SOHC.co.uk Forums > CB500/550
Finally after too many years I'm working on my 500/4
matthewmosse:
Well barely had any shed time, been doing firewood again in my spare time. Nice to see my dad use his heavy horses for pulling logs instead of mucking out, but it doesn't get bikes rebuilt. I have however recived a set of headset bearings from wemoto, nice touch they included a notepad with a sohc honda 4 piper bike in the background along with some modern thing. Thing to note for others, the Japanese bearing set for the 500/4 lacks any form of seals, you just get the bearings by the look of it. I bought an 'all balls' head bearing set for the wifes 250nighthawk at the same time, this was cheaper and had the seals. I shall try to rescue my current seal for the 500/4 if I do not sell the nighthawk it will be interesting to see how the cheaper bearings hold up, the original set managed 30k miles or thereabouts. The tapered headset bearings in my 500 sidecar outfit did very well considering they were fitted by the previous owner, yhink they would have been the most expensive option from dave silvers given the previous owner bought a lot of new quality bits from there.
On the seat front I found a decent spare to get me going in the spares shed. The rotten one on reflection is not a whole lot worse than that of my 550/4 which proved easy enough to revive using brasing rather than welding, and a bit of new metal of course, so that will get set aside for an evening when the kids are in school. Good thing about that form of repair, it banishes rust as the brase doesn't corrode at all easily, and all the weak spots get treated. I note I will need a spare cover for one of yhe next bikes too. I always found having at least 1 spares bike thd same as the one on the road is by far the cheapest way to keep any bike running, anything breaks, rob the spares bike, buy a replacement or fix at your leisure. Parts always cost more if you really need them,nand turn up cheap if you don't, so I buy cheap and hoard if at all possible. - this doesn't work for immaculate bikes, bits are never cheap in a1 condition, but cosmetically scarred bits do come up cheap. Tomorrow I get a bit of shed time.
matthewmosse:
Well, heaset bearings installed, removing the old ones was not as easy as it could have been, I should have got yhem out by running a bit of weld round the bottom race in the frame whilst doing all that welding, stupidly I didn't, and took the thing to the other shed and started re assembly, the other shed has no power and currently about 10 ton of rubble blocking entry to anything as big as a sidecar, which is now re attatched. Doh! After some trial and error I found a pry bar with a right angled top that could be used to hook inside the headstock and behind the bearing, then a chisel from above knocked it out. Glad I figured this out as I sometimes work for other people who do not have the welder sat on standby, and it is handy to be able to bring along the right tool to help get the job done.
Forks not so good, one had quite a mess where a mudguard mount bolt had snapped off at some point, been drilled off centre and the alloy had a lump missing, so I chemical metalled the thing and will re drill and helicoil it hopefully in the right place. I have a few mudguard stays to re drill too. Found a spare mudguard in the shed, it is an old repaired one off a 550k3 and had literally fallen in half so I had welded in 4 inches of new metal in the middle, again the underside was so rusty that in places it is only the thickness of the chrome, but the brace area is solid new metal. I reacon it has another year in it. Looks a bit odd being spray painted silver over chrome -nessisarry as the centre 4 inches are polished raw steel, it needs something. Ok it looks a bit horrid, but that is good security, no one wants to steal a bike that looks worthless. I do have a better guard, but that can wait til summer, along with the correct chrome rear that lives on a shelf whilst a black fiberglass item gets the brunt of the salt. After that comes the electrics. Oh dear, I do so hate them, intermittent faults, you test it, all good, go a few miles it no worky.
matthewmosse:
Ah yes, no seal in the tapered headstock bearing set, checked old set, also no seal at the bottom, both the old set and the new set do however have a thick washer at the bottom, but not big enough to seal the bottom of the bottom bearing meaningfully, the last set did an awful lot of miles, so I figured it must be ok like that, but for peace of mind, I cut out a rubber washer from a landrover inner tube that fitted around the bottom of the race and was the right thickness / size not to get trapped in the pinching mechanism of tightening the bearings up, once installed it looks like it is just about right to keep stay crud out, and the bearings feel nice and smooth, though I did find after packing them with grease and working the grease in with a toothbrush that once assembled and dissassembled to check that the masses of grese applied had vanished, so I will in future assemble, tighten, move around the yokes a bit them re pack with grease just to be sure they are properly full. I also noted the hole for the steering lock means really even if there were a really good seal under the bottom bearing, dust and dirt can still get to these bearings, so well worth bunging a bit of spare grease around in there to catch stray dust, and well worth cleaning it out every year or so. Definitely not worth running with no mudguard as it is all that keeps anything thrown off the tyres from going up the steering stem, though the hole for the steering lock and into the bearings, not to mention the fork brace and mess no mudguard makes if you get caught in a shower. It mystifies me why people run without a muddy on the front. I also found the front guard I have has a nice little honda logo'd black rubber spray gaurd at the back. Bet these are now hard to get. Nice touch I feel.
Lobo:
Good point about steering lock 'hole'.... bet there are numerous old Hondas running around with unnecessarily failing lower headstock bearings...
Got lazy in my rebuild & simply used sealed bearings ... if I hadn't, sure as eggs are eggs, I'd find a stray ball on the floor a week later...
Missing the photos...
Simon
matthewmosse:
Photos tomorrow I hope, I 'lost' my moble camera phone.
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