Honda-SOHC

I was told they were used  to surpress radio interference back in the day.

Evidently the 1st Kwack triples  CDi's played havoc with TV's 

I was told they were used  to surpress radio interference back in the day.

Plan C now used the DS retainer ring having fitted the different pins to my tool - tightened up nice and tight - all looks good

The 500 rear wheel when fully assembled felt so much heavier than the 400.
Seal fitted into the sprocket tin plate after fitting the left side spacer wide end to the bearing. Large O ring fitted to the hub all in place as per the parts exploded diagram.  Spocket nuts nipped down with some new locking washers fitted.

I've done the first fit of the wheel - looking good - not torqued up the sprocket nuts yet or bent the locking tabs into place. I'm worn out now for today.
I'll tighten up the rear axle to check the wheel rotates freely before I fit the chain etc.

When I lived in Toronto I bought a new Suzuki GT500 in 1977 which had galvanised metal shrouds on the spark plugs. It was a great bike but it suffered an intermittent misfire. The Suzuki Dealer had it back a couple of times to try and cure it, but he said 'all was well'. Eventually I told the Dealer that if it didn't get sorted out I'd be taking legal action to get my money back. After a couple of days, the Dealer told me that he'd tried everything but couldn't find the problem and so he left the bike running in the garage..........and as it was in a dark corner he then noticed the arcing from the plug shrouds to the cylinder head......Eureka ! The shrouds were cut off !

The bike ran like a dream after that and I rode it across Canada and the USA covering 6,000 miles in three weeks - and it never missed a beat.

No doubt you'll sort out your OEM shrouds Ash.......but at least you'll know where the fault lies if you do suffer a misfire.

That type of plug cap was  also fitted to the Opel Rekord (D) Coupes back in 1973 I was drivng one down to Cornwall for our sumer holiday when the car dropped onto 3 cylinders in heavy traffic. Being an automatic it was it was almost undriveable.

One of those caps had failed plus the leads were the then quite new carbon fibre typ leads - I used a Nappy pin to replace the cap - it worked a treat.

There are plenty of other people fitting them to our bikes Ted for originality ... I bought 5 sets of each cheap and kept one of each set for myself and sold the rest on eBay. They didn't hang around for long  before being sold ! My 500K0 didn't have them as it is a 1st batch USA (squared off crankcase) bike and they were never fitted in the US. The 500 ones (fitted to UK and European bikes)  are the same as the 400F ones.