1967 CB450K0 Black Bomber Rebuild - By Royhall

[MCTID]

Commiserations Roy ! I have experienced similar problems too. Even my lovely Missus thought I was watching the England Football Team on the TV going by the amount and ferocity of my swearing ! She said 'She has never heard so many swear words in one sentence....and all ending in ING' ! Read a thread in the morning....spend a good 15 minutes constructing a response to something.....spell check it two or three times (cos I'm anal about typos and grammar) press SEND and it chucks me out cos my Day's sign limit (from my last sign in) has expired !!!!!!!!!!!

Now I copy all the text before I do anything else.........but it's not a problem with Photos as I still can't attach any pics even after 5 years on this great Forum, and I have lost the will to live trying to solve it !!!!!

LOL (as they say).

[royhall]

Now I have the photo's sorted back to the main event.

The bike is now fully apart down to virtually every last nut and bolt. It's always surprising how such a simple bike has so many parts, all of which require some sort of cleaning or refurbishment. To sort out the bits I have five boxes ready marked Powder Coating, Painting, BZP, Polishing, and Chroming. After I have cleaned everything that needs cleaning they are sorted into what's required and placed in the correct box.

Don't know how you other guys keep track of all the bits but I do it with photographs. That way I know what's gone to each person for work and how many parts there were. I do the same when they return so I know if anything is missing, and most of all I can prove it and supply a picture of what they have to search for.

Here's a few examples of what I mean.

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I also take the photo idea a step further on dismantling each assembly. As you probably realise, when the parts end up in the chroming etc boxes they are now a jumbled up jigsaw. Unless you are doing this type of bike day after day it is going to be difficult to say what part goes on what assembly. It usually ends up taking ages going through the parts book to identify each piece. It can be slightly tedious to do at the time but I do it this way and it always pays off. I have one of these pictures for every assembly.

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Keeping track of the parts is a bit uninteresting but well worth the trouble. Sometimes though I get so hooked up with what I'm doing I forget to take the pictures. It's only when I went through the photographs yesterday to shink them I realised I don't have a picture of the parts I sent to the painter. So the system is not perfect.

The clocks don't look too bad but unfortunately the bezel is in need of re-chroming. So as usual I sent the combined speedo/tachometer to Pete Horton as he has done a top job for me many times before. I'm hoping that there is not too much wrong with the clocks as they will be hard to replace and expensive. Plus these are the original clocks off the bike so have the correct mileage showing.

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Peter has now stripped the clocks and reports back that they are in great condition and just need cleaning and lubrication. Has is going to re-do the BZP to the casing and brackets and has sent the bezel back to me. The bezel has now gone out with the rechroming.

Everything is now with the various disciplines for refurbishment and it will probably be about 3 months before it all returns. In that time I have got some smaller sub assemblies I can get on with, but at some point I am going to be waiting. Shame they haven't all just come back as by the time were out of lockdown I would have been riding a new bike.

[AshimotoK0]

Great progress Roy .. keep the photos' coming as I am still sorting out the parts for mine  and your pics help me identify stuff. For instance I have a box of kickstarts that came with my bike in boxes  but hard to identify which one is a correct '67 Bomber one  .. but I know now, as you have pictured one. The original gear lever was tubular but always got bent .. that's why most  generator covers are gouged or cracked. All of the ones I got with my parts stash were bent to some degree but a member on here gave me a nice one for my bike. You are welcome to my damaged one if I can find it .. I was considering repairing it until a member kindly gave me a realy nice one.

Peter just recently returned my bomber clock and made a fantastic job of it seeing as it was originally a mis-marked (CB72/77) auto jumble bargain that I got for £20. I didn't wan't to wait for a bezel rechrome due to the current situation,  Peter managed to fit one I sent him that was a stainless steel one off a JDM CB250K0 gauge but was slightly smaller. I think some CB160's also had stainless steel bezels.

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[kent400]

The gauge body and the bracket has been re-zinc plated Roy. All bright and shinny [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[royhall]

Looking good Pete. The chrome bezel is away with the chroming. On previous experience it will be at least another 2 months, unless he's decided to pull his finger out during the lockdown.

[royhall]

Got the fork legs back from Dynasurf and they appear to have done a great job. Bit of a fail on my part though, I forgot to measure the forks before I sent them out. So now I cant verify easily that they have been ground to the correct dimensions. I shall have a trawl through the various workshop manuals later and see if I can find the specs. They did the top nuts for me in the price, very kind.

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Now if only I had the painting and chroming back I could assemble the forks. Getting impatient now.

[royhall]

Just had another look at the fork legs and the things pointed out are just marks on the surface. Gave them a wipe over with a bit of WD-40 and they came straight off. Well spotted though.

[AshimotoK0]

Let me know if you want any measurements .. my forks are still in pieces

[royhall]

That would be great Ash. Can you mike up the working diameter, preferably in inches but metric okay. Thanks.

[AshimotoK0]

That would be great Ash. Can you mike up the working diameter, preferably in inches but metric okay. Thanks.

