Looking back

Looking back I have to wonder how I ever managed to take the engine out of that VW, rebuild it and get it all back together considering my lack of experience and limited tool box.

Specifically I have to wonder how I ever got the pistons back into the cylinders without a ring compressor, but I know I did, which led me to try it again with the Honda.

"How'd that go?" you may ask.

"Not too good." I'd reply.

I mean I didn't screw anything up, but I couldn't get it back together either. I probably would have screwed something up, but realizing as I do now that parts for this machine are rather hard to come by, I wasn't willing to push my luck too far.

I put the rings on, hooked the pistons to the rods and tried to balance the cylinders over the pistons with one hand while trying to compress the rings and work them into the cylinder with the other. You probably already know that doesn't work and once I got the first piston @ half way in I started thinking about how was I going to even possibly do the other side considering I'd only have about half the room to work with. So wisely I stopped and went out to buy a ring compressor.

When I opened the box I was faced yet another problem. All ring compressors aren't created equal and the one I just purchased, while it would definitely compress the rings, it definitely wouldn't get those pistons into those cylinders while they were attached to the connecting rods. It was wider than the rod was long. Furthermore, if I got one piston in there was no way to get it off afterwards as it was a closed circle in every shape. Furthermore, with one piston installed it was too big to fit over the other.

So I looked online for some words of wisdom. I found a picture of a guy using a very similar ring compressor to put a piston in cylinder. The big difference was he was working on a one cylinder engine. Every one else was using a specialized tool, which I found I could order, but then I'm waiting again.

With the tool I had the only way to do it would be; put the pistons in the cylinders before attaching them, then try to balance all that while getting the wrist pins and circlips installed. That didn't seem too likely, but the alternative was to return the compressor I had, order the specialty tool and wait.

I decided to give it a shot.

It was kind of tedious and a lot frustrating trying to hold the rods still with one hand while balancing the cylinders with the other while trying to slide the wrist pins in with...what? And I managed to not drop either circlip into the crankcase while installing them, (I plugged all the holes before starting)

I'm pretty sure the purists would say "you did what?" And I know that's not the way to do it but...

If you can't stand the heat...

After several false starts I set the top of the engine in place, finger tightened the bolts, but...
...it's like 110 deg in the garage so I'm heading for the pool.

It's always something...

...and now there's this:

The little broken tab indicated by the arrow, is, as far as I can tell, the only thing that keeps the sprocket from sliding around on the shaft.  Is there supposed to be something else that was already missing when I got it?  I don't see any indication of another part in the manuals or the parts diagrams.  Would it be possible to use some kind of washer behind the sprocket?  Somehow it doesn't seem so unless you could be sure it wouldn't wear out and become a bunch of metal shavings in the crankcase, which wouldn't be too cool.

The sprocket doesn't slide so far that the rollers and springs fall out of the starter clutch...but almost.  However, it does slide far enough that the chain has worn a groove in the casting, and that doesn't seem like a good thing

So... what to do about this?  Have looked at several parts sites on the web and they either list the part as "not available" or don't list it at all. 

It's so tedious trying to find something like this on E-Bay.  I looked through 17 pages of CB500 parts yesterday, and the closest thing I saw would involve buying a box of mixed junk and trusting to providence that the part i needed just happened to be miraculously one of the parts in the box.  (They used to sell "grab bags" at a little store near my Grandpa's shop when I was a kid.  ...my cousin Billy and I used to bum change and buy them.  Seemed that Billy always got the good stuff, so I'm not real big on grab bags.)

Got a feeler out on a motorcycle maintenance forum for a part or advice, and I still haven't decided what I'm doing about the last problem.

Been back from vacation for almost 2 weeks now and not making a whole lot of progress so it looks like my estimate of 3 weeks was overly optimistic....but then I've always been a 'half-full-kind-of-guy.'

Back from vacation....hit a small snag

As I was getting set up to continue the engine reassembly the other day, I noticed a small (I hope) problem.
The return stop for the kick-starter was worn / broken off.
I'm now in the process of gradually building this back up with several layers of J&B Weld.  Hopefully this will work and I should be ready to resume assembly in a few more days.

21 days later.

