CB750 K1 noob, North West

[MrDavo]

Hi, Dave here, I've been lurking a while while buying a K1 CB750, after owning one when I was 19, er, quite a while ago. The one I had was blue, with a red frame, 4 into 1 and a Yoshimura race cam, I part ex'ed a Suzuki GT550 against it at Sports Motorcycles, Manchester.

I got rid because it kept trying to kill me, although that probably had more to do with me being 19 than the bike.

Anyhow, here's my K1 now, it's a South African import, already restored, I've been carrying on with that since I bought it, and am getting her somewhere near, but still with work to do. It is a rare colour for a K1 (not sold in Europe or USA), with HM300s that sound glorious. It looks like a new bike, I will eventually show it as well as use it.

At the moment the rats nest in the headlight needs redoing, after fitting the correct bars and threading the wires through. The old bars are in the photo, the external wires with cable ties were bugging me.

 An ex racer, I have worked for race teams including Honda Britain in the past, so I'm not afraid to do most stuff myself. I also have a 30 year old Porsche 911, though that's a different story, different forum.



I'm currently awaiting a dating letter from the VJMC, after Honda UK (and South Africa) were worse than useless, unable to confirm info that a 5 year old could find on Google. They even sent me a refusal in an unstamped letter which I had to collect and pay excess postage on!    Not impressed, they don't give a monkeys about a bike they didn't sell themselves.

I've serviced the bike and put new Avons on, so I can get it MOT'd (after I redo the wiring). I've also replaced all the allen screws with Firrips ones in the search for originality.

[daggartuk]

Lovely looking bike you have there - welcome from another newbie.

[JamesH]

Welcome and nice K1. Think that was the bike that the guys at the Motorcycle Emporium down in Southampton imported from SA earlier this rear right?

Will be nice to see you bring it back to the standard finish - still looking lovely now.

James.

[Chris400F]

Welcome from me too Dave. Nice looking bike, all the better now those bars have gone.

I managed to get a dating letter from Honda UK at the second time of trying, although mine is a UK bike.
After the first failure I tried the VJMC. Very helpful chap (Geoff Ward) and their dating letter was good enough for DVLA to correct the year of manufacture details.
I guess you will be in the Historic category (well, the bike anyway).

[Spitfire]

That's a real beauty

Cheers

Dennis

[mick]

Great looking bike Dave  cheers Mick.

[MrDavo]

Cheers all, @ JamesH, yes it is the one Motorcyle Emporium imported, I bought it from a dealer up here in the North. Googling the wording on the ad, I even found the for sale ad when it was sold in Durban at the start of the year. No info on when it was restored or who by, but a lot of new and replated parts, it seems to have done very little if anything since. The engine runs very sweet though I gave it a full service anyway.

It came as a bit of a K0, K1 mishmash, even with non matching sidepanels and a K0 airbox, now up for sale along with the K0 battery side panel if anyone wants it. After toying with going K0 stylee, I decided bog stock as possible K1 (but in a rare colour) was the way to go, rather than something that screamed 'fake' to anyone who knows their CB750s.

As noted on another thread, I have later (K3?) handlebar switches, which is causing me problems rewiring after changing the 'bars for correct ones, currently I have a horn, starter, and one indicator, no lights.    Today I found colour wiring diagrams for the K1 and K3, hopefully I'll make some progress. At least the fuse didn't go 'phut!', or the smoke didn't escape out of the wiring (electrics rely on smoke inside the wires - let it out and things don't work any more). Why didn't I take photos? Somehow I thought rewiring would be obvious.  Someone tell me what the brown wire from the loom does, I can't see it on my diagram.

[haynes66]

hi dave, nice bike. do you have any snaps from the past, especially anything to do with the honda britain team? a few on here have read reps and honda britains so any photos/history would be interesting.

[MrDavo]

Sadly no photos, it was pre digital cameras, but post CB750s (RC45's). The one time I turned up at Croft testing with a camera, I was spotted by the team boss, who asked me 'Who do you think you are, a f£*&^%$g tourist?' Lots of stories, but many are NSFW.

I still have some cool team gear, including my red Honda overalls, with a hole in the knee where I crashed a team scooter into our Sprinter van at the TT. Phil McCallen told me off for riding recklessly which I thought was cool coming from him. I should have got it in writing. The scooters ran on Elf race fuel, just for convenience - so did the generator! A Honda dealer at the TT showed me how to derestrict the scooters, which involved plunging a soldering iron into the ECU at just the right place.

Honda had a big garage at the old post office depot, they may still use it for all I know. Each team had some space, Team Joey had a room, so did a bunch of bikes from the Honda museum brought over for the parade lap, including a six. I got quite upset by one of the Aussie riders there flying a large petrol driven remote control helicopter indoors while we were working - what could possibly go wrong?

I have a faded photo of the truck I drove for Haywood Racing's Formula Ford team - our sister Renault team had a 16 year old who had to live at the boss' house, and  go to school when we weren't testing, I was told he was 'the next Mika Hakkinen', In the half a season he was there, Kimi Raikkonen spoke to me once - when I asked him if he wanted me to get him some breakfast at Oulton Park, he said 'No!', and that was it. Even then you could see his talent - at Thruxton, where he'd never been before, he had to start at the back having done zero laps in practice after an electrical fault, he got up to 5th, sailing past his team mate, before his car broke down again. He left shortly after.

Still no sign of my dating letter, I'm hoping to get 'Candy' registered and on the road before the road salt season starts.