1969 Diecast/ K0 restoration

[benjixt]

Hello
regarding your gauge restoration
do you refill the damper pot???

which oil quality??

thank you

[/color]20878]
Yes,I can't find tread in soch4 forum or in HONDAMAN book.Something about harmonic noise or vibration in hi rpm.

This has been discussed many times at SOHC.net and is a pet of mine. I have reviewed many pictures of virgin lower ends and there is NO consistency from the factory as to whether the chains should be synched or staggered. Many people have stated that they should be one way or another, but there is no verifiable back up to either position. I am open to anything scientific one has to say.

I received this as a PM from HondaMan: "I'll make a post of this when I can get my picture, later, but...I just disassembled a virgin 750K7 engine and found painted-on timing 'marks' on the primary chains, and they align the plate-to-plate setup we were kicking around earlier. So, it looks like Honda aligned them instead of staggering them, when new." With his permission. "We were kicking around earlier" refers to the conversation he and I had on the subject.[/color]

 This is not conclusive as I have seen at l[/color][/color]east 2 virgin bottom ends where the chains were staggered. This leads me to believe Honda didn't care.  The chains in my current project are synched. FWIW.
Ron

Good imformation Ron, for what its worth i have lined up the green dots on the chain, this makes it link to link


Ok so here are pictures of the gauges back together, there is still more work to be done, i will put new shrink tubing on the wiring, as it is getting a bit hard , also i wont seal up the bottom with silicon until the clocks are up and running on the bike, other than that here they are for know, all the hard work done











The rear chrome plates are ok but not perfect, thing is that the replacement ones from Honda are not the same as the originals, so its either keep as is , rechrome or replace with modern alternative


Here are the originals



here is an original left, next to the new style  right

[UK Pete]

No i did not do the damping oil as it seemed ok, however i have not seald the instruments in their cases so i can easily get to them if they jump around when i get it on the road

[UK Pete]

Just delivered my bodywork to the painters, i have asked him to hand paint the tank stripes rather than use decals, can someone confirm this is the correct way for a K0, fingers crossed the guy will do a good job, the trouble is i am already having some regrets about using the LPM side covers and airbox,i thought they were good value for money and less brittle however those are the + points the minus points are no holes for badges, replica stamped on the inside, and worse of all is they have no tangs for retaining the grilles, anyway its to late now and all these points will not be seen , i also have massive problems with my head and barrels, i will do a post with pictures when i get time as i want some help here so i dont mess up building the engine
Pete

[kp]

Yep, painted stripes

[sandydogg]

pete,

I have read every word on your restore, awesome job! I am in the beginning stages of a restore myself, and trying to learn all I can. your pictures and techniques are most impressive! I am most impressed with the replating you do yourself, not to mention the attention to tiny detail that you achieve. I hope to see your die cast up and running soon! best luck and kind regards from usa!

and keep up the great work and awesome pictures!!

cheers, john

[UK Pete]

Thanks for the kind words john, i have slowed down on the resto past few months but i am getting the urge to speed things up a bit, i am struggling to get the original candy blue green colour right , so i have bought a nos part so i can get my painter to match it perfectly, i also have found someone to tig weld my 2 hole hub where there is a chunk missing, but my top end of engine is the problem at moment once i have sorted that out things will start moving quicker
pete

[sandydogg]

hmmmm pete,

slowed down? mine came to a grinding halt... I run a small home based business, I have a two year old and a four year old that are with me all day... my 4wd work truck spun a front axle... my fridge died... my furnace died... repaired everything but the fridge myself, bought new appliances... oh I remodeled my little girl's room, with new furniture... new carpet in the boy's room... let's see... my super nice lawn care guy was here illegally and got deported so I am back to cutting my own grass... getting too old at 48 to push a effing lawn mower so I bought a rider... all four Chinese tubes popped within 3 mows, what a chore to fix, can't get your fingers in the dinky rims... replaced several yards of rotted concrete myself... brake job on the wife's car... u joints on my work truck... this is just the last 12 months... with the pile of cash and the hours I have spent, I could have restored a whole truck load of bikes 

I think I read that you lost your job... welcome to the club... that's why I am self employed now... happened to me 4.5 years ago, lost a job of 15 years with a wife 8 months pregnant... 

hang in there brother! life gets in the way sometimes... your k0 looks fantastic mate  looking forward to the end results!

kind regards, john

[UK Pete]

WOW John life sure does get busy sometimes, i am also self employed running my own business it was winter time when there was no work coming in and i had spent all my money on the k0, thats when things started to get a bit grim, now work is coming in fast trouble is finding the time now.
i suppose you are very lucky in this life if you have time and money together,
pete

