Honda CB750 Sandcast
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: kmb69 on January 27, 2019, 04:16:33 pm
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What is the earliest build date known for a complete bike as well as individual parts?
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I guess I must have bad breath or BO???? No answers?
Is the answer already on the website or forum and I can't find it?
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What is the earliest build date known for a complete bike as well as individual parts?
Keith, that is a good question, i don't know that this question has been asked before...
when you say "build date known for a complete bike" what identifier(s) would you look for? as far as we know, the vin tags on RH steering head did not begin until August '69, so as to a build date for a complete bike that came off the assembly line other than a vin tag, i do not know nor have i heard there is a way to determine a build date for the motorcycle.
in the case of identifying exact dates, the only thing i would know to do is to start looking for date stampings. the earlier crankcases did not have sates on them like later cases. if i recall correctly, the waffle cam cover i had, had an ink stamp of 4.3.44, so to my way of thinking this date would be March 4, 1969... keener minds than mine can correct me if i am wrong as i have turned my will and my life over to the madness of the 1927 Harley-Davidson world. (Building a second one.)
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In the back of my mind, I recall a feature in a Norwegian / Swedish magazine showing a picture supposedly of number 1 with the date 15th March 1969. Maybe someone else has seen the same (Bo, ??).
Chris R.
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when you say "build date known for a complete bike" what identifier(s) would you look for? as far as we know, the vin tags on RH steering head did not begin until August '69, so as to a build date for a complete bike that came off the assembly line other than a vin tag, i do not know nor have i heard there is a way to determine a build date for the motorcycle.
in the case of identifying exact dates, the only thing i would know to do is to start looking for date stampings. the earlier crankcases did not have sates on them like later cases. if i recall correctly, the waffle cam cover i had, had an ink stamp of 4.3.44, so to my way of thinking this date would be March 4, 1969... keener minds than mine can correct me if i am wrong as i have turned my will and my life over to the madness of the 1927 Harley-Davidson world. (Building a second one.)
I know the tags were "blank" early on. And the part "stampings" might be the best indicator.
Good luck with the HD.
In the back of my mind, I recall a feature in a Norwegian / Swedish magazine showing a picture supposedly of number 1 with the date 15th March 1969. Maybe someone else has seen the same (Bo, ??).
Chris R.
That's kind of what I was looking for. Was hoping someone knew when the first production bike rolled out.
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In the back of my mind, I recall a feature in a Norwegian / Swedish magazine showing a picture supposedly of number 1 with the date 15th March 1969. Maybe someone else has seen the same (Bo, ??).
Chris R.
Chris, i seem to remember that mag you are referring to; pretty sure i have it in my literature collection.
Keith, i think back in the day we were talking about vin ranges in respect to production run dates. i seem to recall KP or someone or maybe it was a group of us hypothesizing vin ranges/production run dates in an attempt to create some sort of time frame as to when vin ranges began.
we also have that famous picture of all the engineers standing behind #1 with snow on the ground; if i recall correctly i believe Bob Jameson verifying at the 2009, 40th Anniversary Meeting that that picture is authentic to machine, men and date.
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Yes, we were shooting the breeze about this very subject Mr Swan. I have no idea when production actually commenced but I have my thoughts. That photo and date IMHO was simply a press event which may have had little bearing on actual production commencement. I'm thinking they took good old #1 (and 2 and 3) and stripped it bare to make the workshop manual and other such things. I would also be thinking that getting production under way would have required training, component manufacture and the like, production parts stockpiling and phase planning. The other matter relates to the date codes we are finding on very early parts. April for early stuff with the few odd parts date coded March. The earliest recorded engine casting date is very early April from around E320 and by the end of April we are at E970 so I'm thinking engine casting started maybe the last week in March as the earliest. They've cast around 600 or 700 cases in maybe 25 days or around 20 to 25 per day so they wouldn't have had any complete engines by April 1 at least. We also know from Steven, his waffle cover is dated latish April and only about 250 engines had these covers.
The other interesting dates are the sale dates of the early bikes. Late June and early July seems to be the earliest sale dates cropping up.
Taking all this into account I reckon May 1 is probably a date I'd go with. This allows production, packing and shipping to the US ready for market and selling. Surely Honda must know this information
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Thanks Steve, Chris, and KP.
The attached is the only Honda press release I could find. It was in Japanese and I used the Google translator.
It was dated July, 1969 but they claim to begin exporting April, 1969.
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I have no record of this but I thought that production ran from June to September 1969. Am I mistaken?
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Thanks Steve, Chris, and KP.
The attached is the only Honda press release I could find. It was in Japanese and I used the Google translator.
It was dated July, 1969 but they claim to begin exporting April, 1969.
. I wonder just how much combined printed information the members of this forum must have. Thanks for sharing.
