Honda-SOHC

Not familiar with pricing /rarity/authenticity of this special ... but auctioned not too far from me and seemed a decent buy. Prices at this auction room seem to be a lot less than Mathewsons achieve.

https://www.spicersauctioneers.com/catalogue/lot/7f647f5222c309063906c55c9fa78ede/2a6fa85538c56e3991b429b74f737ad8/classic-cars-motorcycles-and-other-vehicles-catalogu-lot-582/

Truly amazed by what this chap Isaias has done for the Bomber K0


http://cb450k0.com/

A friend of mine, who I swap parts with, was lucky enough to get enough NOS parts to build a genuine CYB350 race bike ... introduced in the late 1960's and quickly discontinued when Honda temporarily  pulled out of racing to concentrate on car production. A large amount of the the remaining stock of CYB parts were all held at Honda UK's  Nottingham's Service Centre and it's head man Alf Briggs was allowed to keep all of the parts as a personal gift from Mr. Honda himself.

Along with parts from that source and others, my friend has finally built up a genuine CYB350 but he was short of the original hydraulic cam chain tensioner, first used in 1968. Luckily, I had 2 of them so I just donated one to him. But I often ask why Honda introduced it onto the first CB250/350Ks ? From what I know Honda hastily did a recall and swapped to a mechanical tensioner very similar to what they subsequently used on the CB750 in 1969.

Two of my CB250K0's were owned by an old chap who used to buy Honda's with very low mileages including the two  1968 built but registered in 1969 CB250's, which   I got from his estate. One (showing 5.9k miles) he dismantled to a large extent and kept in a garage  but the other got left in his garden to decay for many years (see picture !) The one in the picture was showing 4.5k miles and both bikes had escaped Honda's recall and had their original hydraulic cam chain tensioners fitted.

It seems odd though that a bike that was such a  radically new design for Honda  in 1968 and went on to sell a million units is all of it's model guises, could have been developed and tested by Honda R&D and reached full production and then it's cam chain tensioner mechanism recalled as being problematic.

Did any later models have some kind of hydraulic tensioner ? ... I know that some Ford cars had it ..maybe still do for all I know. A question for Nigel 'K2-K6' I guess.

By the way, the bike in the picture had one of the centre stands I had to drill out the pivot pin last year,  as no amount of hacksaw cutting would free it  ... but looking at the state of the bike, is that really surprising?


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A young chap, who works with myself and Ben bought a Motobecane moped last year to restore for a charity run around the Peak District. He bought it off an Essex Geezer, who told him it was on the DVLA register but with no docs. So our man at work paid for a full RAC report on it and it came back clean and he bought it and duly applied for a V5C. He then restored it to a pretty decent standard but alas it turns out it was stolen months before he bought it and when he checked on a cheapo vehicle check site,  it did show up stolen, well before bought it. The police then seized it and have now told him it has been ‘disposed of’ so he’s naturally pretty gutted.

We told him to really lean on the R.A.C. , because it seems their system was at fault .. i.e. if a cheapo service picked up it was stolen, then why didn’t they? As yet he has heard nothing positive back from them.

So, if anyone knows of a moped/small bike project going cheap, then let myself or Ben Powell on here know.  Have told him to naturally pick a Honda this time.

With great reluctance  have had to start home BZP plating again, as Allenchrome won't do small batches anymore GRR ! 

So gone are the days when I dropped a batch off ..bought Cathy lunch ... picked them  up a month later all nice any shiny  ... bought Cathy lunch again ... Oh sh*t that plating was whatever plus at least £70 ..so no so cheap. 

Anywhere here is my setup in action again in the two video links. Working well but a load of faffing about prepping the parts.

Gone back to Gateros chemicals again after a disastrous attempt and tons of emails trying to use YouPlate's ready mixed stuff. GRR ! again 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kqenhb4a6najypa/AAAtZmhLZN3FO2e1ow3ufqBca?dl=0

Realise my posts have been frying Ken's brain recently  , so thought he would appreciate this.

It's a collage I did at Christmas  of library/brochure photo's of the models I am  restoring, in the same colours as mine in ascending cc's order.

It's a mammoth task getting them together , painting/chroming etc.  but keeps me out of mischief. Nearly all of mine were complete basket case jobs when I got them.

Again the usual 'one of only 36 b*llocks' in description but this is 3 VIN's down from mine and a genuine 1st batch of around 20 UK CB750's  VIN 1010379

https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/sa078a-lot-17436-1970-honda-cb750-k0-750cc?el=17436&pn=1&pp=100


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This is a pic from my collection of CB750 pics of the original owner,  who bought the bike at the Brighton Show I believe. It was restored back to the standard it is now and the owner fetched it for him to look at.

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