Honda-SOHC

Look up CL77 (350cc) / CL72 (250CC)  US soft off road look, raised pipe, lovely looking motor. I love them but not everyone's cup of tea!!

Agreed it's a pretty bike the CL......  the engine looks lovely but in really is a bit of a pain in the ar$e .... OK it has ball races for the cams, which is great....  But the cam is in two halves and joined by the cam sprocket which incorporates the auto advance, which can be troublesome. A lot of the heads weep oil around the steel skull insert too. There are a total of 5 chains whizzing round but the biggest pain in the flimsy kickstart cover and its associated gears and bushes..... The kickstart kicks forward weirdly, at least it does on the CB....  plus the kickstart shaft runs in needle rollers through the gearbox shaft and when the rollers seize it whacks the kickstart forward. Latter is on the CB model though and may have changed on the CL. I rebuild one these engines when I was a 19 year old student but I steered clear when I got my current  '66 CB72 and  engine rebuilt by my friend Graham Curtis  ... he does all sorts of updates/ modified assemblies/ crank rebuilds for that model. Not my favourite Honda engine though. The CB160/CD/CB175 engines are a peach of a design in comparison and lovely to work on.

Thanks Ash! I'm finally getting back around to looking at this, I'm getting quotes of £500-750 to do a one colour paint job which is more than I can afford right now so a DIY job is in the cards.  Shame the summer is over as I'd do it outside under a gazebo.  As I'm just doing the lacquer in 2k if I'm sensible with a Gerson mask would I be OK?

I wouldn't really like to say .. lots of people do it with a Gerson mask & painting outside. Problem is the isocyanate also gets into your skin and eyes too. Personally I always use my air-fed mask but I have to be mega careful, as my wife already suffers from asthma badly. You can get non-iso 2k clear .. I have never tried it but worth investigating. You would need to check on it's suitability for fuel resistance but RS Bikepaints claim it is. Not that I would get it from them ..bound to be somewhere a lot cheaper. I did hear that it takes a lot longer to cure than the iso stuff but that was ages ago

Ha ha ... RS had to state their supplier of 2k iso-free clerar coat lacquer in their Safety data sheet:  https://www.rsbikepaint.com/en-gb/datasheets.php

TECHNICO SURFACE COATINGS LIMITED UNIT 14 BLYTHE PARK, SANDON ROAD CRESSWELL, STOKE ON TRENT STAFFORDSHIRE. ST11 9RD. TEL: +44 (0)1782 397400 EMAIL : info@technicouk.com

 https://www.rsbikepaint.com/en-gb/motorcycle-product-details.php?productid=302

Application data here:- https://www.rsbikepaint.com/en-gb/datasheets/2klaqnoniso-instructions.pdf

Forum I mention here:-

https://honda-superdream.co.uk/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/livingthesuperdream

Not posted on this for a while but it's pretty much still active.

I will update properly soon with pictures  but the progress has been ... I checked frame alignment which is OK. I have painted the frame in 2k semi-gloss black. The swinging arm has been stripped for paint and fitted with new plastic bushes. I had to chop out the swinging arm pivot bolt but I got a nice replacement, as it's the same as the Superdream part. The swinging arm steel was in really good nick, as the PO worked for British aerospace in Brough, near me in the paint shop  and had primed it in that yellow chromate aircraft primer back in the day. Man was that hard to strip off !

I have prepped and repaired all of the paintwork and painted it in 2k primer plus the proper shade of 1k (solvent) Hawaiian Blue metallic and obtained all of the decals from Piki (thanks for your excellent service mate !) but I just need to ascertain the exact area that is painted dark blue in the centre of the tank. I found a good car paint match for the dark blue which is KIA 'Clyde Blue' . I managed to get a good top of a fuel tank photo, taken pretty square on , off an internet sellers listing and I am in the process of working out measurements this week, then I am going to check it out on the example in the DS museum if I can when I go there next week for his 400 event.

The wheels I got 'thrown in for free' when I bought the NOS top-end stuff are really nice (fitted with 2019 dated tyres) but I want to remove the dull plated spokes and have them replated and  repaint the hubs in the correct satin black.

One of the rocking-horse poo parts on this model is the complete plastic toolbox but I manged to get two of them via my mate in Japan for £18 each.

The other part is the camshaft and I am being picky on it as the whole of the top end on my engine will be NOS.

I sent a request to Newman cams to see if they can refurbish my RSA cam. Seems they are also planning to make some new ones .... pricey though ... thick end on £400 inc. delivery....so here's hoping mine is OK to regrind ! Good to know somebody is at least making them new though.

I have seen repro XL cams available (no pin for tacho drive though) but I can't find out the difference in cam profile is on that model.  IMD Piston people were selling XL repros for around £100 but not listed now and I found these rediculously cheap one ... but would I risk it with NOS Honda top end ...probably not  . £36 for the cam and rocker set   

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006005755524.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.5.5fdbESo1ESo19F&algo_pvid=5684d804-e3f3-4774-87d6-baa5fecd23be&algo_exp_id=5684d804-e3f3-4774-87d6-baa5fecd23be-2&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21GBP%2136.39%2136.39%21%21%21330.52%21330.52%21%40211b8f9c17267412458651502eeadc%2112000041702793467%21sea%21UK%214464760891%21ABX&curPageLogUid=rAz420KuGrAs&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A


Hello Ash,

Thank you for your email.

Send the camshaft into us and we can check it for you. Cost for a regrind is £80 + VAT and delivery.

If it is beyond repair, we are manufacturing a batch of new camshafts. Cost for one of these is £300 + VAT and delivery.
Kind regards,
Ken

Ken Newman
Newman Cams
Farnborough Way
Farnborough
Kent
BR6 7DH
Tel.: 01689 857109
Fax: 01689 855498
ken@newman-cams.com
www.newman-cams.com
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Newman Cams - Performance Camshafts

Blinged JoJo's carbs up a bit more plus my Bomber CB450 14C carbs. Will leave Steve to do the final finishing but a result in my book.

Funnily enough the only K0 carbs on UK eBay were £450 and the same seller just bought my 400 tank off my wife !

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176567153532

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Yes that's a great bit of Honda History...thanks for posting. Think I may have seen something on FB about it ..not sure....quite a few idiots on there so I tend to skip over a lot of it.
It's scandalous IMHO that a lot of info is regurgitated from the SandcastOnly forum site but that site itself  is almost dead now as nobody seems to post any more..

For anyone new on here myself/Bryans collection of 750 Service Bulletins is in the Dropbox links and repeated below in the link.
  (the full article is several pages long)

 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/es60umd6www1zopg1d081/CB750-Service-Bulletins.pdf?rlkey=8pcvif5mepwzxyjrdidr2cvar&dl=0

Last year I bought a spiral bound copy of the Bulletins off eBay (upto about #20) and there are a couple in there I have never seen anywhere before. In due course I will scan and add them and this letter too.

The recall for chain breakage is in the link above (#32) ..a screenshot of the first bit is here.


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Should be able to mill those from solid aluminium.

They have double curvature surfaces on them ... well beyond my machining skills and to pay somebody to draw up and make them would probably be as expensive, or even more, than tracking down a used OEM set.