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

[matthewmosse]

Well barely had any shed time, been doing firewood again in my spare time. Nice to see my dad use his heavy horses for pulling logs instead of mucking out, but it doesn't get bikes rebuilt. I have however recived a set of headset bearings from wemoto, nice touch they included a notepad with a sohc honda 4 piper bike in the background along with some modern thing. Thing to note for others, the Japanese bearing set for the 500/4 lacks any form of seals, you just get the bearings by the look of it. I bought an 'all balls' head bearing set for the wifes 250nighthawk at the same time, this was cheaper and had the seals. I shall try to rescue my current seal for the 500/4 if I do not sell the nighthawk it will be interesting to see how the cheaper bearings hold up, the original set managed 30k miles or thereabouts. The tapered headset bearings in my 500 sidecar outfit did very well considering they were fitted by the previous owner, yhink they would have been the most expensive option from dave silvers given the previous owner bought a lot of new quality bits from there.
On the seat front I found a decent spare to get me going in the spares shed. The rotten one on reflection is not a whole lot worse than that of my 550/4 which proved easy enough to revive using brasing rather than welding, and a bit of new metal of course, so that will get set aside for an evening when the kids are in school. Good thing about that form of repair, it banishes rust as the brase doesn't corrode at all easily, and all the weak spots get treated. I note I will need a spare cover for one of yhe next bikes too. I always found having at least 1 spares bike thd same as the one on the road is by far the cheapest way to keep any bike running, anything breaks, rob the spares bike, buy a replacement or fix at your leisure. Parts always cost more if you really need them,nand turn up cheap if you don't, so I buy cheap and hoard if at all possible. - this doesn't work for immaculate bikes, bits are never cheap in a1 condition, but cosmetically scarred bits do come up cheap. Tomorrow I get a bit of shed time.

[matthewmosse]

Well, heaset bearings installed, removing the old ones was not as easy as it could have been, I should have got yhem out by running a bit of weld round the bottom race in the frame whilst doing all that welding, stupidly I didn't, and took the thing to the other shed and started re assembly, the other shed has no power and currently about 10 ton of rubble blocking entry to anything as big as a sidecar, which is now re attatched. Doh! After some trial and error I found a pry bar with a right angled top that could be used to hook inside the headstock and behind the bearing, then a chisel from above knocked it out. Glad I figured this out as I sometimes work for other people who do not have the welder sat on standby, and it is handy to be able to bring along the right tool to help get the job done.
Forks not so good, one had quite a mess where a mudguard mount bolt had snapped off at some point, been drilled off centre and the alloy had a lump missing, so I chemical metalled the thing and will re drill and helicoil it hopefully in the right place. I have a few mudguard stays to re drill too. Found a spare mudguard in the shed, it is an old repaired one off a 550k3 and had literally fallen in half so I had welded in 4 inches of new metal in the middle, again the underside was so rusty that in places it is only the thickness of the chrome, but the brace area is solid new metal. I reacon it has another year in it. Looks a bit odd being spray painted silver over chrome -nessisarry as the centre 4 inches are polished raw steel, it needs something. Ok it looks a bit horrid, but that is good security, no one wants to steal a bike that looks worthless. I do have a better guard, but that can wait til summer, along with the correct chrome rear that lives on a shelf whilst a black fiberglass item gets the brunt of the salt. After that comes the electrics. Oh dear, I do so hate them, intermittent faults, you test it, all good, go a few miles it no worky.

