Finally after too many years I'm working on my 500/4

[Lobo]

Matthew... enjoying the posts.

In these days where too many of us chase our backsides on the Internet, paying out enormous sums of money, your resourcefulness & innovation is a bit of a wake-up. I'll never admit to wanting a less than pristine old Honda, but do like the way you are so sensible about yours and make 'em work for a living.

Simon

[UK Pete]

Matthew... enjoying the posts.

In these days where too many of us chase our backsides on the Internet, paying out enormous sums of money, your resourcefulness & innovation is a bit of a wake-up. I'll never admit to wanting a less than pristine old Honda, but do like the way you are so sensible about yours and make 'em work for a living.

Simon

Quite agree, and i have a bike or to in my collection  that i maintain in that same way, resourcefulness definitely being the word
pete

[matthewmosse]

Thanks for the kind words, makes a much needed boost. More progress, front wheel wire brushed with the drill and since it was around a coat of silver wheel paint - probably out of the same job lot as the other tin of paint. Normally I hate silver paint where chrome should be, but I am hoping the chrome will shed the silver, and the rust will hold it a bit better with an oily rag to give some shine. Not ideal but cheap enough to last out these tyres at least. looks like spraying with wd40 and duck oil periodically failed on the externals but looking around the spoke holes from the outside it looks like rust isnt in there, hopefully, after all the internal was painted and less exposed, I am wondering if I should just leave the internals alone. Engine is in losely. my 2 hrs stint also involved helping send sheep to market, another lot of antique equipment in regular service, the sheep trailer and landrover are early 60's vintage.

[matthewmosse]

A shot of the shed, someone mentioned it would be interesting, there are other sheds, more junk, anyone wondering about how tight the budgett for the bike is, well, for about half the cost of one bikes light restoration I bought a lathe. With all the farm kit we have that is obsolete as far as parts are concerned that eaily paid for itself. There are quite a few projects about, some rather hopless.

[matthewmosse]

Notticed the engine number is a bit odd on this, sticker says assighned engine number if you canot make it out . it is not the original engine, just some 550 mill I had knocking around. Normal engine number place is left blank, not scrubbed out or anything, just never been stamped.

[Lobo]

'Shed.jpg"

"Aladdin's Cave.jpg" may be better?

S

[matthewmosse]

A lot of the better stuff is in other sheds ;-)
First bloomer of the job, fitted the swing arm etc, then realised I have an endless O ring chain, swing arm needed to come back out, sidecar then needed to come off as the swing arm bolt was too long to come out, so I have re fitted the swing arm bolt from the other side. I hope this change won't bite me in the behind later. The wheels look a lot better after a light spray with silver, the deep lustre of the remaining chrome shows through. I think I shall not take the tyres off, but carry a spare set of wheels in the chair for the mot test, spotted a small ammount of cracking in the tyres, not too bad for mot I think. Despite talk of O ring chains eating engine cases mine seem fine so far, last O ring chain lasted long enough to wear the rear sprockt out til it had no teeth. I have a chaincase that completely keeps crud off the chain for the rebuild, once I have cleaned the thing, it was properly coated in abrasive crud and looked like scrap, but the lightest wire brushing so as to not kill the O rings revealed a nice clean chain under the grease, just needs sluicing in wd40 or something and running fast to sling the crud off, and re lubricating.
handy workshop hint, at a local auction I saw some filing cabinets, they were cheap, very cheap compared to a tool chest, thr computer age must mean there is a lot less need for filing cabinets but they make excellent lockable tool chests or parts stores.

[Bryanj]

That sticker looks like a "yank" thing I have seen before where crankcases have been replaced with new, which come unstamped, and whoever did it did not stamp the original number

[matthewmosse]

Several of my engines came from Ap incorporated, who inport(ed?) Bikes from usa. So very very likely a yank inport engine, they claim the bikes are all low milage which is a good sighn. I know it runs, does not leak, but when last on the road it wasn't exactly running very well, but I have since been reading a lot on this here forum, and thinking on the various clues of when it broke down, I think carbs and coils are going to be looked at. Also plug caps. However carbs are the prime suspect, they were the k3 ones I knew were capable of awesome economy, but I intend to revert to the cb500/4 items and regain the ability to spin the rear tyre every corner, and set aside the constant carb issues that plagued every bike those carbs were fitted to.

[Bryanj]

K3 carbs get clogged up very easy and are not the easiest to get clean

[matthewmosse]

Beyond blasting carb cleaner through them repeatedlyI cannot claim to have had much to do with the 550 carbs other then getting cross with them. They were great for the year or 2 that they were on my 550k3, til it got too ratty to keep and became a parts bike. I do know the 500/4 carbs don't clog at all easily in comparison and some of the 500/4 projects I have bought ran even with a thick furry layer of corrosion in the floats.
Noticed this morning whilst childminding and ordering bits that Wemoto do wiring looms for the 500/4. @ £150 for a loom it would blow my budgett out of the water, but whilst it could be done cheaper by buying each wire individually from vwp it is still tempting. I shall wait and see how well my current loom works after the years of neglect. There was a charging issue, but I cannot recall if it was resolved. I hate wiring.

[Lobo]

.... it takes all-sorts: I enjoy electrics.... primarily, I guess, in that its logical & the results are instantaneous. (er, one way or another!)

£150 is indeed a lot, but on the flip side some bloody electrical gremlin miles from home due an old hardened / corroded loom / plugs a pain in the proverbial. Given your 'practical' approach to the bike wouldn't new wires / non-standard (but quality) connectors etc be the way to go?
Peace of mind is worth a lot...

Simon.

[matthewmosse]

Logically since a re wire with new wires and vwp decent connectors is something I did on my k3, it would definitely make sence to do the same again. I have most of the bits needed, albeit in too small quantities. I shall see how bad the loom is first, then decide. I won't be using the modern high performance cable though, I found the finished loom hard and stiff, and a bit fragile when it came to connectors pulling off unless soldered. A proper crimper might be better than my £12 one. Didn't do much to the 500 today, decided the ntv would benefit from new tyres instead. Just added changing tubeless tyres and fixing auction special dud compressors to my repetoir of 'skills'

[Lobo]

...agree on the modern hi-Perf cable; just too difficult to work with.

[matthewmosse]

Seat pan rusted out from the inside. Damn shame as it was otherwise in very good order being a genuine old stock honda one fitted by previous owner. I think replicating my own seat pan may be better than the pattern ones from what I have read about them. Luckily I have other spares for now, so that can wait til I need one to build up whatever bike the spare gets robbed from. Carbs and airbox now retrieved from the loft of the other shed -need the dust blowing off. That loft is far more of an Aladins cave, had to sort through 4 or 5 sets of 500 and 550 carbs to get my best geuss as to which the originals were. The good thing is as the bikes(and other projects) get rebuilt, the pile of bits gets more manageable. 3 or 4 years on house renovation has left the workshop un workable as I still was searching out bits that might be needed which have just ended  up added to piles of spares.
 Got the rear wheel in, re greased the brake pivott in the back plate, noticed a handy addition I had done by adding an O ring to the outside face -the pivot was still free moving and well greased and didn't really neec doing where normally I would expect it to need greasing annually or they sieze over a winters use, think there were felt washers there before? Either way, a worthwhile addition for a few pence.

Another nice step, I fixed up an old tyre changing machine I bought years ago that has been gathering dust. Should have done it a week ago, makes changing tyres a whole lot easier especially tubeless type. Had a go at a spare for the ntv, had the tyre off in a few minutes. This will save me a fair bit of cash I think.