CB750K - First Build

Hey Dude.. Everything looking good so far. +1 on the clearance of the tire for the seat. Good on your for being resourceful with what you're working with. I'll check back on this for sure! Good guys at Town Moto, one of my fav shops in Toronto.

Good luck with everything.

Hey everyone!

so got out to the garage day prior to heading to class tonight and pulled off the covers on the engine to help in the cleaning process of sanding them and giving them a bit of life again. Just like SaturdaysWrench mentioned in one of his videos, that first crack on loosening a bolt from the engine thats been shut for 30 odd years its an extremely satisfying sound! something about it that Im sure many of you would agree when you here the slight pop/crack and feel the ratchet accelerate for a quick second...

anyways, so when i purchased the bike there was a slight knock coming from the engine so I figured once I opened it up that I would see some sort of build of gunk under one of these covers and having something loose or what not. (remember this is my first tear down of any sort). But when I got the covers pulled off today everything was surprisingly clean! So i guess the knock must have been from the top end of things (the cam chain seems to be a popular issue to arise). I am not sure what to be looking for when I have these covers off, so if anyone could provide some feedback on that I would appreciate it, otherwise I am just going to clean the covers and slap them back on when I get some new stainless steel allen head bolts from ebay. The oem bolts show signs of corrosion and have that white calcium build up on some of them and in the thread holes. liquid wrench to clean out the mounting holes of this stuff? I have used some of this on my ninja 650 gas key hole as that stuff always seems to build up there...anything else you guys would suggest?

thanks for reading and here are the pics as I know they say much more and are most likely more interesting than me!

happy building!

you really are just making a huge bunch of extra work for yourself
you should have never torn down the bike until you fully analysed the knocking sound WHILE IT WAS TOGETHER AND RUNNING good lord
now you are taking things apart purely out of rabid ignorance with no clue what you are doing or even why

xb33bsa said:

you really are just making a huge bunch of extra work for yourself
you should have never torn down the bike until you fully analysed the knocking sound WHILE IT WAS TOGETHER AND RUNNING good lord
now you are taking things apart purely out of rabid ignorance with no clue what you are doing or even why

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man you go on

xb33bsa said:

you really are just making a huge bunch of extra work for yourself
you should have never torn down the bike until you fully analysed the knocking sound WHILE IT WAS TOGETHER AND RUNNING good lord
now you are taking things apart purely out of rabid ignorance with no clue what you are doing or even why

Click to expand...

being my first bike build I was over zealous to get going on it and yes I realize I didnt do things the proper way in terms of a tear down and how to rebuild the bike. I have already made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes throughout this process. As I continue to do research and read through builds on this forum I see things that I should have done along the way in the beginning, and regret it slightly but also, I feel like I am learning lots and definitely learning from my mistakes for my next build whenever that may be. Thanks for your input and constructive criticism xb! i Will be sure to do things "more" proper the next time round, as for now, I must continue to fumble my way through this project, taking notes and pictures learning as I go.

xb33bsa said:

you really are just making a huge bunch of extra work for yourself
you should have never torn down the bike until you fully analysed the knocking sound WHILE IT WAS TOGETHER AND RUNNING good lord
now you are taking things apart purely out of rabid ignorance with no clue what you are doing or even why

Click to expand...

woah man. we're here for support! admittedly, he was a little hasty in the take down, but cmon, everyone makes mistakes.
keep at 'er, shaggy.

not related to build...but pretty cool....Vancouver Motorcycle Show...here are some snippets that were pretty sweet.
anyone in the area i would recommend going to check this out..awesome bikes, cool booths, and quite a few prize draws.

the bonneville tracker has a wood seat pan, tank wrapped in leather, lots of brass fittings, tons of small detail that isnt captured in the picture.

if you havent seen the Ninja H2R yet, check it out, the frame design is absolutely insane.

hey all!

not much going on with the build but have run into a few problems that has hindered me in progressing as much as I would have liked.

first, I painted my swing arm and center stand with the vht roll bar paint just as I did with my frame, everything turned out great and I was pleased with my first experience with the rattle can job. However, I went to clear coat the swing arm and center stand and the result I am less than pleased with. It is rough and looks very crackly as you can see in the picture below. Not sure why this happened as I followed all the prep work that I had done with the painting part. Maybe it was too cold? when I did the clear it couldnt have been colder than when I painted so not sure..maybe my prep work wasnt as good? is there a way to fix this...perhaps wet sanding with 1200 grit sandpaper lightly just to get the roughness of and then apply another couple of coats of the clear?

second, I have been trying to take apart my forks to give them a thorough cleaning and make sure nothing needs replacing. Everything has gone smoothly except for the allan bolt on the bottom of the forks, they are extremely tight and it feels as if I am going to strip these and that is the last thing I want to, especially given the location of the bolt...would there be lock tite on these? I feel it should not be this hard to undue.

lastly, I cannot for the life of me remove the rear hub to polish, clean, and also inspect the shoes...I have soaked it a lot with some liquid wrench and from all the videos and manuals I have watched and read, the bloody thing should just slide right off...again am I missing something? There does seem to be a bit of rust and grime but it hasnt budged...been trying to punch the axle through with a mallet, and also a block of wood and a hammer to give it a bit more of a punch but nothing..help me before a smash the thing haha

oh, one more thing, I plan on painting the rims black and know I have to remove the chrome, any suggestions other than sand blasting? I have read a few threads hear that use muriatic acid to remove and am looking into going that way...will that stuff also remove the rust?

