Tag: Motorcycle

The night before I had spent an hour trying to get out that bolt holding on the tip over bars. I griped to Teacher about it. He said “Grant… most of mechanics is about patience.” and walked away. It was very memorable. Tonight I spent another 45m on that bolt, this time with a small flat head screwdriver and a hammer. Great progress, got it out. On to the other side, same problem with a twist, the bolt had the top half of its threads stripped, so there were 8 washers between the bolt and the frame. Same trick with the screwdriver to get it out. This one doesn’t get a photo though, I refuse to give publicity to such bad practices.
It really got me thinking though. In software, things are very malleable and flexible and poorly defined so you can screw up a lot easily. Motorcycles on the other hand are not, they are well-defined, you buy a manual and then you use the correct parts and tools and torque. What a waste to take such a beautifully designed system and screw it up with crap like this? That last bolt I took out was ground almost to a circular-octagon shape before I got it out.
Tonight I wore plastic gloves. That helped a lot in the really dirty areas underneath the bike. Nitrile gloves don’t cost much.
Teacher reminded me that I can use a lift, and I did, it was just too hard to work on the floor anymore. Teacher showed me how to use it, the safety, and so on.
One note, any errors expressed here are a product of myself, not of Teacher. This is really a journal for me more than anything else.
Tonight I talked to Teacher about POR-15’ing the tank, he said if it ain’t broke…. Good point. He said just drain it out and put some fresh gas in there. I had this idea that it would be time that would be the big cost since I’m a newbie… well that is true, but 2H to remove a bolt! Geez I didn’t expect that. Now I’m a lot more interested in reducing work (without cutting corners of course).
Looked into replacing the 4-into-1 exhaust pipe, looks expensive, 200-300, ouch. Maybe I can just POR-15 them. Next time I will take them off and Teacher will check them out. I will also check whether I can do an oil change without removing the current pipes, that would be a nice to have.
Left the bike with the right side frame needed to bolt on, it sagged a bit. Teacher showed me a lift specifically to lift up motorcycle frames… brilliant, I would never have this stuff at home or even know it existed. Compression check and carb removal are still on the agenda, once we look at the latter we will order the rebuild kit. Will also remove the pipes next week. Teacher said since a sporty 4-1 pipe is on there, the carbs have probably been modified, too. Teacher said that both of those engine mount points are probably stripped out, so we should fix it at some point. It makes me curious about what kind of life this machine has had until my ownership.
Once again I forgot my dirty clothes to work in. It might be a lot easier just to buy some overalls and leave them there.
I bought a 35G plastic container to store the gas tank in, that way nobody will easily walk into it or something. Ordered a battery charger last night, SEM-1562, should get it next Wednesday. I also bough large and small ziplock bags, a notepad, sharpie, pen, and painter’s tape to label things, along with a little first-aid kit in case of anything.
To wrap up the night I got the tip over bars off. Teacher said it is OK to clean them in solvent, then soap and water, then air dry. Look much better, though still might make sense to blast them and paint them as most of the chrome is off.

We couldn’t check the engine compression today, we need an adapter for the checker. Removed the spark plug from cylinder 2, Teacher said it is running lean (there is too much air in the air/fuel ratio of the mixture). Put fingertip on top of plug opening and tried starting it and it pushed my finger off and sucked it in, so the rings are allowing *some* compression. We need to remove the carburetors. Before class I did grab the service manual with the compression levels, and ordered printed copies, too from Helminc.com.

After pulling the plug out I realized there was crud all over in there, so I put the plug back in and shop-vac’d the top out first.
I wanted to remove the crash bars, they are not sporty. 3 bolts hold them on, all through the frame and one through the engine. The 2 on the top frame loosened easily, the one in the engine did not want to come out. Looked underneath to find that there were two bolts on the end. This was surprising. Teacher said the bolt was probably stripped, and that we might fix it later.
This makes it really difficult to get out. Jammed a screwdriver in there and turned it bit by bit for 1.5 hours and headed home. Teacher said mechanics is mostly about patience. I will print out directions for carb removal after talking to teacher about POR-15’ing the tank.

Working on the floor was really dirty, might have to dig out a lift and put it up there instead.

The bike was set up as a cruiser. That is too bad because it is a 1979 Honda CB750F which is a “supersport”. I removed the windshield and bagged the bolts.

Only 32K miles, that is nice. Supposedly the speedometer should go up to 160MPH, but only 150MPH is listed on this one.
I took the bike to school. Here is the “as is” profile:

I took the side panels off, they are black, not purple like the tank. The left side panel had the top most mount broken off and a large bolt glued in it’s place instead, which came off at some point. I wonder how I’ll fix that. I took off the license plate and bagged the bolts. It was interesting to learn that the set is bolted on, I bagged those bolts. Finally I removed the backrest, it was easy after removing the seat first, and bagged those bolts, which incidentally did not fit the rear mounts.
I removed the tail light assembly and labeled the wires first and found that there is a wire-harness. Teacher said to just replace the busted stalks.



The bike starts, runs, and stops, but Teacher checked and the 2nd cylinder is not firing (left to right looking forward sitting on bike, 1 to 4). Took the gas tank off. First turned the petcock to OFF. The fuel line was hard as a rock so teacher said just cut it, also there were heavy metal clamps on both the petcock and the distributor, so he said to be careful to protect the plastic part on the distributor, so I just cut the line in half and covered it up with a paper towel. The tank came right off, it was interesting to see how simple it was removed:

Tomorrow we’ll check the engine compression.

Here is the new patient:

She is a patient because she will be patient as I learn how not to be scared to work on a bike and make all of the stupid mistakes that are to be expected.
It is a 1979 Honda CB750F.
A nice young man named Mitch sold it to me. It was the first time I had towed a trailer, that was interesting. Make sure you budget for tie downs, a hitch, and a trailer.