Austin Cafe Racer Store Updated

Austin Cafe Racer Store

Click the link above to gain access to the updated store. I have some great bargains on stainless steel fasteners. Brand new, never used stainless steel goodies to replace your crusty, rusty intake and exhaust washers and nuts. You’ll also find allen head pinch bolts for your kicker and shifter. I just sold my last set of cylinder head allen bolts but if your interested I can get some more correct sizes for your CB550. There is also one last set of LED bulbs for your indicators until I get some more.

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Mini Gauges, Shiny Bar Clamps, Radial Master Cylinder, Oh My

Finally I’m posting some photos of my modified front end. I’m not even half way done, but it’s looking sweeter everyday, and the performance is much improved. The speedo is the proper 2240:60 ratio and the tach is 20:3 ratio, sometimes referred to as 1:7. The bar clamps are made by Carpy, and the radial master cylinder is off a 2008 Honda CBR600RR.

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These are some gorgeous little gauges and the look even better next to each other.

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Fresh stainless steel bolts on everything.

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The reservoir sits perfectly level now. I’m so happy.

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Alden Pro Grabit Review: Removing stripped screws

A while ago I purchased a stainless steel allen head bolt kit to replace the crusty screws on my bike. I never actively set out to replace every bolt in one sitting, it made more sense to replace bolts as I removed them, if and when I removed them. Like many who work on these old Honda CBs, I came across a few stubborn screws that wouldn’t come out and eventually became stripped to the point where no impact driver could turn them, so last week I bought one of those broken bolt and damaged screw extractor bits.

Best money I ever spent.

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I wish I had made a small movie illustrating the process, it was unbelievable how simple and fast it was to extract all my rusty stripped bolts. The Alden proGrabit is phenomenal.

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I won’t go into details but the bit has two ends, one for drilling out the head and the other for gripping the hollowed hole and turning it out. Each stripped screw literally took 3 seconds to extract. Needless to say I was impressed and will never bother with an impact driver again with these old rusty screw heads.

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These two on the left hand side cover were particularly crusty. They came out in 3 seconds flat.

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The obligatory cafe racer stainless steel allen head shot…. you get the idea… looks real sharp. Now that I can remove the side covers maybe I’ll polish them up one of these days when I’m bored and I have some cash to buy a polishing wheel.

Installing a Dyna-S on a CB550

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Last week I removed the points plate from the advance assembly but didn’t unhook it from the wiring harness. The procedure is fairly easy and a matter of simply pulling the blue and yellow wires from the harness.

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Here is a pic of my old points plate removed from the wiring harness. It’s still works and I’m going to keep it just in case things don’t work out with the Dyna-S.

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Since I was down there pulling wire, I decided to replace the right side engine case bolts that held the points plate wire in place. The bolts were frozen and pretty chewed up but the metal tabs that held the wire in place were still good.

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Brand spankin new Dyna-S.

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After removing the spark advance assembly, I had to remove the points cam by twisting to the the right and pulling.

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Next, I had to slip on the black magnet cylinder thingy. In order for it to sit perfectly in the advance assembly the spring mechanisms must be pulled out so the black magnet cylinder slides down and engages with the notches

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I lined up the number “1″ with points 1-4 on the advance assembly.

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Slide the Dyna rotor over it and bolt down with some shiny new stainless steel allen head bolts.

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Then I slid out the rubber grommet from the old points wire.

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Split it with a razor blade.

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Placed it on the Dyna-S cable and in the slot in the engine case.

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Ran the the cable through new stainless steel allen bolts.

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White wire goes into the blue, black goes into the yellow. The red wire is spliced into the 12v brake light wire. I’ll post more pics of the splicing next weekend. The next post will cover static timing the Dyna.

Stainless Steel Bolt Kit

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Allen bolt kit for the CB550. Over 85 pieces in this bolt kit. It isn’t just a bag of bolts either, it comes with a set of instructions for bolt placement. I un-seized two of the original screws on the right side cover before my impact driver froze up. I think its beyond repair. I’ll try to get my money back on the driver or see if i can exchange it.