I will continue to research and use these forums for help and guidance, but its always nice to get some direct help on your own thread ;D

hope everyone is enjoying the winter!
happy building

the brake plate should slide right out issit stuck at the axle ? use heat on the plate if so and a copper or soft hammer so you dont knacker the threads
DO NOT use muriatic acid it is nasty stuff,and you will never get residue out of the spoke niplle threads then some day the wheel will 'splode sending you into the next oncomming car
you really need to unspoke rims to paint,how are you going to mask off the nipples ? the bottom bolt you needs to use an 1/2 drive air impact wrench(the electric equivelent could do as well) with a high quality, good fitting hex on a socket , it will buzz right out 99.5% of the time

I just rebuilt the forks on a Honda cm450. I ended up having to drill out the botem bolts. I used a bit that was slightly larger than the Allen wrench cavity. Drill until you are past the bolt head and down into the shaft of the bolt. I then put the fork in a vice and gave the fork a few sharp pulls ant the bolt cane into two pieces. Once the tube was out and the tension off the head of the bolt I could un thread the rest of the bolt shaft by hand.

xb33bsa said:

the brake plate should slide right out issit stuck at the axle ? use heat on the plate if so and a copper or soft hammer so you dont knacker the threads
DO NOT use muriatic acid it is nasty stuff,and you will never get residue out of the spoke niplle threads then some day the wheel will 'splode sending you into the next oncomming car
you really need to unspoke rims to paint,how are you going to mask off the nipples ? the bottom bolt you needs to use an 1/2 drive air impact wrench(the electric equivelent could do as well) with a high quality, good fitting hex on a socket , it will buzz right out 99.5% of the time

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ya it seems to be stuck at the axle and wont budge at all...I have been planning on heating it up but dont have anything except a blow dryer haha what do you guys use for something like this..
and could to know about the acid! will stay away and probably just take it to get them blasted and I was going to take apart the spokes to do the paint on them as well.
and I will go ahead and source out an impact wrench/driver to get it off!
thanks xb!

JGHiggins1 said:

I just rebuilt the forks on a Honda cm450. I ended up having to drill out the botem bolts. I used a bit that was slightly larger than the Allen wrench cavity. Drill until you are past the bolt head and down into the shaft of the bolt. I then put the fork in a vice and gave the fork a few sharp pulls ant the bolt cane into two pieces. Once the tube was out and the tension off the head of the bolt I could un thread the rest of the bolt shaft by hand.

Click to expand...

thanks for letting me know..its a daunting thought to be drilling into the forks so I hope I dont have to resort to this..thanks JG!

lefty loosy righty tighty

Internet is down at work and it's a slow day. Got an idea as I have been contemplating what I want to do about side covers. I like the look of a metal grate on many bikes from this forum as the world wife web. Also when I started this project I liked the idea of a number plate...so sitting here I thought I could paint a grate either black or the same color as the tank (Olive drab) and then paint cb on one side and 750 on the other side...I have included an exact scale drawing to give you guys an idea..

Also what do you guys use as a photoshop program..lookin to download a free version that has some quality and tools for this

Also should mention I like the look of old school military writing and that was what I was trying to replicate on the tank and side covers...probably going to get a vinyl sticker made up for the tank but as for the covers any one know of stencils pre made? Otherwise I'm thinking I'll make them out of cardboard or paper

Also don't think I will be welding the covers on but a couple rubber ends an some zip ties is what I'm thinking so I can change the design when desired and have access to battery as well

Man life is hard when the internet is down...thank god for smart phones.
So played around with Paint on my laptop and here is a slight mock up except going to keep stock airbox and don't have a kick starter..not sure if I am going to go with an all black exhaust or not yet..thoughts, advice, criticism welcome

Might be some similar inspirations on this build
http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=48921.msg711116#msg711116

Bootsey said:

Might be some similar inspirations on this build
http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=48921.msg711116#msg711116

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Awesome! Not sure how I missed this one! Looks great thanks for the post

Also, if you're still having trouble getting that fork bolt out, and don't have access to an impact driver, you could try the broom handle trick or similar to stop the dampener from spinning.
Take the top tube nut, take out the springs, and you should be able to see down in there with a torch. Stick something down in there to hold the dampener from spinning, I used a piece of small copper pipe, some folks shape the end of a broom handle.

Bootsey said:

Also, if you're still having trouble getting that fork bolt out, and don't have access to an impact driver, you could try the broom handle trick or similar to stop the dampener from spinning.
Take the top tube nut, take out the springs, and you should be able to see down in there with a torch. Stick something down in there to hold the dampener from spinning, I used a piece of small copper pipe, some folks shape the end of a broom handle.

Click to expand...

Awesome good tip! I'll give it a shot thanks bootsey

been getting the mounting brackets for the engine and some other small parts painted up such as the triple tree over the last few days. used an old shoe rack to hang the parts from bungee cords. Pretty ghetto paint booth but hey it seems to be working!

also have been playing around with making some stencils. dafont.com is a great website where you can download thousands of fonts for word for those looking for fonts that arent included on word. ended up going with a font called Stencilia-A. printed it out in font size 200 and then spent time cutting out the lettering to create a home made stencil.

gave it a test spray on some cardboard and it almost worked. obviously I wont be using card board on the finished bike but rather a metal mesh. my issue with this is how to keep the stencil flat down on the mesh as the paint was able to bleed a bit in the loose areas of the paper. any suggestions? maybe wetting the paper to give it a bit of weight and stick? covering the whole thing in scotch tape or masking tape and then using an exacto to cut out the letters and leave a small sliver around the inside of the letters to provide the stick? making a stencil in the opposite fashion and cut away all the white of the paper and use double sided tape all along underneath each individual letter?

just thinking out loud here and seeing if anyone else has experience in doing something similar to this
thanks for any help as always!