John
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I'd say between Steve, Chris and Keith to name 3, then they would probably have most.
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I'd say between Steve, Chris and Keith to name 3, then they would probably have most.
i have a Swedish mag from a few years back that interviewed Bob Jameson that if i remember correctly discusses when and how #1 was put together and the early days of production. i'll have to dig it out.
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Would be great to see that - and get a translation.....
Chris R.
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Would be great to see that - and get a translation.....
Chris R.
Chris, i now believe it is actually Norwegian. Bo is a Swede (i am 76% Swedish!), perhaps he knows someone who has the mag and who can translate... the 10 page all color article is the interview with Bob Jameson, shows a pic of him and Bob Young together and shows a pic of the infamous March 15, 1969 production picture of #1 and in the caption mentions Bob Jameson. the article's focus appears exclusive to the pre-production period of the CB750 and has 11 excellent pics taken during the pre-production era.
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Hi!
Interesting discussion. Just that swedish magasine will have an article about sandcasts with photos of my bikes in next magasine as 50 year anniversary. They have also made a reprint of the article you are asking for. I will check later today what I can find and hopfully be able to confirm, what I thought we all had as productionstart, 15 of March 1969.
Bo
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Hi!
This is a reprint of an article made of a motorcycle-magasine in Sweden called “ClassicBike”. It was I ClassicBike nr 5, 2009, for the 40-year anniversary. The magazine had an intervjeu with Bob Jameson himself and I believe everything in the article is correct. Now they have made a reprint of just the article for the 50-year anniversary. Classic Honda Club Sweden got a lot of them for the yearly motrcyclefair last weekend, 25, 26 and 27 of January, 2019. I was there with #24/43, #7258/7414, my pure CR750 and a Z 50 Monkey. Out of my bikes we had about another 15 Honda-bikes, mainly CB750.
In the future I will make a translation from Swedish to English for you but not now because I do not have time at the moment.
On page 6, in previous magazine 30, you have the picture Stewe mentioned. In the Swedish text you can read: “It is end of March and snow is still outside Honda Motor Co. Bob Jameson has put a CB750 Four to make a picture of some of the persons in the Japanese testteam he worked together with. This BlueGreen CB750 from 1969 will show the start of showing the models”.
On page 11, magazine 35, shows a picture I remember and the text is as following:
“A historical moment. The first CB750 assembles on the line in Hamamatsu. There were many employees who wanted to cooperate this moment. Date is 15 of March, 1969 and it is Bob Jameson who used his halfsize camera”.
Kind Regards, Bo from Sweden
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Hi!
This is a reprint of an article made of a motorcycle-magasine in Sweden called “ClassicBike”. It was I ClassicBike nr 5, 2009, for the 40-year anniversary. The magazine had an intervjeu with Bob Jameson himself and I believe everything in the article is correct. Now they have made a reprint of just the article for the 50-year anniversary. Classic Honda Club Sweden got a lot of them for the yearly motrcyclefair last weekend, 25, 26 and 27 of January, 2019. I was there with #24/43, #7258/7414, my pure CR750 and a Z 50 Monkey. Out of my bikes we had about another 15 Honda-bikes, mainly CB750.
In the future I will make a translation from Swedish to English for you but not now because I do not have time at the moment.
On page 6, in previous magazine 30, you have the picture Stewe mentioned. In the Swedish text you can read: “It is end of March and snow is still outside Honda Motor Co. Bob Jameson has put a CB750 Four to make a picture of some of the persons in the Japanese testteam he worked together with. This BlueGreen CB750 from 1969 will show the start of showing the models”.
On page 11, magazine 35, shows a picture I remember and the text is as following:
“A historical moment. The first CB750 assembles on the line in Hamamatsu. There were many employees who wanted to cooperate this moment. Date is 15 of March, 1969 and it is Bob Jameson who used his halfsize camera”.
Kind Regards, Bo from Sweden
thank you Bo for this great interpretation and thank you Wayne for posting Bo's contribution. when you have time, i look forward to reading more. i distinctly remember Bob Jameson telling us at the 2009 meet that #1 was hand assembled by the different engineers involved in the design of different parts of #1.
if i stop to reflect on the logistics of having these parts ready to build #1 and also reflect on the parts as they were made to build a production motorcycle, it stand to no small reason the distinctions and the repairs we find should be expected. Honda was the very first company to begin mass production of an ultimately highly successful motorcycle powered by a transverse four cylinder engine. Although MV Agusta and the Munch Mammoth had achieved production status, pretty much only Friedel Munch was responsible for he construction of each of his Mammoths and an estimated less than 500 machines were produced, so in reality the Mammoth hardly qualifies as a production machine. the early MV's were also hand built and although numbers were more than the Mammoth, the MV 4 was expensive in contrast to other machines and could no have mass availability or appeal to retail buyers.
