My seat didn’t arrive this weekend. That’s okay. I had wanted to install the seat and start figuring out what I was going to do with the battery. Since it didn’t arrive, I reinstalled the battery box in its original location. I wanted to make sure my fooling about with the new jets, filters, and wiring harness didn’t effect the bikes ability to to run. So, I decided to temporarily put it back on.

Here is the link to the post of the removal.
http://www.austincaferacer.com/2008/07/removing-the-battery-and-battery-box/#comment-17

The old thing was pretty distressed, but after some sanding with 320 grit sandpaper and a few coats of some rattle can enamel it was looking fairly decent.

Here is a shot of my clever use of the abundance of bamboo in the yard.

Before shot.

After shot.

The battery back in place. Lets test it out!

Honda 1976 CB550 from Austin CafeRacer on Vimeo.

Sounds good. Idles fine. I won’t know for sure if its fully functional until I get it on the road. Can’t wait for my seat.

First I had to remove the side covers. It was a nice discovery to find the fuse box and rectifier under the left side cover.

Eventually I hope to reposition the electronics under the seat, but for now they can stay there.

On the other side of the bike under the right side cover is the battery. I pulled that out and am going to recharge it with my batter tender tomorrow.

The battery box/harness was covered in rust. Removing it wasn’t difficult at all. The bottom lower right bolt however required two wrenches and a certain degree of extreme torque to unfreeze the bolt.

This stuff is nasty. I hate using chemicals, and after tonight I never will again.

Tomorrow morning I’ll sand it down with some 220 grit sand paper and spray it with a protective enamel. Ultimately I plan on repositioning the battery in a custom battery box under the seat. For now though, I may as well clean this one up a bit.