My Winter Project

Gary in NJ

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Last night I installed the pistons on the conrods and lowered the cylinder assembly into place.

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If you look at the photo from when I removed the head, this looks like an entirely different engine.

This morning I had my coffee and thought to myself, let me try to get the exhaust cam into place. As always happens, when I walk into the garage time stands still and I get lost in the moment...but after a few hours I had the entire head assembly in place and timed perfectly. There was a learning curve to getting there. After one (maybe two) failed attempts to get the timing marks aligned, I strayed a bit from the Honda FSM by first installing the outer cam shaft holders. This allowed me the get the cam in perfect alignment. With the timing marks lined up I was able to adjust the sprocket to the chain to get it on the right tooth to align with the bolt hole.

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I'm not gonna lie, it feels good to get to this place of the engine reassembly.
 

Gary in NJ

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I just about have the engine put back together. Everything is now clean and I'm just waiting on some hardware to arrive...and that's the point of this post. I use to go to the local hardware store, or even Lowes to get replacement hardware. And if you like spending $2-$4 or more for an 18-8 stainless M6 bolt and $0.89 for a 18-8 stainless washer, that's fine. But in the past year I've been getting hardware from boltdepot.com - and I highly recommend them for big purchases. I just placed an order to replace all of the JIS + head hardware with button heads for the carbs and rotor/stator - 60 bolts and 60 split washers - and paid $17.65 WITH shipping. From the local hardware store it would have been well over $100, and I find myself 1) resorting their hardware because it's always in the wrong spot and 2) not finding what I needed because - metric.

boltdepot.com for the win.
 

Motogiro

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I just about have the engine put back together. Everything is now clean and I'm just waiting on some hardware to arrive...and that's the point of this post. I use to go to the local hardware store, or even Lowes to get replacement hardware. And if you like spending $2-$4 or more for an 18-8 stainless M6 bolt and $0.89 for a 18-8 stainless washer, that's fine. But in the past year I've been getting hardware from boltdepot.com - and I highly recommend them for big purchases. I just placed an order to replace all of the JIS + head hardware with button heads for the carbs and rotor/stator - 60 bolts and 60 split washers - and paid $17.65 WITH shipping. From the local hardware store it would have been well over $100, and I find myself 1) resorting their hardware because it's always in the wrong spot and 2) not finding what I needed because - metric.

boltdepot.com for the win.
Thank you Gary. Put em in my favorites. We have a local private owned hardware store called Marshals Hardware that also caters to a more industrial clientele. They have just about everything. Most of it higher priced but if you need specialty hardware they have it.
 

Gary in NJ

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With the engine complete it’s time to move on to the bike. I started with modifying the forks.

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I’m installing Racetech Gold Valve Emulators. Since the valve will handle compression damping the original holes are drilled out to 5/16” and 4 more holes are added. This way the original holes can’t do anything.

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In the photo below, on the top of the damping rod is the GVE. Between that and the top out spring is a 1-inch spacer to lower the forks. The forks originally had 6.3 inches of travel…which is a bit ridiculous.

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And of course the shinny bits (or the parts that are supposed to be shinny) go through the vapor blaster.

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Gary in NJ

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Carburetors. Remember those? This post will be a good reminder that EFI is awesome.

Like the rest of my CB900, the carbs were filthy - both inside and out. The outside had the normal oxidation you’d expect from a 40 year old bike, with the added bonus of baked-on oil from the cam chain tunnel. Yep, carb numbers 1&2 were directly behind the crack in the cylinder, so when oil wasn’t leaking out the front of the cylinder bank, it was being blown back with 60 mph of force, coating everything it touched. The insides of the carbs look like they’ve been at the beach and raking leaves- at the same time.

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It took about an hour to disassemble, organize and assess these things

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The brass looks ok and is certainly reusable. So are the 4 air cut-off diaphragms and accelerator pump diaphragm. All of the o-rings are dry and useless. But I think I’ll replace all of it. I don’t want to get it back together and discover that I should have replaced something, nor do I want something to start leaking 6 months down the road. I’ll start fresh. While I’m waiting a few days for parts to arrive I’ll vapor blast the bodies and covers, and give the rest of the reused parts a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner.
 

Gary in NJ

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I hate waiting for parts. I’m waiting on a single fork bushing (arriving Monday) so I can’t load up the forks into the triple clamps. I’m waiting for carb parts, so I can’t build up the carb bank (arriving Wednesday) so I decided to change the tires and balance the wheels. I absolutely hate changing tires, but for some reason it went well today. Breaking the beads is always a PIA, but I stuck a heat gun in the tires before mounting them and they slipped right on with a little Windex.

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I’ve had the same tire irons for 40 years. They are short (10-1/2 inches) and don’t stack well for bead breaking (they slide apart). I use a large 12” flat blade screw driver to help these irons. I should probably just invest in some quality irons, but the truth is I gave up doing my own tires years ago. But this set went so well, I may reconsider that.

Once I get the forks on I can load up the front wheel. At that point I can reinstall the engine. I suspect I’ll have the engine installed next weekend. It’s all easy stuff from there.
 

TownsendsFJR1300

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A project for you while waiting on parts, a home made bead breaker. You do need a trailer hitch available and it's adjustable. I've used it on car tires, bike tires, small mower tires, etc.

Feel free to copy and make your own...(spec's included)

I also included some longer tire irons (along with a short one) that really works well(last pic)







 

Gary in NJ

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Thanks Scott. I have a friend that can weld. I'll get him those photos and see if I can get him to fabricate the item that goes from the handle that does the actual work.

My carb parts came in yesterday...so this didn't take long:

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For all of the excellence of EFI...you forget how satisfying (and fun) it is to rebuild a bank of carbs. I have them bench sync'd so they should be dang-close once I get them hooked up to the carb sync.
 

meadeam

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The only carbureted bike I rebuilt was a 2-stroke single. It was very satisfying to do, and for the first time I finally understood how a carb works. I kind of want to do a multi-cylinder 4-stroke carbureted bike at some point.
 
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