Honda-SOHC

I used a standard 550F master cylinder with the double disc installation on my commuter 550. I had Ferodo Supersport pads in one caliper & Vesrah pads in the other. This gave me double disc braking in the dry & single disc braking in the wet, as the Vesrah pads in those days weren't sintered at all  & absolutely useless in the wet. I also installed Goodrich Aeroquip braided brakelines, as these were the only ones available back in those days. A double length banjo bolts held the double lines into place on the brake switch junction.



A few years later I swapped the double discs over to Mrs. Yoshi's 550F2

Good effort with this 750F2. Brings back lots of memories of my one many years ago



At the Isle of Man TT in 1980

Only just had a chance to begin to read about this project. Got as far as the part where the basic part of the bike was carried through the house & it reminds me of the 3rd rebuild of my 750F2 back in the early '80s. At the time I had an upstairs maisonette so there were several flights of stairs to navigate so as to get the frame & engine assembly down to the garage.

This was in my bedroom...

I went to a small cafe near Brands Hatch on Sunday & spotted a bike that reminded me of my youth, namely a rather nice looking CB550F1 that the owner had imported from the usa & was doing an excellent job of bringing it to as close to UK spec as possible



I chatted for some time with the owner, who was doing his best to source a new F1/F2 silencer & had managed to find a NOS item, but baulked at the idea of spending $1500...YES $1500... on this much sought after part. When I mentioned that i'd bought probably the last one in the UK a few years ago for my wife's CB550F2, for around £100, he said that people would easily pay that amount nowadays.

And yes, I did mention sohc.co.uk

I was riding my all year bike, the Exup & enjoyed the warm bright & dry conditions

Hi PeteUK

The condensers for the points ignition are mounted on the battery box. Not sure why. I remember on my '72 CB125s that I first rode in '75 had the single condenser under the points cover, but there's no room on the CB125T2.

Central Wheels in Brum were a total let down in customer service & the final product. They lied several times through their teeth when promising a quick turnaround of some wheels that a friend wanted sorting & when they finally sent the'finished' product the workmanship was decidedly dodgy. Both wheels were returned to Central Wheels from Kent at my friends expense & 2 weeks later they still hadn't done them to a satisfactory situation.

For the amount of money that they charged, they could do with taking a few lessons in customer interaction & after sales service.

The advice is...take your money elsewhere. (Talon are far better)

I fitted S&W valve springs & machined up some new valve guides out of aluminium bronze for my 1978 CB750F2 back in '82. I had a custom reamer made for me by a local place. 6.6mm from memory & I still have it somewhere.
Hadleigh Custom down in south east Essex used to have a page in their catalogue about the differences between the F2 & the other 750 engines & how it was suggested that the valve collets should be replaced whenever they were removed. The catalogue also showed the difference in piston crown height with the F2 piston showing the substantial increase as the combustion chamber was increased in size to accomodate the bigger valves. The OEM head gasket showed that the combustion chamber was also elongated to a degree to get the bigger valves in.
I never had a problem with oil consumption except for when the bores were increased to take the bigger Yoshi 823 pistons which were 65mm if my memory serves me correctly. But when the barrels were bored out the operator of the boring bar didn't hone the bores to clearance, so the rough bores chewed the new piston rings up. Once home from Assen after attending the Dutch TT in '82 then I took the head & barrels off & had the bores honed correctly & installed new piston rings (I could do this easily as i'd modified the frame so that I could remove the top end of the engine without having to take the whole engine out).
I had played with fitting a Yoshi Road/Track cam but I also needed to change the carbs to more race ready items, which effectively held the development of more power back quite a bit. So I found a good condition standard F2 cam & had that ground to my own specification (one mm off the base circle, which increased lift & duration). The exhaust was more easily modified for better flow.
I installed Andrews high output coils, Boyer Bransden electronic ignition, NGK Gold paladium plugs. I also installed a Derale oil cooler, a Lockhart/Phillips oil cooler thermostat, an increased poundage oil pressure relief valve spring, a GL1000 oil filter housing, main jets from a CB750K7 & K&N individual air filters.

With modified gearing (one tooth less off each sprocket) it was faster than my brothers GS1000S, not only because of an increase in power but also because I modified the bike with parts that were a lot lighter than standard.