I’ve mentioned before that I always feel a bit like an archeologist when working on this bike. I begin to notice strange things that the previous owner did. Or perhaps the previous, previous owner did. The ground cable is no exception. It wasn’t wrapped in with the rest of the harness. It was running along side it.

This burnt out ground could explain a lot of things. Perhaps it was the root of my non-blinky blinker problem?

Needless to say, I cut it off as close to the main harness as I could so I could splice it with a better piece of wire.

I also noticed that the frame were the other end of the ground connected was particularly oxidized and rusted.   

I had never considered looking here or cleaning it up until this morning. I hit it with my dremel rotary tool with a wire brush bit. It took the rust off in seconds and exposed some nice clean steal for my ground connection.

All in all a good morning, and I’m fortunate to have stumbled on the ground wire issue. Clearly, a closer inspection is due tomorrow.

The cold and the rain are behind us now and it’s time to run some basic maintenance on CB to prepare it for summer riding. I started this morning with a simple vale adjustment.

Popped the tappet covers off.

I slid the feeler gauge between all the valves to measure the gap and they were all fine. If they were off it was by a hundredth of a millimeter. No fun.

I decided to adjust them anyway for good measure and because it was such a nice morning to be outside wrenching on the ol’ bike.

Intake valves (rear) are .05mm gaps. Exhaust valves (front) are .08mm gaps.

All done.

I presume the bolt was stripped and the previous owner used a cutting disc or angle grinder to fashion some sort of primitive rectangular knob to be able to turn it and get it out. What I can’t understand is why the bolt was put back in. A new bolt can easily be purchased for around $10 bucks.

I used some vice grips to try turn the bolt… after a short battle, I was the victor. It came loose and I drained the thick, dirty, black oil.

• I wiped down the oil filter housing
• Installed a new oil filter
• New rubber gasket
• New shiny oil filter bolt
• Poured in a few quarts of fresh SAE 10W-40

This is my ebay pile. I hope to make a few bucks off this stuff.

This thing essentially keeps water and mud from getting all over your battery and electronics. Kinda dumb to remove it but it just looks awful. Plus, I plan on fabricating a custom battery harness and relocating the battery under the seat. The only thing that held this thing on were two tabs on each side. I just pushed the plastic in a little and it fell through the tabs.

Now you can see right to the battery and air filter.

I guess I could have taken the grab rail off with the turn signals still attached but I was thinking that I had a better chance at selling the pieces separately on eBay.

I’m not sure if the turn signals were supposed to be held on by bolts or screws. I encountered a screw on on the right turn signal and a bolt on the left signal. Weird, but easy to take off. The last thing I had to do was string the wires through the bolt hole.

Removing the seat wasn’t necessary. I just popped open the seat and knocked out the two overhead bolts.

Before I removed the two side bolts I had to disconnect the brake light and turn signal wires from the main wiring harness.

easy

This bike will be the basis for the cafe racer. It is a 1976 Honda CB 550 with only 8000 miles on the engine. The transmission is rock solid and it came with a new set of tires, a new battery, and an inspection sticker valid until 09.

I initially wanted to take the whole thing apart and then put it back together again, but I want to be able to ride it and not have it sit in a thousand pieces for the next two months. So I decided that I’m going to disassemble and reassemble one section at a time.