Hi Roy I make it 1.297 to 8" (had to dig out a dead man's M&W micrometer though and learn how to use it  as my digital mic. is only up to 1")

HONDA CB450K0 Black Bomber Shop Manual
https://www.dropbox.com/s/typ5a2r2mjaxtvs/CB450%20K0%20BLACK%20BOMBER%20SHOP%20MANUAL%20.pdf?dl=0

Looking forward to your 'experiments' on using K1 air filters on the Bomber as I have a pair NOS that I want to use on mine.



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[royhall]

Thanks for the Info Ash. My fork legs do indeed mike up at 1.297" so all is well there.

The next little project is to get over the problem with air filters. The 450K0 had a pair of air filters that were unique to that model. They were changed for the K1 model and then stayed the same over the life of the 450. Problem is that the K1 items do not directly fit to the K0. The battery box is welded as part of the frame on the K0 but was changed to a removable item from K1 onwards. The filters are the same except for the crossover link fittings between the two filters, as per the photo's.

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My old existing filters are no longer serviceable due to rust and damaged elements, along with mountains of muck. As the K0 filters are no longer available, I decided that the way forward was to use K1 filters and adapt the link pipes. The K0 link pipes are longer and join together directly with a rubber seal. The K1 link pipes are both short and join through a steel oval tube that's welded as part of the later battery box. So the idea is to get a later battery box and remove the tube where it's spot welded on, and TIG up the four holes. This can then be used as a loose connector pipe fitted with a pair of K1 seals, which came at enormous cost from an American company called Clauss Studio's. I managed to get a K4 battery box on eBay for less than £8 including P&P.

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As the filters fit rigidly to the frame I don't think any further atattchments for the link pipe will be required, but if it isn't quite rigid enough I will drill through both air boxes where the centre of the link pipe sits and bolt them together with a length of stainless thread bar and nylock nuts. I doubt that will be required though.

The rubbers on the air boxes were both perished and not reusable. Again at  great cost I managed to obtain a pair from Clauss Studio's. The old rubbers came off the air boxes without too much fight and the adhesive was easily cleaned off with a blade. The new pattern rubbers fitted very well so I bonded them on with flexible non silicone construction adhesive that took nearly a week to set (strange) but has now stuck well.

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After giving all the parts a good clean they came out like new, well almost.

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[royhall]

Just a few more pictures from the last section on air filters. The first picture is the adhesive that successfully bonded the rubber parts to the plastic air boxes.

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The rebonded air intake rubbers.

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Ready for assembly.


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[AshimotoK0]

Great info Roy.

My frame is already painted with the welded in battery box. Do you reckon the K1 filters will fit witha the oval tubes taken from the old K0 ones. Also the bracket is slightly shallower .

See this link... second post Roy

https://www.hondatwins.net/threads/1966-cb450-k0-bill.130522/?fbclid=IwAR26dGlmiz-EgBhvlhoTJILCQfnhvEsJ-zAmZbRQZfarDVQybQRqb-ExT1A

[royhall]

It will fit Ash. With the K0 box not being as deep there is space under the battery box for the K1 cross link tube. I don't intend to weld or bolt the cross tube to the frame, just going to leave it loose trapped between the filters or at worst with a bolt through the tube. The filter location bolt is just above the tube and the filter has a pipe through it so the filter is bolted rigidly. My thinking is this fix doesn't alter the K0 frame so if the correct filters appear just down the road it can be returned to standard.

Had a look at the link about the air filters and my reaction to that is "what a bodge job". Why go to all that trouble to produce a poor outcome when you can take the tube straight off a later box and use the standard rubber seals. I haven't finished mine yet but I have dry fitted it and it looks like it's going to work well. Or I could just McGuyver it with gaffer tape. Not impressed at all with the quality of that. By the way, there are tons of later battery boxes coming up on eBay for next to no money.

I can't post a picture of the filters and tube fitted, as the frame is away for powder coat and the seals have been trapped at Los Angeles airport for nearly three weeks as there are no flights. So stop winging Branson and get the seats out of your jets and go and ship the cargo backlog mountain.

[AshimotoK0]

This is the relevant text and pictures from the Honda Twins posting Roy

"Both K0 bikes I have are missing original air filters and filter casings. One of the bikes came with a set of Uni clamp on filters, but I figured I'd try for a more stock configuration. Considering I now had a set of original 1966 K0 air filters to use as a template I decided to purchase a set of 1971 CB450 air filters to modify to match the originals.

I walked the aisles of Lowes until I came across a piece of 4" air duct that I could use to build the bridge between the vents of the 1971 air filters.


I then shaped the thin metal duct with my hands by wrapping it around the outside of the 1971 CB450 duct vents.

I then taped the duct to hold its shape and drilled 2 small holes at one end to permanently affix to one side of the 1971 air filter with rivits. I also shortened the length of the tube with a Dremel cutting wheel to match the spacing of the original K0 filters.

This was very easy and worked out much better than I had planned."

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