1971 CL450 build. (not fancy, but complete...)

well, i last left this build mid April... mentioning i'd be "buttoning everything up" with a healthy tone of optimism. the truth is- i went to sleep that night and i wasnt completely satisfied with things. all those rollers we changed out? they all went south all on the same side. -the stator/rotor side. I knew the bearing had some slight pitting in the hardened surface- but not terrible. I just did not like the indicator that all the bad rollers came from THAT side.

so i halted the build. scrounged around and found a 40 year old, new, old stock bearing race out. (thank you EBAY!)





after a few weeks pause, and procurement of some new case bolts- things should start up again tonight.

(got word on tank/set/pegs/bars/etc... should be shipping out end of this week. just in time!)
 
Don't you just hate it when something just sits in the back of your head and bugs the shit out of you until you fix it? :eek: ;D

Don't get me wrong I love these engines but sometimes they can just wear you out with things that just drive you nuts. Getting the valves set correctly still aggravates the hell out of me, just the time it takes to get to the damn things is enough to make me not want to fool with them. And you won't know if they are slightly loose until you put the entire mess back together and run it around the block. That's where I'm at with mine. I have one valve that ticks just a little too much for my liking. Will take 45 minutes to get to it. Thank god I have another bike to ride. ::)
 
frogman said:
Don't you just hate it when something just sits in the back of your head and bugs the shit out of you until you fix it? :eek: ;D

Don't get me wrong I love these engines but sometimes they can just wear you out with things that just drive you nuts. Getting the valves set correctly still aggravates the hell out of me, just the time it takes to get to the damn things is enough to make me not want to fool with them. And you won't know if they are slightly loose until you put the entire mess back together and run it around the block. That's where I'm at with mine. I have one valve that ticks just a little too much for my liking. Will take 45 minutes to get to it. Thank god I have another bike to ride. ::)
Click to expand...

Man i hear ya, Im in the process of getting my valves adjusted too. It such a pain. Decided to adjust my values then went on to my points, just to find out my left coil is now burnt out. Now i gotta change out both coils. No point on just changing 1.
 
Gqxphil said:
Man i hear ya, Im in the process of getting my valves adjusted too. It such a pain. Decided to adjust my values then went on to my points, just to find out my left coil is now burnt out. Now i gotta change out both coils. No point on just changing 1.
Click to expand...

FTW I've had really good luck with these coils, I use them on both my bikes. Search around you can probably find them cheaper. They are Emgo brand.

http://www.z1enterprises.com/ItemDetails.aspx?itemDescription=Ignition+Coil+Universal+12-volt&item=EM24-71512

Getting them mounted is the hardest part but man do they pack a pack a good spark.
 
after what seems like 40 days in the wilderness... BEHOLD! the infamous, gen-yoo-wine Honda M8 case bolts have arrived...



so things can click along now.
(Or so I thought....)

Now any good story needs some difficulty, some obstacle to over come. if this build went too smoothly, you the reader would be bored, having gained nothing from the experience...

At least that's what I told myself this morning for the last FOUR HOURS.

See, we put the cases together last night, torqued everything down, and thought everything would go swimmingly today. Got up excited to button things up and started in. Put the gear selector rollers/springs together and thought I'd give the transmission a test whirl.

Drum rotated a full 300^, and gears slid around on their new coat of assembly lube... Things seemed fine. But only 90% fine. Something wasn't right. Where the gears would mesh was not exactly where the detents were. Plus I only had three or four gears... Not the five that were in the box. AND, there was no neutral.

Now from my experience, a gearbox is either right or wrong. Things either mesh, or they lock up. How the hell can this be so "half right"?

so, split the cases- mainshaft looked good, countershaft looked good... Must be the drum/forks. Did I switch the L and R forks? Took it apart and checked. Nope. Did I switch the center fork around? Nope. Could the shift drum be 180^ 'out' somehow? Nope. What the hell was it!?!

after fraying the last three threads of my sanity- I started to look at EVERYTHNG.

the only thing I can imagine is, at some point, C1 slide off its shaft. Was picked up and slid back on... Turned around.

Holy cow. What a mess.

Reminds me of something called "Crumbaugh's Law". You've heard of Murphy's Law, well, Crumbaugh's Law states that whenever you are faced with a 50/50 decision... 80% of the time you'll pick the wrong one.

Think about it.
 
the rotor pulling tool is kinda cool. These tools are from the Honda RS250 and 125 GP machines I used to race/run. Neat that after an almost thirty year span, Honda remains consistent with their specialty tools...

 
Cylinders are bored to the pistons, cleaned up, primed and painted. Going to scruff the fins for the pinstripe look tomorrow at work, so pistons and cylinders go on tomorrow.


 
Perhaps someone out there in the Interwebs can help me with something. What the hell are these things?...




looks like some sort of 'spark plug extension'. Was it a mid 70s hop-up part or something?

It looks like it would add to the combustion chamber volume, throwing into the weeds any previous jetting, messing with spark propagation, and disrupting any squish effects on the flame front...

logically, I can't see why anyone would put something like this on the bike.

any help?
 
I've seen those before and I know I was told what they were for but that would have been around 20 years ago so I'm gonna have to do some digging. Was either something about weak spark or and engine that burned oil or maybe low compression that those were used for.
 
anty fowlers or neverfouls i think thay called them,for use if your injin liked to drink oil and try to burn it
 
huh. thanks! never heard of them before. after a quick search, looks like the only reason for these things still existing is as a home-made O2 sensor adapter.

and autozone currently sells them as "Temporary fix for minimizing the effect of spark plug fouling due to oil in the combustion chamber."

learn something new everyday. thanks again.
 
...and tonight, PISTONS!




I don't know how many pistons I've put in, but every time I ask, why the hell hasn't somebody, somewhere invented a better system of keeping a wrist pin in place than the damned "c" clips that's been in use for what?... a hundred years or so?
 
now that's a pretty sight...



not a lot for action shots tonight, but with one of us holding the cylinders up and the other running side to side trying to get all the rings in nicely...

No spare hands or attention for cameras.
 
Please tell me those arrows are pointing in the right direction...








(Joke, I hope)
 
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