Honda-SOHC

After all that, squeezing the lever right back, waiting, then doing it again a few times has seemingly got rid of it. Test ride ok.

this can happen if the oil is ever overfilled as well.

if your air box doesn't fill with oil quickly, you don't encounter blue smoke, your cam chain can be adjusted via an non-seized adjuster mechanism and any head oil weeps remain insignificant I'd leave it alone until it was worth pulling apart.

The rubbers connecting the carbs to the airbox should be nice and squidgy. If they're not then you may need to remove the airfilter assembly to give yourself enough space to wiggle the carbs free, this is the case on the 550f. warm them up, try lots of penetrating fluid around the rubbers (someone may chip in and not recommend this, but i find it works)

i found the 400f carbs quite tough even with good movement in the airbox rubbers, lots of easing, patience and sore hands.

It depends on how far you want to go, winter is a great time to get the carbs off and send them for cleaning or you can drain them for storage then inspect when the days get longer again. Drain screws can be a pain to remove if they've been sitting though. The inlet manifold rubbers and airbox rubber may well be hardened up, so they might replacing before reassembly if you go the removal route. I have generally found if the bike starts, idles and runs then 500 miles and some Redex fuel additive is a more fun alternative to disassembly of the carbs.

i'd drain the fuel tank before winter too and have a good look at the state of the rust. The manual reckons changing the oil before winter as well.

the electrics might not have benefited much from standing around depending on how it was stored before, so may need some cleaning up (switches, connectors etc), that's a fun winter job along with routine service bits like timing and valve clearances. The battery may well be shot as well though if you have a spare knocking about for testing I'd wait to buy a nice new one in the spring.

I have a CB450 arriving in a few weeks so this will be part of my campaign.

I don't often get to contribute, more a lurker soaking up others' experience. On this occasion for over the last two seasons I've replaced the oil pump seals, the oil pressure switch (recommend Bosch equivalent part), the sprocket cover seal twice and the gear selector seal.

I suspect I have finally found the culprit after a throwaway line in a forum - starter motor seal. I haven't replaced and tested yet, but as the picture shows, I had an "ah-AH!!! Gotcha you ****er" moment yesterday which others might find useful.

Where the oil weeps from makes it hard to determine which direction it goes. The wicking effect on the cables could be from the rear to the front, not the other way around which it in fact was.   It is difficult to see oil under the starter, so in poor light it is easy to miss. Pulling the motor is easy, just ease it out with the two fixing bolts gone, I didn't bother unplugging it for this.

Hopefully I have finally found the true source of the Nile.

happy days. I'm also making the most of the weather - commute to work across the Chilterns this morning was a definite win.

Well - for those interested, I have the bike back on the road, and ironed out the issues from the top end rebuild. New tank is fine (though I had to steal the 750s petcock because the old tank had a different size one. From when I bought it, a fairly well preserved example which ran like crap and leaked oil from many places to oil-tight nearly-new performance:

https://youtu.be/jMd8tn1D8Bo

Here is the damage