Starting Honda cafe bike build today

Did you buy it?
The 1978 was the last year of the SOHC engines and it had the most improvements in the engine. Twenty improvements.
Same as my 1978.
Larger cylinder head studs. Bigger valves. Higher gear ratios 4th and 5th.
Wider cam chain galley. Bigger clutch springs. Accelerator pump on the carbs.
Longer swing arm.
More cooling fins on the cylinders and crank case.
Pistons now 9.2:1 compression.
Better cam chain.
Bigger rod bolt and bearings.
New clutch basket.
New design valve guides.
Bigger oil passages.
3 part piston rings for the oil ring.
New design valve guide seals.
New design cylinder head.

 

From the very beginning I have worked on the seat and tank look.
I have altered the frame for a 1980's seat.

 

Wish I had the spare cash on hand for it. Maybe if no one buys it then after a payday, maybe.

Are you going to clean up the lines of that tail section? More squared off? I love the bikes, the guy your basing your design off of creates. It is this one isn't it? Steve Carpenter. He makes some wicked clean stuff.

http://www.cb750cafe.com/

 

I like that motorcycle that you posted but I am not basing my design on "Carpy''s
Motorcycle design. I do like his designs.

In the racing world the style road racing seat I am using was very popular and was first used by Don Vesco, I believe on a Yamaha. It would take some research to verify that thought. but I believe that is where it may have come from.

I am letting the parts I have take me to where it takes me. The choice of colors is the same and is also a very common them in auto racing. Gold frame - black body.

Don Vesco design below.

 

Its strange that when you start a project you have an idea what you want but you know you will have to learn every single thing about a particular engine and frame before it is all over and all of the little nuances, but you plunge into it anyway.

Then part way through the project anything can happen in your life, and you try to keep that project going no matter what kind of chaos is around you.

This time it was my plan on sending the engine across the united states, my van blowing up, Learning every single Honda CB750 website and parts supplier, Coming up with more dough, and getting sick for 3 weeks but.... the project is still moving closer to the finish line.

The next holiday posts should be very interesting.

Exhaust installation.
Front master cylinder saga.
electrical mystery finished.
kickstand adventure.
Gas tank and seat mounting
Lights.
Mirrors.
Start up and carb adjustment.

This is where I started:


BELOW- six months later.

 

And we're enjoying every minute of it DB.

 

op2:

Waiting for dah front "massa-cylinder" rebuild and dah "side/kickstand saga" as I have some fond memories of these two things (sarcasm)

Love the pictures Donald!!!

 

Christmas 2011 photo.

Started in July now it is December. Not bad -I think.
In this photo it only shows that the carbs are on finally.
The carbs have one .022 shim under the needles.
Accelerator pump and nozzles all working.
Slides machined down .007 thousandths.
New push in standard idle jets. #35 (mm)=.014 thousandths.
Larger main jets.
It will have 4 into two into 1 exhaust with muffler and velocity stacks with screens and foam filters.

 

Mmmm... lookin' very tasty indeed there DB. 2012 is gonna rock!

 

Sooooo Donald is this fine piece of machinery going to be a keeper? Or is it going to be orphaned off at a later date? Sure will be a nice looking unique classic bike.

It should either be ridden the snot out of or put in a private collection and only taken out a few times a year. Can't wait to see it finished. Keep the photos coming.

On another note: those Christmas pics of you and your wife. There's only one questions. Hippies in the 60's???? I could see it.:hippie:

 

Christmas pics...

During the 1960's I was in Okinawa working as a jet engine mechanic in the US. Air Force.
I was working on C-130's.
My wife was born in 1958 so in 1968 she was just 10 years old.
She is a school teacher now with 10 years experience.
She was teacher of the year last year.

 

I got that master cylinder rebuild completed after getting the correct year of
parts ( 1978 CB750K) and the correct tool.
The special right angle deep snap ring plier is absolutely essential on this job.

To clean the cylinder bore I used a piece of thick rubber 1/4 fuel hose
and wrapped the outside with 600 carburundum sand paper soaked in WD40.
Then I chucked it into the drill press with just slight pressure.
It did a good job.
Photo below is what the piston and seals looked like as it was removed.

Below is the cylinder bore and you can see how far down it is to that step where the snap ring sits.

When I got it rebuilt and on the bike it pumped up immediately but I had to re drill the vent hole in the bottom of the fluid container because it was so clogged with hardened debris.

Below is a pic of the vent hole that got clogged solid and had to be drilled out.
Not even a steel guitar string could push through it. Once I re-drilled this hole the master cylinder immediately filled with fluid and was easy to bleed etc.,.

 

Damn, sounds like a tedious and difficult job. Congrats on the success of it.

 

Thanks Supertex!
I did not mind the job ,I just do not like handling the brake fluid.

 

I took the bike off of the jack stand and will be putting on the side stand and the exhausts. The bike stands at about 29 inches high at the seating position.

 

Nice looking shocks. Good pic on the colors. I hope they work as good as they look once adjusted to your liking. I had twin Fox shocks on the back of my 79 CB750F and they really made a difference.

Now tell me how you got that bike to stand alone like that. Is the rear tire a little soft I see. Or are we going to have to call you Kreskin? Nice balance by the way.

 

Old school. The handle bar grip is touching the wall.
Just like we used to do with our bicycles.

 

I gave up trying to use cir-clip pliers in the past and used a pick/awl/fancy pick awl...Sears sells some of these convertable pliers which I happen to own, not the greatest tool mind you cause the pins are inter-changeable and they cant compare with regular cir-clip pliers meant for what ever specific application your doing. I have used the sears ones on a few occasions with ok results.

I got a shop magnifier with one of those round fluorencent lights, and man, I gota tell you its great! I did a master cyclinder re-build and looked at the bore after disassembly and found the same junk in that little hole. After thorough cleaning it looked as good as new. Anywhooo> Love the pictures Donald...keep up dah gud verk ; )

 

Yeah I'm not a fan either. Damn stuff is so corrosive.

 

The snap ring pliers that I ordered from Parts-N-More were made just for doing this master cylinder.

The quality of these snap ring pliers was VERY good . They were not like some of the of the junk that is sold .
I highly recommend these pliers for this job.

They looked high quality and felt high quality.

I took apart two master cylinders, and put two master cylinders together.
The tool made the job very easy.