Ponycarman's '80 cm400t

[ponycarman]

Got some new stuff yea! Got new spark plugs, new sprocket, front and rear break pads, and th he plug wire end to fix the one I broke lol. Pics!

The sprocket

Front pads

Rear shoes, plugs, and wire end

 

[ponycarman]

Dropped some stuff off at the bike shop down the street today. They are going to install my rear tire, dyna beads, and the bearings front and rear. Also installed my new spark plug wire end and my new plugs. The engine still has the small misfire at idle. Its hard to explain. The left side cylinder doesnt fire as strong as the right. The right fires strong and I can feel the exhaust being forced out with a very strong puff. But the left seems off. The is not a very good distintion of when it is fireing and when it isnt and the exhaust doent come out with anywhere near the pressure as the right side. I was thinking about rebuilding the carbs to be safe anyway. I think it might be a little clogged on that side.

The bike is really coming together now. So close to being able to learn to ride it. Ive got a color sceme nailed down. Still need to descide on the seat. Also thinking about the exhaust. I really like the screaming eagle mufflers on the bike. They look neat and sound pretty good. One of them are bent up pretty bad so Im thinking about trashing it and going two into one with the good muffler. I have a welder and a good bit of welding experience. I need to figure out how I can use the factory pipes and join them to the one muffler. Im sure it will be pretty simple once I get to it. Using the muffler I have already will be cheaper still than buying a new mac exhaust.

 

[ponycarman]

Got my caliper tore down, stripped, and ready to powder coat. I also have the rebuild kit. Just waiting on the powder. Going to do it in gold. The paint scheme I ultimately am going for is a satin navy blue with some gold accents.

 

[ponycarman]

Gold powder on back order grrrrrr!

 

[ponycarman]

Good news- powder came in.

Bad news- My great grandpa passed away wednesday. Funeral is saturday

 

[ponycarman]

All the powder is in but it looks like the shop is having trouble changing my wheel bearings. I dont know whats up its been a week and a half. Dropped by to see what was up and they said they were having trouble finding a tool to grab the bearings. So I dont know haha.

 

[haplo_84]

I'm sorry about your grandpa man.

As for the wheel bearing, This is a motorcycle shop right? I don't think I ever had a bearing that took me a week to get out and I'm not a shop.

 

[ponycarman]

Yeah I thought that was crazy. It was probably an excuse because the were busy or something. I got a call today they are done. If they look good then I'm satisfied. Been waiting on the powder anyway. Now that its here and they are done, its time to get wrenching

 

[ponycarman]

Color combo question. Satin blue with gold accents or satin black with gold accents (the bandit style )

Which do y'all think would be better?

 

[ponycarman]

Got more stuff coated tonight. The chain adjusters and the two piston caliper. Also assembled the drum.

Here it all is cooling.

 

[poster]

Color combo question. Satin blue with gold accents or satin black with gold accents (the bandit style )

Which do y'all think would be better?

I am not the biggest fan of gold accents etc. but I would go with black and gold theme.
I remember somebody did a beautiful black and gold theme bike (CB too) here as well. It looked great!

 

[ponycarman]

I guess I normally an not either but I'm gonna try it. I got my wheels today. There was a problem with the rear wheel seal. It appears that the place I bought the bearings or all-balls put the wrong seal in the kit. The shop couldn't get it in and neither could I. I tried everything I could think of and it would go. It just mushroomed the seal out. So I'm working on getting that resolved. I striped and coated my rotor today. Also worked on the caliper. Pics of the rotor.

 

[ponycarman]

Threw some stuff together to test fit and see how it will look. Snapped some pics

 

[ponycarman]

Got more done. Caliper is rebuilt and finished. Wheel, rotor, and caliper are installed. New pads too. Bled the brakes and its all working great. All the parts were direct bolt on. No mods at all. Also I believe the two piston caliper is a little lighter than the single. I'm still waiting to hear about the seal for the rear wheel. Here are pics of the front.