Yeah, I know, 3 weeks, 21 days. Long time, no activity.
Mostly excuses, the only good reason was that I was out of town for a week of that time.
Been reluctant to go out scouting for shops 'cause the Jeep's been acting contrary and I wasn't into pushing my luck but today I went out to find one of the shops that Kathy's friend recommended.  I didn't go to the one she felt might be most likely to help, because I didn't exactly remember where it was, and I had a good idea about where the other one was.
Anyway I pull up in the parking lot of "Badd Attitude Custom Motorcycle Shop" and am greeted by a guy  in dusty khakis and a white v-neck t-shirt sitting on a "hover-round" in the doorway. I tell him my problem and ask if he can help and he tells me he's just hanging out and I should go inside and talk to the guy in the office.
The guy inside looks more like he belongs; t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, dew rag with skulls, leather vest, long goatee, and ear rings. You know.
I tell him a friend said he might do some machine work on a motor-cycle engine (she said he'd work on anything) and he wants to know what it is and what I want done.
When he hears I might want the cylinders bored on a 34 year old Honda, he says, "You need to go see Rick C."
"Is that the same Rick C. that used to work at General?" I ask.
"You know him?"
"Used to know him pretty well" I say, "haven't seen him in years though, he still in that log cabin?"
        [his wife once gave me a bunch of biddies that turned out to be mostly roosters]
"No he's up the road a bit from there now."
After several futile attempts to tell me where he's moved to, he draws me a map and sends me on my way.

It's up the highway past the big long building, then 4 houses, and then there are "two 9-1-1 signs" and that's the road.  "The shop is on the left and the house is at the end of the road.  Drive past the shop to the house and knock.

So up the road I go.  I see what I figure must be the big long building (cause it's pretty long). Then I count the next four houses (trailers count as houses right?) but I don't see the "two 9-1-1 signs".  I drive until I'm sure that I've gone too far...though I doubt that the map is to scale...and turn around.  So now the "two 9-1-1 signs" should be the first thing I come to.

Now I've driven this road many times and I honestly can say I've never noticed any "9-1-1 signs".  (Problem is I just didn't know what a "9-1-1 sign" was.)  So...what am I missing?  Is it possible that those refflective signs with house numbers on them that the Boy Scouts and some churches sell for fund raisers are "9-1-1 signs" because they help emergency vehicles find you...

One more time big building, 4 houses, 2 address signs on the same post, turn there.

There's the shop, 2 bay cinderblock building '65 Toyota on blocks, '75 Ford Ranger, and a big ol' Chevy pick-up all just sorta stranded around outside.  There's the house, ring the bell...no answer.  Look in the window...house is empty.  Oh well, so close.

On the way out I stop at the shop which appears closed up and is very quiet.  On the side door there is a note held on with a  magnet that is turned so the writing "Be Right Back" is not visible.  Try the knob it opens.

Right inside the door is a pile of crankshafts about waist-high and about 6 feet long.  Engine blocks everywhere, must be 40 of them.  Back in the back, behind a drill press is Rick C.

"You look familiar," he says.

I told him who I was and we gabbed for a while about who we used to like and who we thought sucked and then he asked me how I found him and why was I there. 

He said he could bore anything I wanted but he checked and didn't have specs for anything that old.  I told him I had the specs but the book was at home.  He asked if I had brought the cylinders and pistons, said he'd look at them.

In his opinion the cylinders looked good.  He mic-ed cylinders and pistons and said the clearances were good.  He wrote the measurements down so I could check against the specs (pistons were right on for standard bore.)  He checked end clearance and said I needed new rings and said if I really wanted to I could get a hone and run it through the cylinders, but he said he didn't recommend boring the cylinders because they looked pretty good to him and if I did then I'd just have to find that many more parts and he reckoned parts were probably hard to find for that model.
We talked a little longer and I left feeling happier and $$ ahead.

The toughest thing

I'm finding the hardest aspect of getting this motorcycle running is finding parts, or someone willing to work on it. Seems most of the reviews I've read about the CB500T state that it wasn't exactly a marvel of modern motorcycle engingeering and I guess maybe that's why it wasn't produced very long and perhaps why parts for this model, new or used, seem so scarce.
I went to the shop I was referred to last week and didn't have much luck. The place was easy enough to find, and the guy running it was a nice enough fellow, (he seemed to be in the early stages of a project of his own, as he had a very rusty early 30's Ford he was turning into a street rod) but I was about a month late getting there. The guy who NOW owns the shop doesn't work on Hondas, or any other type of motorcycle for that matter, and being new tho the area didn't know of anyone who does. He was friendly though, and did take a look at my cyclinders and confirm that they needed work.
I've got two more leads to follow up on now of shops that supposedly do good work and maybe they do machine work and maybe they'll work on a Honda. Sometimes I get the feeling that part of the problem may just be that some of these guys just plain don't like Hondas, or maybe they know I'm not really a "biker"...or maybe I'm just getting frustrated, or paranoid.
At any rate I plan to follow my two new leads this week and hopefully get lucky.

oops. Hadn't counted on that....

