New CB400/4 project

[Craig CB400]

Hi all

Well I have had my 1976 F2 for nearly 18 months now and it has been slow going on what has turned out to be a far bigger restoration than I originally thought. Bought the bike off eBay blind (not the wisest thing I know) but to be fair got it for a song. So it is my first restoration so it has already been a steep learning curve and after getting some good info from the site thought it was long overdue that I shared my toils.

So below is the bike as I bought it, complete apart from missing mudguards and chain guards, but with a useful selection of additional parts, some of which have been scrap but some quite usable.





The bike is now almost completely stripped and will put some additional pics and info up when I have 5 minutes, but wanted to say hi to everyone and look forward to sharing with you over what I hope is months but will probably be years

[haynes66]

that looks like a fun project! like you, my projects usually end up in years rather than months, so youre in good company.

[paul G]

Craig,
              Looks a good starting point especially with most of the bits.
I bought mine as a box of bits and thoroughly enjoyed the restoration process.
Money will as always dictate the time frame.
Good look 

[Nurse Julie]

Welcome to the forum Craig. Good luck with your project, it doesn't matter how long it takes as long as you get there in the end and enjoy it along the way.

[andut]

Good luck Craig - enjoy your rebuild and the satisfaction you'll get when it starts to go back together and then fires up for the first time !

Andy

[Chris400F]

Welcome Craig, from yet another 400 owner!
Good luck with the rebuild, as you will probably have already seen there is plenty of help and advice available here.
If blue is the original colour then the bike is an F, not an F2, but that's being pedantic!
If it is a UK bike then I believe F2 frame numbers start at 1096242 if that helps.

[paul G]

Welcome Craig, from yet another 400 owner!
Good luck with the rebuild, as you will probably have already seen there is plenty of help and advice available here.
If blue is the original colour then the bike is an F, not an F2, but that's being pedantic!
If it is a UK bike then I believe F2 frame numbers start at 1096242 if that helps.

Rear footrests on the frame F2 !!

[Nurse Julie]

Yep, I just looking at the photo and about to say the same Paul. Mine is an F2 and has footrests on the frame and not on the swinging arm, thank goodness!!. Whoever thought that was a good idea at Honda needs shoooooting 

[Chris400F]

Well, I hadn't planned to open a can of worms here but ....
Yes, it is true that the F2 had the pillion footrests on the frame but as far as I know this change was made part way through the production run of the earlier F version.
If you look at the Parts List there are actually three part numbers for the frame for UK bikes (area code E in the Parts List).
I don't know what the difference(s) is/were for the 'middle' number, but the final one was used on F and F2 models and I'm guessing that this was the one with the loops on the frame for the footrests.
And I'm pretty sure that for whatever reason all US bikes had the footrests on the swinging arm right to the end.
F2 models were distinguished by the Antares Red or Parakeet Yellow paintwork with stripes on the tank.

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[Nurse Julie]

You and your cans of worms Chris  . TBH, I have just been informed by him indoors, well him out in the workshop actually, that there is no definitive cut off point and it could be either / or.............so, that's me told then !!!!!

[Laverda Dave]

Welcome Craig. ANOTHER 400/4 owner, we do have good taste. Like you I bought my box of bits sight unseen on ebay although it was 90% there (plus the engine of a second bike) it was just the missing 10% that proved to be difficult!
My bike is also a F2 with a blue tank although my other F2 is yellow  .

[Rozabikes Tim]

Out to the garage tonight to my blue F / F2?? resto project for some detective work....

[Chris400F]

You and your cans of worms Chris  . TBH, I have just been informed by him indoors, well him out in the workshop actually, that there is no definitive cut off point and it could be either / or.............so, that's me told then !!!!!

I like worms Julie .... 

Here are some words on the different versions from the 400/4 History page on the DS web site. Looks like I picked up the engine number instead of the frame number in my first post on this.

"Confusion often arises over the two models that were produced. Earlier F models had a plain red or blue tank and side-panels running to frame number 1073399. The tanks only bore the words HONDA Super Sport, and the side-panel logo used a font wherein each character was represented by three parallel lines depicting 400FOUR. Up to frame number 1056883 F models had swing-arm mounted pillion footrests, but from then on the F models had the pillion footrests moved to frame-mounted brackets; it is often assumed that this feature only started with the F2 model but this is not the case. The F2 model commenced with frame number 1073400 and featured a new paint scheme: candy antares red or parakeet yellow. The new paintwork featured stripes on the tank and had a different, angular, font for the 400FOUR label on the side panels. The F1 model was not shipped to the United Kingdom or Europe and was a USA/Canade only model. It featured typically a plain yellow tank and black side-panels with the F-type early logo. Today it is not uncommon to see examples restored with F2-type paintwork but F-type logos on the side panels, or F-type early frames with F2-type paintwork."

Oh, and sorry for slightly hijacking your thread Craig. You'll find that sometimes happens on here!

[Drew400]

Hi Craig,

Welcome from me too.

Mine was a dirty, oily old runner that I turned into a box of bits... and then put it back together again. But not until I'd made loads of mistakes and received much help from members of this forum.

It's a great place to learn.

Enjoy!

D.

[Craig CB400]

Thanks for the warm welcome guys, no issues with the thread hijacking either, some interesting stuff there and proves I am still learning about the bike.

One of the key things for me which was decision made early on was not to rebuild but restore to try and keep the bike as original as humanly possible. Inevitably I have run into issues with this approach, but really wanted to keep the bike as it should be hence needing the full "nut and bolt" rebuild. As will be revealed however, that decision was not always as easy as it should have been and I did deviate from that approach, but for good reason.

Great to see so many other enthusiastic 400/4 owners as well, I feel pretty sure that I will be picking everyone's brains now the real fun has started, restoration and rebuilding