1981 Honda CB650C aka "The Titanic's Anchor"

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I had a few hours to kill this morning so I decided to disassemble the steering stem and checking the bearings. When I started to remove the handlebars I noticed the movement left and right wasn't smooth at all. As a matter a fact it felt like there was a "dent" position when the bars were centered up. Yeah....feeling of dread closes in.





I pulled the stem apart I counted 18 balls for the top bearing and 15 (wtf) for the bottom. According to all my manuals there's supposed to be 18 on the top and 19 on the bottom?!?! So where the hell are the missing four? They aren't on the garage floor before you ask because I searching to ensure they didn't drop plus I would have heard them drop.

The races look good so I just need to find four ball bearings.

Well I found a package of 100 ball bearings (1/4" steel/chrome) on Amazon for $5.00 shipped so I'll just have to wait till those show up before I start putting everything back together



Well since I now have some time before I can put the steering stem back together I'm probably going to take the headlight bucket apart and clean it up as best as I can. I'll also use the time to start rebuilding the calipers and master cylinder which is going to be a joy.





Dave...

Oh no, MISSION CREEP!!

watch out brutha, you will have the whole bike taken down to the frame and the engine rebuilt if you keep this up..


lol been there done that

As long as you got the head stem apart, I suggest you replace those ball bearings with tapered rollers. I did it one my 700 Sabre, and it made a huge difference in how solid the front end felt!

Mission creep is so damn hard to avoid but I'm trying. Yeah it's going to go down to the frame once I get everything mechanically sound.

Right now I'm just trying to get most of it cleaned up and road worthy. The tapper bearings will go in when I get the frame blasted/painted aka next year.

I've got the steering stem back together (new ball bearings) now I'm just waiting for some chrome to finish soaking and the paint to dry on the master cylinder. Oh yeah I need to rebuild the calipers.

Dave...

I made a little progress during the holiday break.

I basically took it from this.



To this.



Before



After



I still have to figure out how to to put all this back in the headlight bucket. :huh



Dave...

The 650 is the last version of what started as the cb500 and morphed into the 550's.... though I've owned one I'm not really sure how good they are... the 550 on the other hand is a rock solid bike...so I suspect these are a much refined version with at least enough power to be something....

I've actually done quite a bit of touring on my 550's...simply a cheap bike and a lot of fun.... good luck with this ...

Today I put the headlight assembly back together. Man, getting all those connectors back in there and making enough room for the headlight itself... I'll admit a tool or two went flying.



I started to rebuild the calipers when I ran across this. Son of a.... So anyone know where I can buy pistons cheap?



Dave...

I haven't read too much about the CB650 (not a lot out there) but what I have read has been positive. I can't wait till I get it to a point when I can ride it.

Dave...

I'll have to remember this new term; I've always called it ship fitter's disease. Actually they both are pretty descriptive. Been there, done that....

From the web. http://www.retro.co.za/landy/shipfitters.html

Mark asks: What is "shipfitters disease"?

(an example:)
Well, it's a nice day to work outside, and that cleat is loose, so I'll just tighten the screws. Oops, one is stripped, so, to do it right, I'll remove the cleat and see what the problem is. Oh, dear, dryrot!! Well, it's only in this one plank, and I can easily replace it. Gee, all the screws are loose, better replace the whole frame while I'm at it. Oh, shoot, I'll have to take out the wiring harness and chain plate, well, the wiring harness really needed to be replaced anyway, and now's a good time to get that chainplate regalvanized. Fooey, now it won't match the other-ones, so I'll just do allof them, won't that look nice. And since I'll have to repaint the newplanks, I might as well do the rest of the hull or it won't match. And theshiney hull will really make the cabin trunk look chalkey, and I really wanted to strip and varnish it, so what better time? And since it'll be out of commission for at least a week, and I'll have to take out the cabinets to redo the wiring properly (all those funky splices can finally go), I can redo them at the same time. Gee, with all that room, and nothing to get dirty I can finally pull the head and find out why the engine's been burning oil. I'm sure the shop can have it done before the cabinets are ready to go back in. In fact, this may be an opportunity to rebuild the bottom end, after all, it's 30 years old and bearings and rings will never be easier to put in. I could even paint the block while it's out, and galvanize the through-hull fittings, paint the bilge, and get that new pump for an early Christmas present, maybe new sails to go with the new paint, revarnish the mast, replace the sticking sheave while I'm up there, maybe a new antenna, or at least the coax. Heck, the radio's as old as the boat, and since I'm this far into it.....

