Honda-SOHC

Thanks Roy !

It's much more comfortable than you'd imagine, but that could well be down to my own padding ! 

That said, I now have a nicely trimmed foam pad to make longer journeys more comfy - just hope the rest of the bike stays together !

Welcome Steve !

You've arrived at the right place - plenty of help and advice on here which I have found very useful during the rebuild of my 400.

Andy

Welcome to the forum Andy !

I'm a few months ahead of you with a similar project and from a similar background !  As others have mentioned, you'll probably find that you have most of the tools required if you have restored cars, but from my experience, I'd say an impact driver and a tap & die set were very useful ! (had to clean out every tapped hole in crankcases after blast cleaning !) and you'll probably want the specialist tools for clutch removal

Parts seem pretty easily available from David Silver etc and the CMSL web site has invaluable diagrams on every part of the bike.  The advice and knowledge here is a priceless commodity and I'll happily answer any Qu's you have if I can - I'm by no means an expert, but there's a good chance that I will have recently done whatever you're about to do !

Enjoy the rebuild and the advice / experience on here, and look forward to getting the bike back on the road (I'm not far off now !)

Andy

Morning All,

My 400 engine rebuild is finally getting close to completion - looking forward to hearing it run again !

Having reassembled the head, I unpacked the head gasket from the gasket set to find a small dent on upper surface of the #2 cyl fire ring.  It's a small ripple in the metal, and I'm wondering if I should write it off, or if it will be Ok when torqued down ?

Any thoughts please ?

Andy

Could do with some help / guidance / experience on carb rebuilding please !

Carbs are all stripped for cleaning and new gaskets & O rings, but it appears someone has already been playing as some of the parts were not in the same order in each carb !

From what I can see in the parts diagram, I should have the following order of parts on each of the throttle shafts that enter the to p of the carb bodies;
•   Captive washer / Spring holder
•   Spring
•   Felt washer ?
•   Stepped plastic bush that locates into the body housing

And then inside the carb body;
•   Plain plastic bush ~ 4mm wide
•   Throttle / slider arm with securing screw and lock tab

Does that sound right ?


Next question re’ needle valves – I’ve renewed the O ring, but the valve body now doesn’t sit very far into the casting and as a result the locating tab does not sit flat against the casting.  So either I’ve used an O ring that’s too fat, or, it’s normal for a new O ring, and I should adjust the float height to compensate  - any thoughts or experience please ?

Thanks in advance for any help !

Hi Roy,

I've just received my crank cases back from wet blasting, and they look fantastic - I'll add some pics later tonight !  I'm planning to leave them as they are now without any lacquer etc - my thinking is that the bike will not get lots of use, hopefully not in adverse weather and I'll keep on top of the cleaning.

Years ago my uncle used to run a shot blasting and wet blasting company aimed at bike / car cleaning (still going with new owner in north Kent) and he had quite a large collection of bikes that would have had their aluminum engine parts wet blasted with glass bead / high pressure water and they all looked great without any further coating.  They were mostly classic & vintage race bikes that were definitely used, but obviously nowhere near as much as road bikes could be.

I think it probably depends on your intended use of the bike - if it's going to see a lot of miles and salty roads etc, then I'd be considering a coating of some sort that can be hosed down / degreased, but if it's a 'sunny days' type of bike, and you're not committed to total factory finish originality, I'd be tempted to leave the wet blast finish.

I'll echo posts from Trigger in making sure you clean the parts and then clean them again to flush any blasting media out - that's my job for tonight !

Hope that is of some help !! 

Andy

All sorted now thanks to CHris !!

OK Thank for the tip !

The horseshoe tensioner was seized / mashed by chain, so all new bits going in - can't wait to get the crankcases back from blasting so that I can get things moving again !

Andy