CB450 project started "Brownie"

P

pbussey

Stifled...
Since I'm new to the whole older bike scene, and bikes in general, this is my short term project to get the bike "reliable"

My FINAL goals are to have a cool little cafe bike to ride around town on. Inspiration is coming heavily from Mysta2's bike.

Here's how old brownie started out
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inside the tank... ew..
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Started the teardown
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to find this in the right carb...
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best thing you can do for the OE CV carbs is replace them with Mikuni VM series....32-34mm.
 
Well, The fuel tank no longer looks like a brownie ;D Sent it to work with my dad to stick it in a dip tank at the airport, which worked really well for cleaning out the inside, but didn't remove decals at all... Turns out, this tank has been cut open and rewelded before, making rust removal a non-issue. Still, it's getting POR-15'ed as we speak.
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What do you guys think? I think I want it to be brushed look with clear over it, or flat black.
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Pulled the stator cover off and gave it a nice refurbishing...
before
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after
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Got the ignition cylinder bracket and toolbox stripped and painted today. These were REALLY rusty, and now they are primed and painted with the most overkill paint for these two parts :p
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Got a new chain for it today too. Tomorrow will be testing out a chrome-friendly rust removal method I've used on bicycles before
 
UPDATE! new parts have arrived!

So the spokes on these wheels are Ruuuuuussstyy! They look like they are still fine to ride on, but they definitely are not worth trying to refinish; just too much pitting there. I got the old (OEM! what a pain!) tires off the bike and my new ones came in. Not period correct, but they should have some nasty grip for the street.
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As she sits now
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Also got my new carb cores in yesterday, man was this thing nasty! Sitting in some Berryman's right now
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Also, I gave in to dealing with the old petcock (teehee!) and bought a NOS Honda one. Man will this be nice!
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The rear brake linings are immaculate! It's almost like the previous owner didn't even use the rear brake!
 
Wow! I don't know what it is about that mockup pic but I love the way it looks.

I usually hate fenders but the whole silver/chrome/black thing going on is great.
 
obscene said:
wow what a clean up! what is your chrome friendly rust removal method?
Click to expand...

I used Oxalic Acid, aka Wood Bleach to dip the chrome parts. It works really well, but the cleanup of the parts afterwards is a PITA if it's a complex part.
 
Well, tried to get her fired up today, no dice. Just seems to be not firing at all :-\ ???

ok, so I got everything back together necessary to getting the 450 to run.

1. carbs rebuilt and cleaned
2. points cleaned and gapped
3. coil grounds and connections cleaned
4. timing set (supposedly)
5. plugs have fire
6. starting fluid (for testing)

So I am trying to fire old Brownie up, and well things are getting quite frustrating. I spent the better part of a day getting the timing and points straight, and they seem to be staying there. During cranking, I will get random puffs of ignition out the left side tailpipe and both carburetors. I get a noisy chain slackening sound during these puffs, but I assume that is the starter chain doing its thing when it fires over. There is fuel in the float bowls and it seems like everything *should* be working, but isn't.


Any Ideas???

Thanks,
Parker
 
pbussey said:
4. timing set (supposedly)
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by this, but it's either right....or it's not...

Also, the chain noise might be a concern - have you check the valve timing? Might have slipped a tooth or 2 on the camchain??
 
If you've enough slack in your cam chain to skip teeth you have pretty drastic concerns.
You'll want to check the condition of the cam chain rollers especially the one on the tensioner.
Sounds to me (no pun intended) like the cam chain is bashing around in the case. Ask Sausage Mahoney how that turned out for him.....
 
OK, so it turns out that the trigger leads to the coils were swapped. At some point, the coils were swapped to opposite sides but the wiring was still attached with the correct colors. The chain noise I heard I *assume* was the motor firing backwards and changing the tension direction. I got a picture of the exhaust cam indexing mark... this is when the mark on the generator is @ "LF" at TDC
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Does this look close enough? It doesn't look like a tooth off to me, but then again they are small teeth. I'll pull the intake cover too.

It runs, sorta. I think it's more a fueling issue now than anything.
 
Swagger said:
If you've enough slack in your cam chain to skip teeth you have pretty drastic concerns.
You'll want to check the condition of the cam chain rollers especially the one on the tensioner.
Sounds to me (no pun intended) like the cam chain is bashing around in the case. Ask Sausage Mahoney how that turned out for him.....
Click to expand...

If it doesn't look to be a full tooth off,
Maybe remove the chain tensioner and make sure its not trashed. Maybe the wheel is damaged and the chain is now loose???
 
Well, I pulled the intake cover and things don't look good. I can't see a mark on the cam anywhere :'(

I still have compression, but that might all change with the cams indexed properly. Let's just hope there aren't any bent valves!
 
Small Update. It's a happy one!!

So I got all of the cams back in phase with each other and ran the compression tester. results? GREAT COMPRESSION!!!! That is a huge worry off my shoulders. She runs a little more regularly now so getting the bike ready to ride should be easy from here on out (touches wood)

One issue I'm having, and I ~think~ it's related to hardened carb insulators not sealing right. The bike will start up pretty easily on the choke, but it immediately goes to ~~4000 rpm, and then dies and does not idle. I can rev it a little bit and it will stay running so long as I'm working the throttle and keeping the choke at about halfway open. I still can't be sure that the idle mixture is good since well, it won't idle, but the screws for idle mixture are 1 turn out as the base stated in the manual.
 
isolators are pretty cheap, and if you have any question...get new ones.
Sounds like you're close....
 
pbussey said:
One issue I'm having, and I ~think~ it's related to hardened carb insulators not sealing right. The bike will start up pretty easily on the choke, but it immediately goes to ~~4000 rpm, and then dies and does not idle. I can rev it a little bit and it will stay running so long as I'm working the throttle and keeping the choke at about halfway open. I still can't be sure that the idle mixture is good since well, it won't idle, but the screws for idle mixture are 1 turn out as the base stated in the manual.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it is running out of gas. Are the carb floats set right?
 
I agree with Flug..... gas problem. My guess is that your tiny pilot jets are still plugged. Unless you removed them and verified visually that they were not plugged, I would say they are the problem as it runs with choke and runs when on the main/needle jet circuit. I have seen this problem with many bikes in recent years due to the nasty shit they are putting in gasoline now... it can take as little as 6 months now and this new gas will plug the tiny pilot jets solid. Once this happens, the only way to clear the tiny ones is to carefully dig the crap out with a tiny piece of wire or a micro drill bit (be careful not to "drill" the jet to a larger size, just force the blockage out), spraying carb cleaner at the orifice will not clear a hard crusty blockage.
 
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