Gear lever

[Sesman]

Picture for Oddjob.

I couldn’t see any location dots or indeed other marks.

[Oddjob]

For some reason both of your alignment dots are missing. Anyone got a pic of them for a Cb550/550 showing the spline location so I can count splines on my lever to get the dot in the right location.

Thanks for doing that anyway Phil.

This is the dot on the gear shaft, unfortunately there is nothing to orient it if you remove it accidentally. Best you could do if it's missing is position the lever as well as you can and then punch one onto the gear shaft so it lines up with the lever dot, assuming the lever still has it's dot of course.

[Sesman]

You are very welcome. Are you sure there should be some marks?

[Oddjob]

Yeah Honda put them on loads of parts, it's too help with PDI and making sure everything was exactly the same on all the bikes produced.

[Sesman]

Interesting. I’ll have a even closer look later today.

[deltarider]

Yeah Honda put them on loads of parts, it's too help with PDI and making sure everything was exactly the same on all the bikes produced.

My model ('76) doesn't have them.

[Sesman]

TBH. I’ve,cleaned and magnified mine and can’t see any evidence of a stamping.

[Oddjob]

It's possible the joint in the lever is the alignment mark, it would line up with the dot punched into the shaft.

Actually if you look at the PDI instructions for the CB400 you can see the reference to the punch marks on that model, there should be one on the lever and one on the shaft. The CB500 doesn't mention them but the PDI instructions aren't as detailed as the 400s and TBH I don't think they are complete, the ones in the manual at Queenies were like the 400 ones, much more detail. There are punch marks on the bars, one the rear brake lever and it's shaft and also on the rear brake arm and it's shaft. Those are the ones that come to mind easily.

[Sesman]

Yes, definitely got all those marks at the locations mentioned by Oddjob, just not on the gear lever shaft. I’ll definitely have another look, maybe using some engineers blue.

[taysidedragon]

If you look at Oddjob's gearshaft end face there are definite machining marks, but on yours there aren't any. It's a little bit 'lumpy'. I wonder if it's been damaged at some point, then filed or ground to clean up and that's removed the punch mark.

[Sesman]

Yes, that’s quite possible. The machine had definitely been on its side at some time in the past.