Apologies for the extra long post. It’s been awhile since I updated here It’s rainy, chilly for Texas, and I feel the urge to just sit in front of the computer for awhile.
My friend Mike and I finally got some paint shot Sunday, got all the blue done. It’s so beautiful, I’m thinking I need to get some white cotton band gloves to wear so I don’t leave fingerprints on it. We decided not to attempt using Imron. Mike doesn’t have a “space suit” and the stuff is apparently pretty deadly without an outside breathing air source. Not to mention pretty darn expensive. We used a Dupont three part paint/reducer/catalyst, invoice calls it AEAMIX 04, #63203 blue and #45040 silver.. Guys at paint shop recommend letting it set up a week or so for maximum hardness, so I’m at a stopping place ‘til next week.
Everything else is about ready to go. Rebuilt engine is sitting in living room, along with rebuilt front fork tubes, wheels, and everything else I can’t stand to leave outside on porch. Where am I going to keep park bike after it’s put together? Good question, but for now I’m keeping anything that could rust or tarnish inside.
Brakes are rebuilt, hubs, rims and other shiny parts are shiny as they’re gonna get this time around. Ed’s suggestion of oily steel wool got about 80% of rust off rims, polishing with Autosol got most of the steel wool scratches out, so they look ok. Have to keep reminding myself this is a rider. Just have to park it with rust spots up.
I’m working on getting wheels tuned up a bit so spokes don’t sound so much like a xylophone when dinked on. Tone deaf as I am, I’ve got ‘em all within an octave or so at this point, gonna try going around one more time. It’s frustrating, as tightening in any one place seems to change tension on all the other spokes as well. My jury rigged “truing stand” with one end of axle on table and other end flying from wire from ceiling reveals minimal runout and out-of-round (less than 2mm), which Ed says is just fine.
I’ve been back to Kerrville twice since last post here. I’m so lucky to live within striking distance of such a resource. First visit in early December was about 50-50 sandblasting, mostly finished on this trip, and just visiting with Ed. I really enjoyed hanging out in his shop and watching him work. I’m too ignorant to get much out of it technically/mechanically, but attitude-wise, very educational. I watched him rebuild a couple of starters, a job he really enjoys. By the time he gets done with a starter it’s mechanically perfect and sandblasted/painted and cosmetically as good as it can get. For a really reasonable price, too. Somebody sent him a pair of carbs they couldn’t get to work, and he diagnosed the problem immediately after getting the bowls off. “Floats set wrong,” he said, “not getting any gas, no wonder it wouldn’t run.” Also discovered the slides were reversed, ie left slide in right carb and vice versa. Seems like he replaced one of the banjos too, can’t remember why. At any rate, it took him about half an hour, and I bet that guy was really happy to get them back.
I talked about rebuilding one front fork tube in earlier post. We did second one on this trip and it was much harder. Those knock pins just wouldn’t come out. Ed ended up taking a bowl-shaped stone on Dremmel tool and grinding off the peening around outside of pins. Then he took a “special tool” (see pic) and knocked them out from inside, pounding pretty darn hard. Pounded his finger at one point, it was black the next day. Sorry, Ed. With the pins out, the rest was a piece of cake, for him anyway.
Next trip in early January finished up blasting on a few parts, rebuilding brakes, welding a couple of cracks on frame, removing, lubing, and replacing wheel bearings, lubing speedo drive, playing with horn to make it work, and getting through my extensive list of parts needed. Also picked up finished (and beautiful) rebuilt engine, with rebuilt carbs and starter installed. Lots of new internal engine and transmission parts including new clutch and 4x oversized pistons, rings, sleeves (was already 2x from unfortunate lean-running incident back in the day.) Ed says it should go another 20k miles easy if I take care of it.
I bought a lot of other parts from Ed. Here’s just a partial list: New headlight bucket. Right side air cleaner cover and transmission cover, both with “HM” knobs. Chain guard (he welded brackets to my swing arm to hold it). Oval carb to replace square carb it mysteriously had, darn Honda shop. Exhaust pipes (my best one was not too good, and was from a Dream, ditto Honda shop comment).
Also new front and rear tires and brake shoes. A fuel petcock body. Air cleaners with brackets and rubber bumpers and a pair of serviceable tubes to go to carb. No springs. Triple tree top part (I’d broken off one handlebar mount screw, botched the extraction which was probably hopeless anyway.)
Headlight switch. Three steering stem races and a bunch of ball bearings to replace ones lost when I removed steering stem without knowing what I was doing. New front and rear drive sprockets. Front brake lever and one chain adjuster to replace ones off a CB160 and 350, respectively, darn Honda shop again. (That’s not quite right, clutch lever was off 160, replaced with one of two I got on ebay for too much thinking I was buying a set of levers, not two clutch levers, darn ebay, darn seller, mostly darn me for not paying closer attention description and pix.) Anyway, also got a clutch lever perch with threads for mirror (I still think mine came with unthreaded perches and no mirrors, I remember replacing broken unthreaded brake lever perch with a threaded one but Ed says that’s impossible. He’s always right, so I’ve got a little cognitive dissonance going on this.)
Ed made me a new throttle cable (from bars to splitter, rest was ok) out of a long one he had for a Dream. He used the old one for a pattern, so we know it’s the right length. I got a good seat pan (cover and foam not so good) to replace my rusted out one. Couldn’t afford the trim strip, Ed is very proud of these, so he cut the bolts off and hung it up with the dozen or so he already had. He cut the “Honda” logo out the back of the seat and saved it, too, for some reason.
Oh, a biggie: beautiful set of rebuilt, rechromed rear shock cores. I think Ed was just showing off when he brought these out, they really belong on a show bike. One of my few extravagances. He also sold me a set (not matching) of used upper covers for them which now look great after blasting, priming, a little bondo and filler, and painting blue. I really didn’t like those black plastic ones, they weren’t original anyway. Somebody must like them, there’s a set of NOS ones going for big bucks on ebay now, but I think they’re ugly. The lower shrouds had to go to chromer, something I was trying to avoid, but I took the opportunity to send along a few more bits and pieces to shop in San Antonio that Ed recommended. Their prices seem super reasonable. One of old lower shrouds was pretty ugly, I’m hoping for one good side.
What else? A battery, wet and ready to go. Rear footpeg rubbers. Handlebar grips. Some swingarm seals and bushings. Misc. screws, nuts and bolts, some shiny and expensive.
Where else could I get all this in one place? It wasn’t cheap, even with the very friendly prices Ed gave me. I paid (for parts and labor) a little over four times what I paid for the bike in ’63, and worth every penny. Woulda paid more. Thanks so much again, Ed, I’ll be seeing you sometime in next few months, looking forward to taking a ride with you and buying that almost-new headlight trim ring. --Lee
cb-77 restoration
Rainy day in front of the computer
Last edited by jleewebb on Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
more updateHere are more pix to go with last post. Still drizzly in central Texas.
Even more pixHere's some more.
blue sampleSince you just can't wait, here's a sample. It looks a little darker on bike, like shade I remember. Parts are at painters curing, I'll post some real pix when I get them back. Chromer called this am, parts are on way. So I guess next week I'll start putting it back together. Really looking forward to that. Thanks for your support. --Lee
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