Well my new brake pistons from David Silver's (UK) arrived while I was away on business. So today I started disassembling, cleaning, and painting the calipers. I hope to have both sets primed before I get on a plane tomorrow evening
.








Dave...

Well after a lot of cleaning, more cleaning, and painting the calipers are done and installed.
I started with this.





In progress









Finished project











Sorry for all the pics but this was a long process.

Dave...

Sorry for all the pics? No way! The more pics, the better.

Looking good. Keep up the nice work.

The latest task was, as mentioned above, swap out carb insulators, bands and replace the push/pull throttle cables. After I rebuilt the carbs I noticed the insulators were leaking. The leaks were discovered by spraying starting fluid on the insulators and listening for a change in RPM. #1 and #3 were leaking really bad and as you can see in the photos below it's surprising they weren't all leaking.





New parts! I was surprised that the insulator bands did not come with new screws. I know this shouldn't have caught me off guard but it did. It worked out in the end because I was able to find some nice stainless steel hex bolts at ACE Hardware.





Slowly but surely I'm making progress with the carbs.

Before:


After:


Last night I adjusted the cam chain tension (dead simple), lubed the advancer, set the pulser generator gaps, and set the timing statically and confirmed dynamically. I also tackled the task of sync'ing the carbs.
I so wish I had done more research on Motion Pro's SyncPro. What a PITA that thing is with this bike and maybe every bike. The fuild gets trapped and segmented making it nearly impossible to use (IMHO). I was able to finally get it so I could work with it but it shouldn't have been the hardest part of the sync. I think the 650 pulls too much vacuum for the device. I so wish I'd gone with the Morgan at http://www.carbtune.com. It's just a bit more and gets MUCH better reviews from the folks at SOHC and in cyberspace.



Next up...new tires! I decided to go old school.





I'm also in the planning stages of figuring out how to paint the gas tank and side covers.

Dave...

You are doing a nice job on the 650. Looking good so far. I would have recommended you replace the head bearings and races while you had it apart, but too late now!

I had a 79 CB650 ( the standard version) and I remember that the engine was extremely smooth, sounded great and had a very nice powerband. Once you get it going I think you will like it.

Thanks! Yeah, a few folks suggested I switch over to tapered bearings but I knew this wasn't going to be the only time I had the steering stem off. About a month after I get this thing mechanically sound and ridable I'm going to strip it down to the frame for sand blasting and paint. That's when I'll knock out the bearing upgrade.

Off to the garage to continue my efforts to strip and paint the tank.

Dave...

To make things easier with your M-P Sync-pro, place some restricters in the rubber tubes. You can make these by boring a small hole in a piece of aluminum or brass round stock that fits in the tubing. The smaller size of the hole cuts down on the vacuum and makes adjustment far easier.

It came with some nice brass restrictors but I guess they don't restrict enough. How that thing didn't go flying across the garage is beyond me. Some folks say they work great and others have experiences similar to mine. Personally, if I had to do it again, I'd buy the Morgan.

Dave...

The last few days have been about prepping the tank for paint. I picked up the tank below on eBay because the tank that came with the bike was too gone to restore. This one was bad but I was able to clean it out with muratic acid and seal the tank with the POR-15 process. The exterior of the tank was in decent shape. It has a few small dents and someone hit it with a few coats of rattle can sometime in the past.



I tried some paint stripper to see what would happen. I discovered it would take the rattle can primer and paint off quickly but did nothing to the 18 layers of paint under it.



After playing around with a few different things I discovered a 6" orbital sander with 80 grit worked pretty well at getting the paint off.



You can see the biggest dent in the tank in the center of this photo.


After a lot of sanding and a few hours in front of the grinder with a wire wheel.





Tonight was my first foray into the wonderful world of Bondo Body Filler. I was able to skim coat and sand out the dents. Luckily I was able to get it all done with two coats. I came within a hair of getting away with a single coat but I needed a bit more to fill in one of the dents.






Some time in the next few days I'm going to try my hand at applying DupliColor's Paint Shop Finish System (e.g. primer, base coat, and clear coat).

Dave...

You are really doing a great job rebuilding that CB650! Nice layout off the parts of kitchen paper!
(also my first motorcycle! Drove like a rocket i remember...)

I've heard nothing but good things about the motor on this bike. I can't wait to get the tank done. Once I get the paint job knocked out (so easy to write and so hard to do) and the tires swapped out, I can take this thing for a ride around the block.

I didn't plan on this thing being ridable until the Spring so I'm a bit ahead of schedule.

Dave...