Fresh meat!

[Loudo]

I put the crankcase cover back together last night. I tried out my grease gun with the new "needle point adapter" but it didn't work worth a damn (sorry Ed, I tried.) So I greased everything up real good while installing. Everything seemed to go back well, I bolted on the cover and reinstalled the muffler and adjusted the clutch play. Before I reinstalled the brake/footpeg assembly I placed the kickstart lever on the shaft to see if it worked. It doesn't move. Oops. So I've got something not right in there. A little project for tonight, it would appear.

I puzzled over this re-installation because when I originally pulled the cover off it seemed that the spring and associated gear were hung up a little bit and the spring went SPROING when I finally got it free. This got me thinking that there was a bit of "preload" or something in the spring I needed to set up while putting the gears back into the cover, but I couldn't figure out what if anything I should do. With everything put together I turned the kickstart gear to simulate the action of kickstarting the bike and the spring worked fine. I didn't see a reason why it wouldn't work but was sort of prepared for something not being right.

So now it's time for y'all to point out something obvious that I didn't do.

I don't plan on using the kickstarter, but I'd like it available if need be. The bakelite bushing is in need of replacement...the kickstarter is wobbling around in there a bit.

[Loudo]

False alarm...my kickstarter seems to work fine now. I had it indexed wrong and maybe that was the problem.


On to the electrical work...

[e3steve]

Cool bananas, Loudo. The usual mistake when putting the casing back on, your first time, is not rotating the kick shaft fully c/w, particularly if the motor has been run. Upon full c/w rotation it should 'ratchet' back to its parking position with little effort, by hand.

[Loudo]

Pulled both plugs, grounded them against the cylinder head, cranked the starter. Nice spark from the left side, nuttin at all on the right. Since I hadn't paid any real attention to the points other than staring at them for long moments at a time, I decided to start there before I gave any thought to the coils or condenser or whatnot.

I have to confess that I'm not real confident about adjusting the points. I've read emo's recipe enough times it's beginning to seem like I'm deserted on an island and it's the only piece of paper I was able to salvage from the ship. I've also pored over Bill Silver's restoration books, and Clymer, and Chilton's, and Glenn's Honda, and the Honda CB77 shop manual. In all of these publications all I've read is "clean the points and set the gap." These books apparently assume a guy knows what the hell he's doing. But it's never explained what the small screw is between the two screws that mount each point to the plate. I've been uneasy about just unscrewing things without knowing where I was going but I figured in this case to hell with that, I gotta get this show on the road.

So I unscrewed the breaker plate from the head and found one of the screws attaching the left side points to the plate was jammed solid (and cammed out.) To get at it I removed all the points parts, keeping track of all those hundreds of parts and the order they were installed. Got the stubborn screw out, removed the points base. That's when I found out the small screw actually has an eccentric base that rides in a slot. Evidently one is supposed to just slightly loosen the other two screws and turn this eccentric screw to set the gap.

The point faces themselves needed a good cleaning which I did and then put everything back together. Oh...I found something odd...the oil seal behind the breaker plate was intact but was wet with a little oil. It was a little proud of the hole and not tight...I teased it out carefully to take a look. It looks like a brand new seal. I'm wondering if it was a new one installed recently or perhaps a long time ago but not run much since. I cleaned the seat real well and reinstalled the seal with a thin layer of Hondabond.

[e3steve]

Good on you, Loudo -- The Learning Curve and self-teaching process makes it all worthwhile!

Don't omit lubing the oil pad; pull it from the slot with long-nosed pliers and dip it in some clean engine oil. Squeeze off the excess & slide it back into the forked bracket, ensuring it's making contact with the points cam.

Ed's recipe works, every time.

[Loudo]

I went through Ed's tuning recipe last night. My test light works fine, but I couldn't get it to fire at all when adjusting the points. The best I could do was to look and listen for the spark when the points open while slooooowly turning the rotor with my vise-grips. Got the right side points done and tightened the base plate, turned my attention to the left side. Now, the thing about the left side is that before I did anything to the points (all I had done was remove the cover plate) I noticed that the little adjusting screw was loose. It has a bunch of slop or "play" in it and after you tighten down the points base screws it just kind of flops around. No big deal, its job is done after the base screws are tightened down, but I just note that it's loose and the same screw on the right side is not. This makes sense if you realize that the left side is subjected to a whole lot more action than the right the way you gotta set the timing on this bike.

Anyway, I had a helluva time getting the gap adjusted properly on the left side. The problem was that because of the slop in the adjusting screw, the points were moving all over the place and if you went a little too far and wanted to move it back in the other direction you first had to turn it way back to get the slop out. Plus if you go "over the top" now the adjustment direction is reversed. It's not acting like it should, which is that the points would rotate around the center post which stays put. I'm probably not explaining this real well, but maybe you experienced folks know what I'm trying to say. At first the timing was a fair amount too far advanced, maybe an inch in front of the LF rotor mark. So I tried to retard the spark by turning the points clockwise, but even a small adjustment resulted in the points not closing at all. After a whole lot of trial and error I finally got them set properly but it wasn't pretty and not in a way, um, described in a book.

However, after all of this both of my spark plugs are sparking so I'll try to start it again tomorrow.

This thing with the test light not working, anyone have thoughts on that?

[e3steve]

Seems like yours could use a replacement backplate and/or adjustment cam-screw(s).

Regarding the test light: connecting it across the points (one clip to the terminal screw, the other to a head-fin) and with the ignition switch on will cause it to light when the points are open; when the points close, the test light is 'shorted' by the points themselves and will extinguish. It's a good idea to carry out the procedures with a trickle charger connected to the battery; it's only a tiddler and will deplete quite quickly.

I have tried the timing operation with the ignition off and with the head-fin clip on the battery positive terminal instead, thus alleviating the need to have the ignition on. However, the test light behaves differently: when the points are closed the light is on, but when the points open the light dims slightly as it's now 'in series' from the batt positive to ground via the LT connection of the ignition coil.

The latter method works best if you have the tank off and can thus disconnect the bullet connectors from the points to the coils/condensers. Alternatively, you could remove the terminals from the points, but it's a bit of extra messing about.