Honda-SOHC

Welcome to the forum Flatspot. Congratulations on being reunited with your old 400 after 40+ years. I was reunited with a 400/4 I first saw over 42 years ago and finally got to buy last year.
400 carbs are fairly straightforward to work on but require meticulous internal cleaning of the various passages if they are to work correctly. First thing to do is to buy a set of Viton O-rings from Nurse Julie on here and to buy (or borrow) an ultrasonic cleaner with some carburettor cleaning fluid from Allendale to use with it if you cannot clear the flat spots by tuning/balancing.
Before you go stripping the carbs check the valve clearances, ignition timing, air filter and the condition of the fuel.

I took my 400 barrel apart although you have to drill out the two I indentations on the stainless barrel in order to get it off. Once you've done that you can access the plungers but be VERY, VERY careful as you remove them and lay them out in the order they come out otherwise it will be carnage!

I bought a seat cowl for the Enfield Interceptor from India. The bike has a chrome tank with a central black and gold stripe, very 60’s looking and I wanted a seat cowl to match. A company in India makes them (logical as that's where the bike is made). I was expecting to receive a plastic cowl because that's what they normally are but with a chrome wrapped finish. What I received was a hand beaten metal cowl with a chrome finish and a painted black central section. The cowl has been made from very thick gauge steel and has been made in three parts welded together to form the shape. The chrome is excellent as is the paint but the quality of the part itself is poor, there has been very little attempt to smooth out the welds prior to chrome plating and it is full of ripples and very uneven, there are also two holes obviously used to dip the part for chrome. It looks alright from a distance but not close up!
The tank itself really is excellent proving you can get quality made Indian parts as these are made for Enfield by another company. I know you can get BSA Gold Star tanks that are Indian made and these are very good quality. I guess it's a bit of pot luck who actually makes the part.

Well to the forum. Good to hear of another sohc single joining our ranks. Have fun  .

Oh c'mon. Those metal covers were the work of the Devil, any hint of dampness and you had your own personal light show between your legs.. Are people REALLY paying mega-bucks for bits that we could not wait to throw away???  Maybe I should have kept my 1971 sensitol lubricated Yokohama tyres, they loved the wet as much as the plug caps.

 

Some if these pension selling experts were probably the same experts who previously sold cast iron guaranteed endowment mortgages back in the day! I ended up with three of those and every single one failed to pay the loan amount with two of them losing me thousands that I had to find to pay off my mortgage. I remember back in 1984 being forced to take one of these scamming endowments out to cover a mortgage of £27k. I was told it would pay out £45k after the 25 year term. It eventually paid out £17k and lost £5k of the money I'd invested into it! I joined the miss selling claims and it was thrown out because they said I should have acted sooner despite me writing letters after five years asking why it wasn't performing. Crooks.
Look after and invest your own money, you'll keep it and have ultimate control over it instead of paying a city slicker a bonus to buy a Porsche at your expense!

I used to fit seat covers on bikes when I was 'on the tools' as a coach trimmer during my lunch break. Mostly it was on Honda C50/70/90’s and 125 singles as these were popular with the workforce back then (early 80’s). A lot of the time I had to resort to using Dunlop S758 adhesive to stick the new cover on as the steel hooks on the pressed steel seat pans had rotted away or just broke off through rust. Once a seat cover splits it allows water into the foam and it will just sit there collecting in the lower edge of of the seat base and rotting out the metal hooks.