I decided to start using up some of those parts and having gotten things pretty well cleaned up decided to put the crankcase together this morning.
I noticed when I disassembled things all the gears for the transmission stayed in the top half of the crankcase. I wasn't sure why because there didn't seem to be anything holding them there, they were just there. That's OK. I didn't want to deal with that anyway.
Through all the moving around and jostling and whatever those gears all stayed put, somehow mystically defying gravity...until this morning.
I had the lower half all prepped and was ready to set the top on. When I picked it up...you guessed it, gravity finally won, as it always does. The gears dropped out, and slid off the shaft.
No damage, the crankcase was in a plastic tote well padded with rags on the bottom but now I had to go to the drawing to decipher where they all came from.
I got the gears back on the shafts and the shafts back in the housing, and everything fit and everything turns smoothly so I guess I got it together properly...
So, I bolt the crankcase together and as I'm straightening up and putting the tools away, there, between my feet is something that almost certainly is part of a motorcycle. So I take a deep breath, and decide to look at the drawings before taking the crankcase apart. There isn't anything in the transmission drawings that look exactly like this part so maybe...
It seems to fit on the crankshaft, outside the crankcase. I'll have to look at the drawings again before I get too much farther but I think maybe I dodged a bullet.
By the way, I went to see Jerry again (remember him?) He wasn't there again, but the woman I talked to last time was still there, as was the big guy with the long beard (and again me in my shorts and flip-flops.) I was looking for someone to check the pistons and cylinders (and maybe do some machine work if needed.)
They don't work on Hondas at Jerry's so I guess I don't need to go back there again. She did, however tell me of a place nearby where there is a guy who does work on Hondas.
More later....

Endeavor to persevere.

After some bad news yesterday I decided to move on.  Some guys on the forum I've been reading looked at the photos of my pistons and said they didn't look too good, how 'bout giving us some pix af the cylinders, and I did and they thought those looked pretty rough as well, and said that they probably needed at least to be honed, if not bored.
So I heard what I didn't want to hear, but I guess it was something that I needed to know.  Funny how often what you want and what you need don't converge. 
Anyway, I spent the morning rearranging tools to make a better work area and this afternoon I started degreasing the engine.  And I found some good news.  Don't know it it off-sets the bad but good is good, right?  The manual had some pretty simple tests for some of the components.  For example: place the head on a flat surface like a sheet of heavy glass to see if it is warped...passed that.  Also:  put some gas in the dome where the valves are to see how fast the liquid leaks back out to see if the valves are seating properly...passed that.  The solvent I put in there to disolve the carbon build up stayed there for hours (once the spark plugs were back in place.)  So that's good.

Below right is an excellent picture of degreaser not leaking from the cylinder dome.  Since it isn't a video I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that it's not leaking, because it's not.

Every Picture Tells a Story, baby...or

...I really don't have the inclination to write anything today.

that's @ 5000 words.

Ho-hum

Not much shaking today unless you're into tedium.
Cleaned and painted the air-cleaner boxes and sorted through some parts.
Installed the battery box, fuse box and solenoid, also finished installing the rear fender, lights and the rear grab bar.  I also learned something, well two somethings actually.  First, I learned that there is a difference between the left rear turn signal mounting bracket and the right rear turn signal bracket.  Second, I learned that I don't have any left rear turn signal brackets.  I learned this because when I was trying to put the grab bar on, I couldn't get it into the proper position.  It was hitting the left turn signal bracket.  At first I kinda panicked a little thinking "oh my God, the frame must be bent."  Why else would it hit on the left and not the right?  I took the grab bar off and laid it on a flat surface hoping that if something was bent it was the bar:  not bent.
Next I looked at trying to fit it under the turn signals: not even close.
Then I noticed the left turn signal was slightly higher than the right...again...is the frame bent?  Finally I see that the brackets are different...did I some how get them on the wrong side?  I only labled one, but that should be enough unless you're stupid, right?  Then I realize that they are not in fact different, they are the same and they shouldn't be.
Oh, well, I put it on crooked for now (it must have been on crooked when I got it and I just didn't notice) and add it to the parts wish list.