fitting the camshaft or not!

[mike the bike]

The camshaft has got to be on the head bearings, the sprocket off the shoulder on the cam to fit the chain and then lifted onto the shoulder.  To get the timing right it's got to come off the shoulder, moved on link by link until it's right then put back on the shoulder.
Hope this helps.

[billdn]

Thanks for advice peeps! Finally got cam chain off -who says brute force doesn't work ! And proceeding to re install without the Haynes manual 🏍

[royhall]

Haynes manuals are rubbish, they dont do anything the Honda way. They appear to just get any johnny that works on bikes to blow the engine apart then try to figure out how it goes back together. Try to remember that these were built on a mass production basis where things need to assemble easily, if your needing force your doing it wrong so dont carry on. As said previously, cam has to be on its bearings which requires sprocket to one side of cam and chain off the sprocket. Do it that way its dead easy. You could use your haynes manual for lighting the barbecue over the weekend. Download the genuine Honda manual off Ashimoto's dropbox link. Good luck.

[Clem2112]

They can be "wrong" , it has been said
Some of the Haynes books are ok especially the car ones which you can pick up for sod all on ebay !

Page 17 of the genuine Honda Shop Manual for the CB350-400F is very brief on camshaft installation so presumably there is another generic SOHC manual with photos and words to supplement this?
The disassembly instructions (p 13) do however instruct to remove the sprocket and chain then the chain from the sprocket, then pull the camshaft from the RHS.

[AshimotoK0]

Haynes manuals are rubbish, they dont do anything the Honda way. They appear to just get any johnny that works on bikes to blow the engine apart then try to figure out how it goes back together. Try to remember that these were built on a mass production basis where things need to assemble easily, if your needing force your doing it wrong so dont carry on. As said previously, cam has to be on its bearings which requires sprocket to one side of cam and chain off the sprocket. Do it that way its dead easy. You could use your haynes manual for lighting the barbecue over the weekend. Download the genuine Honda manual off Ashimoto's dropbox link. Good luck.

Funny Roy because I think the old Haynes manuals are quite informative (rubbish modern ones though) and can be a nice supplement to the genuine Honda ones.. I built 2 400/4 engines using on the Haynes manual in the 1980's and several 250K engines and never had a problem with them. That included using them to work out the crank bearing codes for the 400/4 ..I then went to the local 5-star dealers and he just scratched his head and couldn't check my sums,  so I just told him to order them , fitted them and they Plastigaged fine. The Honda manuals too have glaring errors if you check closely enough and they evidently had an army of Jap graduates queuing up to write the CB750 manuals.

[billdn]

Thanks for advice - prized chain off and after removing head again found chain not on crank fully. After that plain sailing.