[matthewmosse]

Ah yes, no seal in the tapered headstock bearing set, checked old set, also no seal at the bottom, both the old set and the new set do however have a thick washer at the bottom, but not big enough to seal the bottom of the bottom bearing meaningfully, the last set did an awful lot of miles, so I figured it must be ok like that, but for peace of mind, I cut out a rubber washer from a landrover inner tube that fitted around the bottom of the race and was the right thickness / size not to get trapped in the pinching mechanism of tightening the bearings up, once installed it looks like it is just about right to keep stay crud out, and the bearings feel nice and smooth, though I did find after packing them with grease and working the grease in with a toothbrush that once assembled and dissassembled to check that the masses of grese applied had vanished, so I will in future assemble, tighten, move around the yokes a bit them re pack with grease just to be sure they are properly full. I also noted the hole for the steering lock means really even if there were a really good seal under the bottom bearing, dust and dirt can still get to these bearings, so well worth bunging a bit of spare grease around in there to catch stray dust, and well worth cleaning it out every year or so. Definitely not worth running with no mudguard as it is all that keeps anything thrown off the tyres from going up the steering stem, though the hole for the steering lock and into the bearings, not to mention the fork brace and mess no mudguard makes if you get caught in a shower. It mystifies me why people run without a muddy on the front. I also found the front guard I have has a nice little honda logo'd black rubber spray gaurd at the back. Bet these are now hard to get. Nice touch I feel.

[Lobo]

Good point about steering lock 'hole'.... bet there are numerous old Hondas running around with unnecessarily failing lower headstock bearings...

Got lazy in my rebuild & simply used sealed bearings ... if I hadn't, sure as eggs are eggs, I'd find a stray ball on the floor a week later...

Missing the photos...

Simon

[matthewmosse]

Photos tomorrow I hope, I 'lost' my moble camera phone.

[matthewmosse]

Spent more time diggng through the shed, found this adapted spare set of forks for the sidecar I made up years ago, saves me trying to fix the original forks just yet, the drill wants to wander off into the softer repair metal so I will eventually takle this by making a steel guide plate and using my proper centre drills that are smooth sided, that can wait, these forks my just prove a handy bit of prior preperation. Twin disk brakes operated off a gpz 1100b2 master cylinder at the moment, might change that for something that will look a bit more in keeping with a 500/4. I also noticed one of the seats has a different seat lock - pretty sure this was off my early 500/4, it had quite a few differences over my 73 and 74 bikes, throttle lock screw / cruise controll and wiring inside the bars being most notable of these. More photos to follow as and whe the computer says yes, right now it's gone back into sulk mode and will not save smaller immages, the site will not accept full size.

[Bryanj]

RH seat in pic is the early K0 model and not common mate, has a totaly different lock

[matthewmosse]

I did check the frame numbers on that 'spares' bike when I got it. I belive from what I could check at the time that it is a k0 bike. I noticed a lot of different features. It came with a dunstall exhuaust and apparently belonged to a mechanic who took it off the road for servicing 20 years ago, and left it partially stripped -small things like the rocker cover off. It cost about the same to get delivered as the bike cost, and is on a K plate. I dismantled it and put the bits in boxes the day it arrived.
I think it has just jumped a few places in the que to get rebuilt, oily rag resto again.

[matthewmosse]

Some more photos, you can see how bad the seatbase is,belive it or not,saveable, ok it will not look mint, but with a afternoons work and a few coats of paint I reacon this will fit back on, feel fine to sit on and be at a glance, not too bad. I also dug out a fork brace that appears would fit a 500/4 - if the front mudguard were removed or heaviy modified, might suit some kind of cafe racer bike, I'm not sure. Interesting bit of kit, probably quite old as it has made in West Germany cast onto it. the exhaust stash has had a bit of examination. Current options looklike being laser, motad Neta, dunstall (if I can find the silencer) or a 4 into 1 slash cut setup off a chop. the bsm collector is a bit crusty  but the silencer is still solid. That is my favorite setup but not replaceable at all easily. It is the chrome one with 3 stubs out of the silencer in the photo. Sounds wonderfull if loud, and I love the look. I am really hoping to get time to try to replicate the collector back in new steel and get chromed as I love the look and sound.
Computer let me do 3 photos and is now again refusing to save downsized immages.

[Lobo]

In our house, & much to my wife's dismay, "nothing is allowed to die"... I rewire it, stick it in a new frame, fibre-glass patch repair it & so on. (I'm not actually 'cheap'... such things just give me a kick...in fact I blame it in my dad; was bought up with a lovely big workshop..

