I made a to do list.

The carbs... I cleaned them and now it's running on all 4 every time I start, but it's also running way too high and the rpm's don't drop fast enough. I need new intakes (ordered) and new air filters (still need to find those)

The Brakes: Well, this brake line obviously isn't too safe anymore. To make it worse a few nuts and bolds are missing form the front brake and the rear brakes isn't hooked up at all! I've already got new brake lines, but I'll have to find the link rod of the rear brake. The previous owner thought it would be better to leave that out and use the space for the exhaust....

The electrics. It starts, but kick only. And that's all the electrics that work. No lights, no horn and no idiot lights. Especially the latter might be wise for me to have ;)

The exhaust. It ain't pretty, but it'll work for now. I need 4 clamps though. I'll be looking for a 4 into 2 exhaust in the meantime.

The only thing I really need to do that's not in the photo's are the steering bearings. Already ordered those. It's a job I really don't like doing, but it's also really necessary.

 

That's all I found so far. Could have been a lot worse :)

Possibilties

I see many, this is one of them:

Still had the fairing, never came around to mount it on the CX and I think it looks better on this CB. Also borrowed the seat of the KZ of a few posts back.  

New Project!

And it's hiding in here:

I wanted a bigger bike that could easily do highway speeds with a passenger. I preferred a twin, I just like twins. I guess it doesn't count as a twin whe it has 4 cylinders, but only two are running?

That's what the add said: running on only two. I like a challenge, so I went and had a look, 20 minutes later I'd bought a 1972 Honda CB750 K2:

It looked very rough and when I got there it was only running on 1 cylinder and leaking fuel. Took em those twenty minutes to get it on 3 and left the fourth one to do at home. Picked the bike up this morning and had a much better and longer look.

The overall impression I had when I had the first look was that is is a pretty shabby bike, I'm sure you'll think the same after looking at the photo with the whole bike in it. And sure enough: lot's of things are shabby, look at the chain for instance, or the exhaust. Or the paintjob. But the more I looked at it, the more I started seeing things that are actually a lot better than I remembered after seeing the bike for the first time. The engine is badly painted, but it won't be a hard job to remove that paint. A lot of the chrome still is very nice, like the rims and the front fender. The frame actually is really nice.

Took me only a couple of minutes and 1 kick to get the 4th cylinder to fire. You can hear it starting to join the rest of the cylinders at the end of this clip.

Pretty sure I'm going to have a lot of fun with this bike. I want to get it running first and than I'll see what I'll do about the looks and all.

It's better in the wind

Check out their blog here

Look what I found in my garden

Nice bike, isn't it? It's a '74 Kawa KZ 400, unfortunately not mine. I'm doing some minor fixes to it for someone else. Really love the (rough) looks of this bike, very wrenchmonkey-ish.

In other news: I sold the Suzuki, it was picked up last Saturday. That means I'm looking for something else now, this time with a few demands: The bike must be able to comfortably do highway speeds with a passenger. And it needs to be low budget of course.

For Sale

The Suzuki. It's for sale. Every time I plan on taking the Suzuki I end up on the BMW anyway. The Suzuki is just a mode of transport for me, While the BMW even made me sing in my helmet all the way to my mother in law's house (for her birthday).  So it's for sale, if you want a really cheap bike.

So what's next? Can't stop building of course, I'm addicted. Right now I'm looking into Suzuki GR650's. In the mean time I'm just enjoying the short pleasant moments in between the time I spend on doing the slave work the university apparently wants me to do. 

Intermezo

 Some pics