CB550f / New member

Hey all,

I'm Bert Jan, 29y/o art school student from the Netherlands. Found the site and registered immediatly. I picked up a 1976 cb550f last year and have been working on it ever since.

It's coming together but i need some last advice on the seat. Thinking about a wrechmonkeys style seat, metal sidecovers and sandblasting the tank and clearcoat powdercoat it.

Here are some pics:

How she was on pick-up:







Previous owner did some "panic mechanic" on it, resulting in a 180 degrees rotation of the camshaft. Luckily, no valves were smashed. downside was a complete teardown.





Valves and head after revision:





More trouble..



timing the new points:



Old brake is sh*t so i had to do something about that. Ducati monster parts to the rescue!





Adapter measures, if you want to do it to..(hub holes are same as duc disk..)



mock-up:



milled a bracket:



Final result so far:



Big thanks to Jeffrey @ www.motogadgets.nl for helping me out with the tough stuff.

I dig that Front brake swap, sir. Good Job.

Hell ya. That brake is beautiful, and doesnt look out of place like most modern setups on old bikes. Well done indeed!

I was thinking of doing a brake upgrade. Did you order the new brake online or did you get it from a salvage yard?

Hey Benha, i bought the disc and claw secondhand from eBay. I made the rest myself. The drawing of the ring is between the hub and disc, because the claw will hit the spokes otherwise. But because the disc gets more outwards i had the mill the fork leg to accomondate it all. Hope it makes sense in my broken english

Nicely saved, Bert Jan!

Front brake looks great.

-simpson

Thanks for the nice replies all. this is how i'm thinking about the last stage. Note the holes/ace in the sprocket-cover and please give me some feedback on it.

the tacho was broken, so i opened it by removing the chrome ring. Found out the magnet was in 3 pieces. On my hunt for a new one i found this. works good with my engine although it's from a cb200, rev's are equal.here's a couple of pics from now and how i want them to be. Planning on mounting a alu plate between the inginition lock and upper fork clamp.



this are the plans:



going for mock-up this afternoon, hope to post some pics later on this evening.

Also, if anybody has a Brembo Goldline clutch...

nicely done. unexpected stuff from an art student. not slamming art students. it's just you mention that and then have the engine cracked open and are machining a bracket for your new brake system. seems more like a mechanic/machinists to me. if as an artist you're doing that sort of machine work... i'm really looking forward to the final product.

Thanks Dean! This is how the plan turned out. I'm also ditching the blinkers and bar-switches. Going minimal on this one.

Ok, so today i was fiddling around with the fork gators. took em of the bike cause they were about to vaporize..
Also, and that worried me a lot, is when i apply the brake and rock the bike a bit, the fork leg seems to have some play in the lower part. it goes like tick-tack-tick-tack. Brake is fixed, bracket to and the disc dito. When i put my hand around the fork where upper and lower meet, i can feel the play. Can i repair this by taking the legs apart and revise them, or is something wrong, as in really wrong...
Planning on taking all the brackets of the fork legs and welding the brake-bracket to the fork leg to smoothen things out, so really need to know how the play is fixable...

Please advise me on this one!

btw, ordered a brembo goldline clutch master, wich is coming in this weekend (YAY!) and also a slave. Ohw, and a cb750f2 tank. paint ideas anyone?
updates sooooooon!

Update!

Been working on the hydraulic clutch. Loved the idea (cafe overkill godffery's garage) and wanted to do it to because it aint that hard to do.
Well, the pictures:

cover of, draining the oil:


Clutch rod: (46mm if anyone did the same as me..)


Mock-up testing a 500 cover. The clutch on a 500 is with a long push rod thru the engine, so the cover is less clunky (no clutch arm etc..)




Like a glove


Finding the center in the new cover:






there we are:


Milling and such:








ring to hold the slave-cilinder in place - also fabbed a little knob on it to fill the space on the cilinder:






Mock-up - again:





Made the push rod longer with crmo steel in between:


Time was up that day at school... so....

I made the push-rod a little longer to work with the new clutch, but didn't realise i had to drive to a VERY important meeting regarding a new house with the old clutch. So, this is the result. A completely smashed steel rod i made myself to make it to the appointment. Whoops...




Next day:

SWEET!


Good ol' 510


Clutch cover off, gasket removed (was a b*tch to reach at some places)


Kabang!






More to come... Planning on blasting my newly accuired cb750 tank and etching the honda logo on the sides, and then go for clear powdercoat.
Seat still needs to be fixed but the tank needs to be ready for that.

Also bought 750YZF Yamaha USD forks of ebay. coming next week, so if it all fits new updates soon!

Ohw, the clutch works like a charm. me happy!

This topic continues here:

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=27268.0

Is there a possibility to get all the above posts in the big-arse-projects section?