1976 cb400F generator rotor puller size

[DayvW]

Excellent - thanks Oddjob - but wouldnt the extension bar damage the conrod eye - or am I needlessly worrying (I guess I must be if you've used this technique)?

[steven400/4]

bit of heat few small taps and off it comes

[DayvW]

Yeah - I'll try the heat too - right now it's on solid - so if the heat doesnt help then it'll need quite a bit of leaning on (or thumping) which is always a tad worrying of course ...

[DayvW]

Thanks oddjob, I'll try that .. Plus use a bit of heat and see how that goes.  If that fails I have just bought a compressor, I figured it was going to be pretty useful in general if only for blowing away stuff initially, but an air gun feels a good investment! I saw that David silvers tool and found a laser one on machine mart that looks pretty much the same, it includes an m181.5r puller. Can't comment on quality, but is less than half the price.  Mind you, rear axle bolt is even cheaper if that works .. Though as over time I want to tackle many bikes I think a puller is a useful addition to toolbox.

[Orcade-Ian]

Hi,
I can certainly recommend Laser stuff - I bought an ABS rotor nut tool of theirs for my Jag XJ8, it was £24 plus post as opposed to the Jag one at £155!!  It looks and performs exactly as the Jag one  - good materials and workmanship. 
I checked my rear wheel spindle on the 400 and it's smaller than the alternator rotor thread - so perhaps the bigger bikes spindle might fit, but that thread size is available if you can source a bolt.
Ian

[fisjon]

When your done it should look like this

[DayvW]

Thanks for the recommendation (and for checking) Ian - I'll get that Laser one then.

And Fisjon - indeed - looks lovely.  I was going to clean up the engine with paint stripper and a dremel (indeed have on the rocker cover(s)) - but since then decided to go the whole hog, take all the bits out, bolt the casings back together (loosely) and get a Soda blast before a good clean and re-assembly (that's the plan anyway!).  Its going to take time to get there (I only get part weekends at best usually , and have never done this before - so caution all the way! ) - but have to say am loving it (massively made all the more enjoyable through this forum and the unbelievably helpful people out there (I am rather a forum virgin!)).  After seeing the state of the painting currently on my engine (awful, frankly) I am planning to leave her in the raw.  But - is yours painted - it does look very good!?

[fisjon]

This engine really was labour of love!
My buddy said, (after seeing my CB650Z) any chance of helping me with my 400/4 resto.
Ok I said and the engine was dumped in my garage complete with packed cow shit underneath (god knows where he had been).
A fortnight to clean all the crap off then a complete strip. It had a knackered cam belt adjuster and a 550 cam belt slider stuffed inside. No wonder the adjuster was shot. It cost £580 to rebuild.
Once the cases were stripped I just shoved it my bead blaster and gave it some stick. I then gave it some time with the high pressure washer making sure all the glass bead was out (you have to be meticulous) and dried it out. I painted the casings with a cheap engine paint as my mate was a bit of a scrooge but it came up really well. It's all down to preparation, if it is clean and smooth the paint will take well.

[DayvW]

  Well .. no cow poo on mine - just cack of a different nature.  Well it looks good - I'll see how she is after cleaning and decide.  Still - a long way from that yet!

[DayvW]

Success!  I got the rotor off (indeed have now stripped out the whole engine so I have bear crank cases).  I used Oddjob's suggestion (though I did wrap the bar with insulation tape) - on the rotor bolt I needed an old torque wrench that has seized but is about 18inches long, held the engine from moving with left hand, braced my back against the bench, then heaved on the torque wrench.  And eventually it gave -after heat and WD40 too!  But it was really stuck fast.  The Laser rotor puller was perfect  -needed a few mallet taps - but got there.  Such a relief!  After that the rest of the strip was a doddle!  Found the primary chain was absolutely shot (tested using OddJob's suggestion in another post - with the chain on its side, virtually the whole chain length touches!).  The cam chain adjuster is also mashed and seized - so I'll be getting an improved one from DS (more expense - but a slapping noise at tick-over suggested this would be the case).  Haven't measured the bearings yet - but all the gears, selectors etc look in fine fettle.

[DayvW]

I will gladly do that (so far feel all I have done is gained loads from people on this forum and yet to give anything back -and I have loads more questions yet  .  One other thing is that when undoing a bolt on the end of the primary shaft (I think it was) with the crank locked by the OddJob technique (as I now call it!), whilst applying load the shaft actually skipped under the chain.  By just resting my finger on the chain on the sprocket it was enough to hold it and the bolt came undone, but it tells me the chain is toast.  Also - on another post I mention a graunching noise at certain (generally lower) revs that I have yet to identify - but I think may have been the primary chain skipping (a suspicion that also hastened this strip).  Having said that the gears and dogs all look fine, no chips or wear that I can disern - so I'm assuming that if this were the case that the chain took the brunt of any scraping.

[DayvW]

The graunching noise was when the engine was under load - like pulling away, sometimes after changing up.  You could sometimes stop it by snapping the throttle off then on.  At tick-over there was a kind of slapping nose which may have been the carbs out of balance, timing chain - or - indeed - perhaps the primary chain slapping.  I'll take a look for that gouging - cant recall seeing anything - but then I wasn't looking.  One end of each of the primary chain guides are worn - but (1) they appear to be discontinued and (2) I guess a knackered chain will have worn them and that a nice shiny new one wont.

[fisjon]

I would change the bearings as a matter of course, if one is on it's way, disturbing it during a rebuild is the quickest way of pushing it 'over the edge' and you just don't want to do another strip down and rebuild to replace a whining bearing.
They can be expensive if you buy Honda originals, but each bearing has a number on it.
Take that number (and the bearing) to a good bearing supplier and tell him it is for a high revving Honda and he should be able to match the bearing exactly, at a fraction of the cost.
All bar one of the bearings that went into my cb650Z were made in Taiwan. Taiwan supplies Japan with bearings for the major bike manufacturers. You can get the same bearing in a different box for half the price!
 

[DayvW]

I'll check those later - thanks for the tips re other suppliers of bearings - well worth bearing in mind (pun not intended ).