Anyways Matthew, you've taken it to a whole new level (!) .... I would baulk at much of what you do, and rather admit defeat.

I too had an old seat base on my K2; and bought it back to Brunei for restoring. Bloody customs found it, and lifted it out.... darn... there was more of it in the bottom of my suitcase than in her hands.
"You must pay 25% tax on its value" she says..
"What's 25% of nothing", I ask?
She threatened to take it off me...
"No problem" I says... "Keep it"
Disgruntled she waved me through.... within the hour it was in the bin: just too far gone.

Hey ho...

[matthewmosse]

Lol, I also think I shall blame my dad. The beam the ntv exhaust is hanging off was salvaged off an old shed 40 years ago, bought home and built into a goat shed, when that was redundant, it got built into a kiln shed for dads pottery, now it is on the same site as part of my workshop. Crowning achievement of taking on insane challenges has to be our house rennovation, only 'trade' we bought onsite was the electrician, and for the re roofing we started by cutting down a few dozen trees in the woods for the timber, got them home behind a 1960 s2 landrover and had them sawn by a mobile mill. The barn my workshop is a corner of even has the roof tiled with wooden shingles which dad made at home. The entire structure is 16 metres long, 5.5 tall to the lowest point of the eves and 8 wide. All log construction and pulled from the forest by horse and dad, he is quite mad. I think we just like a challenge. Doing the metalwork is actually something I really enjoy, I had a bit of a flair for it I  collage and am even considering if I could knuckle down to it, raise my standards of workmanship a bit and try doing a few bits of tinwork like vintage mudguards etc and see if I can earn a bit better than the trifling pittance I get being a care worker.

[Bryanj]

If you can find them i would love the frame and engine numbers off the K0, there are a LOT of small differences on them, i know somebody on here who wants the original fork ears with small reflectors and rubbers!!

[mickwinf]

Bryan I have a pair of nos KO headlamp brackets on my K1 with the small hole for the reflectors, not sure if I should drill and tap out or use the older style reflector.

[matthewmosse]

I shall try to dig that info out for you Brian, might take a few days, remind me if I haven't rooted them out by the weekend. In my judgement the bike looked like it had been stooc unmolested for quite some considerable time so it may be the real macoy on the other hand it my just have inherited a lot of k0 bits. It would be nice to know if it were early, not that it really matters I geuss, it will probably be given a similar rebuild with minimal intervention. It still had the stickers on the rear guard under the seat though the tank is plain black so I geuss it has been re spreayed and all the chrome is worse for wear. It also lacked the chrome trim on the tank.

[matthewmosse]

Backward step today, after a week of fencing and so fourth and no bike time, took an hour to try finishing off fitting the forks with the beefy helper springs. Previously I had them loosely in place and sat about an inch too low in the bottom yoke so they were below the top yoke. The beefy helper springs ( actually they are the springs off a dead set of superdream shocks, sat on custom ally seats to protect the fork tops ) problems arising so far on this setup, - the 500 fork ears have a spacer thing to hold the fork gaiters below the yokes, with these in place for some reason even pulling the forks up with rachett straps I cannot get the things to come up in the yokes enough, I think the helper springs should have that much give in them though I suspect the fork ears would need these lower rings removing for this setup to work in any case. Annoying as the setup fitted together off the bike on a spare set of yokes but not now. It also needs proper disk bolts not whatever was the right length in my bolts box, speedo gearbox looks very close to the bolt heads too. Overall I am thinking of reverting to what was there which looked stock, but had massive pre load spacers. I am not happy with modifying the fork ears, or particularly happy with loosing the gaiters. Twin disking I am not sure is needed. I only had that setup due to being told in my early biking days that my old 550k3 project bike would need it. On my green 500/4 sidecar I know the single disk was always capable of locking the front wheel. I will stop and think on it but may ditch the helper springs, or use 550 fork ears, I just don't know yet.