 

[ponycarman]

Alright I finally figured out the problem with the rear dust seal. The store I purchased the all balls kit from never got back with me so I investigated it myself. The seal that came with the all balls kit for the cm400 has a seal that is 30mm x 55mm x 7mm. This seal was too big! I searched around and found on bike bandit that the factory rear dust seal was 30mm x 52mm x 7mm. Im in the process of getting the correct seal. Those of you with cm400's beware. Every site I have checked so far has it wrong on their website. I dont know if there were two different seal types for these bikes or what. But every site so far has said the 30x55x7 is the right one. The 30x52x7 is listed for the cb400t. Just thought I would share this info. Might help someone to keep from having this problem.

 

[ponycarman]

Seal came in today! It was the right size finally. Got the rear wheel assembled and back on with all the various parts. The other day I cut off the super high seat support and welded in a flat support. Now I need to work up a seat. I may just go for a one person seat after all. I mean who am I kidding. Im pretty sure my wife wont ride with me when Im just learning. Im not sure I really want her to haha. And I dont know if its such a good idea to ride two up so early in my motorcycle life or on a bike that sounds like it might have trouble lugging one person around haha. Oh well. I need to fag up some type of seat. Im welcome to ideas yall! Ive got some sheet metal I might lay out as a start. Then form the seat off of that. Ive halfway thought of trying to fab a kind of street fighter style seat too. The angle of the frame in the back seems suited for it. I dont know really. Im sure I want to go cafe though. Just got to figure out where to start with it.

Pics of the bike back on the wheels finally. Ignore the mess. Im loving how its turning out

 

[ponycarman]

Here are some pics Ive been meaning to post. Got the bike out the other day after she was mostly back together. I need to get a new choke cable. She is cold blooded and wont start with out the choke haha. I even rode it for the first time. Just took it down the drive way. It was a big deal to me haha . I runs pretty good and moves on like it should. Im starting to fab a seat for it. I have some sheel metal and a welder so Im going to try to make my own up. The pics are pretty nice considering they are phone pics. Here are the pics

 

[poster]

Looks good! What kind of seat are you going with?

 

[ponycarman]

Im going to try to make a cafe racer style seat. With the cowl and everything. But right now I'm working on making the main seat pan. Then I can do the cowl later. I still think it would be cool to have a removable cowl. What do yall think? With the way out sits now I can see it becoming anything. Cafe, bobber, street fighter, our anything else haha.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk

 

[ponycarman]

It has been quite a while since I've posted anything with this. Bike got buried, life happened haha. I'm back at it again in hopes to get it ready to ride next riding season. A close friend of mine has been motivating me as he wants and needs a riding partner.

The focus on the project has somewhat shifted. Much is being put back stock with some mild custom touches. Picked up a factory seat pan and hardware. Unmodified the frame support. I have whittled down the stock foam a tad for now. Will probably redo the seat at a later time. Also working on sewing up a seat cover as the stock on was trashed...

Been picking up pieces to get the exhaust back together. Discovered the previous owner cut off the factory headers so I had to get a replacement set. Also picked up a stock pre chamber and some take off hd sportster mufflers I'm going to use.

Grabbed some less weathered controls. Left side was nos and still in the bag haha. Also grabbed some new superbike bars and a rear fender and liner. New sprockets and a new o ring chain was grabbed too. Adjusted the valves and did a compression test. Numbers were good for a 32k mile bike. Lots more to do but at least I'm moving forward again. Next to do is a fork rebuild and steering stem bearings.

Here are some pics of recent happenings.

Decided to not use the cx500 tank right now. Grabbed some side covers and another cm400 tank. Much much nicer than the cx tank and my current tank.





Nos left side controls



New chain and test fit of the exhaust parts.



How it's sitting at my buddies house



That's all I've got at the moment. Been realizing some mistakes I've made previously. Was young and very dumb when I purchased the bike. Live and learn haha. Sorry for the long winded reply. Just happy to get this moving forward.