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.

A tribute to my Dad and Billy Mays

My goal from the start in this venture was to see if I

could get this thing running without spending a lot of money, which means I wasn't going for cosmetics beyond what I could accomplish inexpensively.  

Sometimes the line between cosmetic and esential blurs a little.  Take for example the piece shown to the right.
It is called the "upper fork cover." (The section of the part illustrated doesn't actually cover the fork but still it is part of the fork cover and there are two of them.

Most of the surface rust cleaned off but as you can see they are kind of pitted as well.  Not the problem.  See the verticle line to the left of the hole?  That is from flexing and is very weak, and both the left and right side are cracked.  This crack is even more evident in the middle photo if you click on it and zoom in.

So now it becomes a matter of having the headlight securely fastened as opposed to nice chrome.  I find that These parts are available on e-Bay in the $20 to $35 price range but that those parts really don't look much better than the ones I have, so I'm not too excited about that. 

I keep looking and actually find some brand new ones on e-Bay.  Great.  Unfortunately the "buy it now" price for the pair is $200.  This might be OK if I were into the 'full restoration' stage, but a little steep for the 'let's see if this thing will run, and if I can ride' stage.  So I just put away the tools, clean up the mess and step back for a while.  I just know something will occur to me.

If only there was a way to reinforce the parts I have that would be not too noticeable until I'm into the beautification process....

Now the part around the hole in the photo that looks like a washer is part of the original part, and appears to be soldered or welded through holes under the chrome...if that had been bigger or if the whole thing had been thicker metal...

Well now I'm guessing you know who the late Billy Mays was, right?  You remember. the guy who was all the time hawking amazing products on the tube that did unbelievable things.  One of his things was Mighty-Putty.  Mighty-Putty can do everything from fix a broken coffee cup to pulling a tractor-trailer.  I know because Billy said so.

Well if it can do all of that, surely it can reinforce this lil' ol' motorcycle piece.  (If anyone reading this a motorcycles purist, I think I hear you groaning.)

So I cut a piece of sheet metal I had laying around to fit the back side of the headlight bracket, knead me up a hunk of Mighty Putty, which if you have never done that and don't know creates a chemical reaction and doesn't smell nice, and slap it all together.  What you see to the right is the inside of one of the brackets (which isn't going to show) after the repair.  as you know Mighty-Putty can be painted, sanded, drilled, tapped, and even machined when fully cured.  (Says so on the package.)

Ok, I know that's like only two steps ahead of duct tape but it actually looks like it's going to work.  It does kinda remind me of that e-mail my brother sent out last week titled "guys can fix anything, but what the heck, Billy Mays would approve...and come to think of it so would my Dad...who hated to see any thing go to waste.

By the way if you aren't following this blog, you should be.

And there it is.  The headlight is secure, (more secure than before) neither the Mighty Putty nor the sheet metal is visible, and I still have the $200.