[sandydogg]

haha well said pete 

time and money together! yeah matey it's one or the other for me too. yeah I starve half the year and buy bikes the other half. after a few cycles of that I have some sweet bikes, I will post some pics of my 83 silverwings some day. one has a hack. the other is factory mint (almost of course). I used to have quite a few "giant killers" ie rd350's but only have a couple left... kind of funny as the old early k's were the "giants" they killed. I should start a new thread... of course the cb750 would take the rd's on the open flats but put a big twisty road in the picture and the Race Developed 350 would win (nearly) every time. I love two strokes too much  anyways a lot of the old rd's got sold off, well I can't complain much as my kids get to spend the day with dad and a whole lot of bikes and a dirty warehouse with a dirty kitty cat and even more bikes... oh I have two older kids too (remarried) that I raised as a single parent, they are grown in fact I will soon be a grandpa, my oldest kid is a boy and of course rides, bought a new Harley this year after coming home from Afghanistan with the marine corps (a big hooray for all the sons/daughters/grandkids/parents who have served their country)... my oldest daughter is married and will soon keep the family young in the form of a new baby... anyways I do have some k0 parts and loads of k2 parts in the form of full bikes... matey we have lots in common so reach out if you need anything from this side of the pond... be happy to reship anything you need too, at true cost... lots of feebay sellers won't ship to UK just ship it to me and I will be happy to send along... that's an open offer... anyways I don't mean to hijack your fine post, you have inspired me and instead of working (it's so nice to not have a boss!) I spent the evening researching zinc plating and electrolysis as rust removal, totally inspired by your thread and your brilliant home zinc brew (I will have some future questions, mate!) keep up the good work, I have enjoyed your detailed pictures very much  cheers

nb, I have walked the four corners of the earth, in eastern Africa they say "salamu iwe juu yenu" which loosely translated means "may you always walk in peace" it sounds really lovely when spoken in Kiswahili especially to a kid who has never seen a white man walk amongst them, yet another story  have some nice traditional breakfast for me someday, gosh how I wish I could skip over there for a lovely traditional English breakfast, it's been years since I ate the real thing, next time I come to UK I will look you up, do the same if ever in the middle of USA matey... anyone who eats beans and tomatoes and eggs and fried bread in the morning is a good man to me  just have to skip the tea and head over to Netherlands for some real coffee, the shit that makes my tongue feeling like it has hair growing on it haha... I am a caffeine fiend too mate 

[UK Pete]

Ok guys i have collected my paintwork and am very happy, the colour is perfect i had it matched using a NOS candy blue/green panel
Here is a complete photo collection of the work start to finish, notice he hand done the tank stripes at my request
the pictures were done on a camera phone and so are not perfect

First all parts degreased filled and keyed up ready for grey silver undercoat


next parts are given there first coat and at this stage any further inperfections are taken care of



Here we have the parts all sprayed up in the candy blue green




Tank going through masking and spraying of striping detail





 
And finaly the finished set of paintwork





I should also mention i had the painter do a spare set of fork ears, and my original airbox while he was doing all this
i am not sure wether to use original airbox or the repro one , here is the question what air box would you guys use original and risk it cracking or aftermarket?

[gary]

wow is this helpful am i glad you spent the time to post this stuff. i am working on 786 an this is really a big help thanks

[steff750]

 

here is the question what air box would you guys use original and risk it cracking or aftermarket?

don't chance it mate go with the repo. the original will fall to pieces with all the crap potholes here , you know its the right choice here a question back at you why do you have a blue neutral light in your clocks I have seen this before in fact it stopped me buying a clock of fleabay a few years ago but they keep turning up so they must be for real , so could it be for a particular market like japan or summit I presume yours is not a uk designated bike cheers  and get on wiv  it, get it assembled and get riding this summer aint gonna last you know that  and yes nice work BTW

[UK Pete]

Hi Steff, i suppose it makes sense to use the aftermatket box, however i will not ride this bike much as i have to many bikes and so only put a few miles on each, it might be worth using the original as it will only sit in a box and at least i can say it is another original part of the bike, which is keeping it true as i can to original
As for the blue jewel it is a camera thing just the same as when you try to photo candy blue green paint some how most cameras dont pick up the true colour, the jewels came from lecram and all his clock resto parts are spot on ,
It certainly wont be this year to get back on the road i am still juggling another 4 restorations and have just bought another project which is a ride and restore bike totally different to what i am used to here it is below it is called project BAD ASS     LOL

[UK Pete]

I have started gathering parts for the rebuild of my rear wheel, up until now i have not paid much attention to the rear wheel, it has sat there in the corner virtually untoched covered in grime, i was dissapointed to find that the final drive flange has been scuffed up by a chain incident in the past, this seems very common looking through some other peoples build threads, i have been thinking that perhaps my bike had a chain break in its first year as my engine number seems to have been  stamped possibly by a dealer rather than honda, so it could have been rebuilt with new casings, or maybe not the date stamps in the engine cases are 1969 and consistant with the build date so who knows what has happened, anyway back to the wheel below is a picture of the scuffed up drive, i would say it is repairable , at the edge it still measures 3.5 mm so i think it could be sanded or machined out, what do you guys think

[Wayne]

Chain incident or chain guard rubbing? (common) Here's a thread showing the damage to 576's flange.
http://cb750sandcastonly.com/smf_forum/index.php?topic=872.0