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I have no record of this but I thought that production ran from June to September 1969. Am I mistaken?
So are we saying that production ran from March until September?
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Awesome guys!
I look forward to Bo's full translation.
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Yes, we were shooting the breeze about this very subject Mr Swan
We also know from Steven, his waffle cover is dated latish April and only about 250 engines had these covers.
I remember this topic which was a rough calculation of production numbers based on 15 March 69 to September:
http://cb750sandcastonly.com/smf_forum/index.php/topic,2036.0.html (http://cb750sandcastonly.com/smf_forum/index.php/topic,2036.0.html)
KP there may be a misunderstanding - the 44.4.30 cover I have is a 'type 3' style sandcast cover, not SS's 'type 1' diamond waffle cover. I thought SS had initially said it was a 44.3.24 production on his type 1 waffle cover, but he has mentioned now that it is a 44.3.4 cover. Im not sure how it all fits together but I thought Id better clarify.
Steven.
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Keith, I also wondered about a bike's build date, based on the stampings on the individual parts.
I recently bought a parts lot of early sandcast parts, in nice clean condition, with date stamps still present.
The rocker cover was 44.4.30
The rockers were 44.6.2
The clutch pack was 44.5.26
So these engine parts were a little over a months time frame of each other. Presumably you could use the latest manufacture date as an approx. of when the engine was assembled, especially if you had a pretty original complete bike, with stamps on the frame parts as well. But the caveat may be that casting dates vs inspection dates. Does anyone know for sure what the ink stamps represented?
Steven
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Yes, we were shooting the breeze about this very subject Mr Swan
We also know from Steven, his waffle cover is dated latish April and only about 250 engines had these covers.
I remember this topic which was a rough calculation of production numbers based on 15 March 69 to September:
http://cb750sandcastonly.com/smf_forum/index.php/topic,2036.0.html (http://cb750sandcastonly.com/smf_forum/index.php/topic,2036.0.html)
KP there may be a misunderstanding - the 44.4.30 cover I have is a 'type 3' style sandcast cover, not SS's 'type 1' diamond waffle cover. I thought SS had initially said it was a 44.3.24 production on his type 1 waffle cover, but he has mentioned now that it is a 44.3.4 cover. Im not sure how it all fits together but I thought Id better clarify.
Steven.
Steven, i can't remember the date code, what i posted on DB is what i thought i remembered so i am likely wrong.
the date code i gave you when we started talking about you buying the cover from me is the date code. the middle number is readily visible. when i held the cover at the right angle in direct light i could see the prefix and suffix numbers and although very faint, the numbers are definitely readable! so you should be able to see the number yourself if your eye is good enough.
that 44.3.24 code you said i initially said sounds correct and if i said it to you initially then that is the number i visualized, march 24, 1969.
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Thanks for clarifying Steve. I took a pic of it but really need to have a close look too.
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here's some other thoughts i have on the matter.
the real question which we may never know is when production post-CB750-1000001 actually began. unless i am missing something the group of engineers Bob Jameson said he spent time with finished hand assembling #1 on March 15. based on what we see in the owners manual on what may or may not be parts used a production unit vs. ?, it makes me wonder what parts may or may not have been available on March 15 to have actual assembly line begin. or not. i guess one could surmise that if the group of engineers hand assembled #1, that the assembly line may not have been up and running. just having the assembly line up and running would have been quite a process in its self. i would guess certain workers at the factory were selected to go on the CB750 assy.line, such as perhaps people who had been on the 450 line, considering up until the 450, if i am not mistaken, the 450 was the only machine to have a cradle frame, all others, the engines hung off the frame...
fwiw, one perhaps interesting thing is that the vin directory lists 19 two digit frames and 13 two digit engines and we have three 3 digit engines in three 2 digit frames. in terms of the higher Evins being in lower Fvins, about the only thing i can suggest is there were more complete engines available than there were all the parts required to hang from a frame to assemble a complete motorcycle.... i would suspect Honda made all their engine parts in house except for probably seals as we know Sochiro himself was a master piston ring manufacturer. that being said, a number of frame ancillary parts were not produced in house and so perhaps because there were so many parts that went to the chassis as yet not available in production line quantities, and engines were a much more "contained" assembly than a complete chassis, that this somehow affected why we see higher Evins in lower Fvins....
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Thanks for clarifying Steve. I took a pic of it but really need to have a close look too.
you might want to use a magnifying glass if you can't see it with your naked eye. the entire date code IS there.
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I've often thought it would have been interesting to have witnessed the building momentum of the 750 factory, from a few bikes, to a few a week, to a few a day, then dozens, then hundreds, etc, etc,