Teds new project a CB500 K1 mostly version 0.5 circa 1972.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

FWIW the later seat lock does not quite sit flat on the frame like my 400 one does.

It needs a little fettling on one area before I fit it back on.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Yes the seat lock brackets interchange, it was fitted with a later type lock as the best recovered seat i had was a later type, dont know what was original as nothing was on it.
Julie, i fitted the vin plate and had to drill holes for it as i said above the stampings would disapear under powder coat.

Ah yes, I've just read about the VIN tag on a previous post Bryan, sorry about that. Ted, on the V5 what date does it give as being registered in UK?

                 

The V5 shows B. Date of first registration as 23 03 1972
   [B,1]Date of first registration in the UK as 23 03 1972

[Oddjob]

FWIW the later seat lock does not quite sit flat on the frame like my 400 one does.

It needs a little fettling on one area before I fit it back on.

Could be the bracket is slightly bent Ted, or of course it could also be the difference between the K0 and K1 frames coming into play. Hard to tell without testing another bracket and seeing if that does the same.

With a first reg date of March 72 it looks like the bike was what is called a "Grey Import".

[Nurse Julie]

FWIW the later seat lock does not quite sit flat on the frame like my 400 one does.

It needs a little fettling on one area before I fit it back on.

Could be the bracket is slightly bent Ted, or of course it could also be the difference between the K0 and K1 frames coming into play. Hard to tell without testing another bracket and seeing if that does the same.

With a first reg date of March 72 it looks like the bike was what is called a "Grey Import".

Agreed, its a 71 build registered in UK in March 72.Therefore its either an original UK K0 or most likely a grey import.
There are a lot of differences between K0 and K1 but as you say Ted, you're building a mongrel, so it doesn't matter. If you were to try and restore it to a stock UK K0, it will cost a fortune. It also shouldn't have a VIN plate, but I can see Bryan's reason for fitting one.

[Oddjob]

I'd agree with that Ted. If the bike already had a lot of K0 parts fitted then I'd say it may be worthwhile to convert it back but that doesn't appear to be the case. The differences whilst not extreme were subtle but easy to spot if you knew what to look for, most people don't and TBH it doesn't matter anyway.

Officially Honda never imported the K0, I asked back in the late 70s when on a course at Honda and spoke to a few of the guys there, they said that Honda only ever officially imported 3 500K0s. One black, one brown and one gold, these were all for press testing. One was written off whilst on test, one was scrapped (no one knew why) and one was sold to a member of staff, they seemed to think it was the brown one. So unless yours is that one (and with that frame number it's almost impossible, the first ones imported would have had very low frame numbers I'd imagine) it's not meant to be here and was clearly meant for the European market. However interest in the 500 back then was high so some dealers imported some from contacts on the continent and hence were called grey imports. There won't have been that many imported like that as expense for one would not have made it commercially viable especially as the K1 was already on it's way. A genuine UK first registered 500K0 is a bit of a rarity so I'd be proud of that, not many about especially after all these years.

[Sesman]

Restore it to original Ted….feel the pain.😉

[Laverdaroo]

Restore it to original Ted….feel the pain.😉

 

[Nurse Julie]

Restore it to original Ted….feel the pain.😉

 

Don't do it Ted 😁😁😁😁, it'll feel like a punishment to you as most of the UK model bits are unobtainable and if you can find them, there will be far to many zeros on the end of the price to make it worth your while, you'd have to have the frame stripped and re painted for a start 🤣🤣🤣.

[Oddjob]

Are you seriously saying that a powder coated frame wouldn't be acceptable on a restoration because it's not the way it was from Honda? That would open a HUGE can of worms if that's the case.

[Laverdaroo]

I second that Ted, I was only laughing at Phll for being a bugger again.  Dont listen to him Ted, he's a wrong un!

[Oddjob]

I think Phil was a Tower Of London torturer in a previous life, share the pain seems to be his motto 

[Nurse Julie]

Are you seriously saying that a powder coated frame wouldn't be acceptable on a restoration because it's not the way it was from Honda? That would open a HUGE can of worms if that's the case.

Noooo Ken, I'm not saying that, I didn't imply that and I didn't mean that, we have all our frames powder coated. But Ted went for a more satin finish IIRC which would be a no no.

[Oddjob]

Yeah but it's black, does that really matter. We do our yokes in satin and I'm fairly sure they came in gloss for instance or vice versa. We have repaints where we have the stripes painted on and not transfers, we use stainless spokes instead of crap normal steel ones that rust for fun, loads of examples like that.

IMO, we place far too much emphasis on it being exactly like it was when it came out of the factory and frankly that's virtually impossible, unless you've got one stored in a packing crate somewhere there will always be something that's not original fitment. If it works, look right and goes and stops right that's good enough for me.

[Nurse Julie]

It may be good enough for you Ken but not for everyone.

[Sesman]

Apologies, Ted. I just can’t help myself. Julie gives good advice IMHO.

Press on though. Personally I favour the satin look,  but fully appreciate it wouldn’t suit the ‘original’ restorers code. And so it shouldn’t.