I've messed with many bikes over the years, but never a DOHC Honda 450. This thing set me back $200. It came with the KLR luggage in the foreground to sweeten the deal. When I got to the bottom of the KLR luggage I found a Honda centrifugal oil filter broken into pieces. What do you know... the one that should be under the clutch cover is missing. This project is gonna be fun! Front end goodness:
CB450's are great! My first bike was a CL450 Scrambler which I rode across the US at age 16. (my butt still hurts) You can do all sorts of things with them. Like this! Or go old school adventure riding on it.
I'm leaning toward some kind of Mad Max meets Zombie Apocalypse rat bike. It's just too far gone to end up pretty or resembling an original K5. It will get my own home-grown Hall Effect ignition and all LED & HID lighting.
It looks like the oil filter and clutch basket came into contact and they both lost. The only way this happens is if some dummy leaves the oil filter nut loose. At least they didn't run it long like this, because the exhaust camshaft looks passable. The clutch cover gasket was homemade from the cardboard packaging of a toy. Carnage shot with broken clutch basket and oil filter:
Nobody would want this seat. The gray vinyl is turning back into petroleum and so did the duct tape holding it on. So far the only internal parts needing replacement have been the centrifugal oil filter, clutch basket, and shifter shaft. What I can see of the valve train looks OK and the gearbox moves through all 5 gears about as I'd expect. I haven't measured the compression, but it feels right. At this point I need to hear the engine run before I do much else. I think the only thing keeping the PO from running it without the oil filter (and therefore any oil pressure) was the completely solidified carburetors. Within a week I'll know what I really have.
I was an hour away from hearing this engine run. The right carb was assembled, then I started on the left. Hmmm... the float sloshes. What the... what are all these cracks? Looks like I have to wait for another float. The contents of the box under the float should cheer me up a bit.
You gotta love bringing something like that back to life I had a '72 CL450 given to me last winter and just got it on the road. Nice bikes. Good luck with this one. BTW I had to replace both floats as well. Not too bad though.
Cool project. The PO liked "RED" didn't he? I'm always on the lookout for an old cheap DOHC 450. There's one out there somewhere with my name on it, I'm sure!
The original fork tubes and caliper have been ravaged by the previous owners and time, so while I'm scrounging for parts I think I can improve things a bit. Luckily, 35mm fork tubes were used on all of the CB450, 500, 550, 650, and 750 siblings of the '70s and early '80s. I found a nice 1980 CB650 fork for $20 and a 1982 CB650 twin-piston caliper for another $20. Here they are on the bike with the original wheel and rotor. I need to force myself to make this thing run this weekend before I spend another cent on it.
I'd love to have another. I had a '72 CL450. I'd take that one back bad alternator and all. These bikes run really great.
Love those old Honda 450's! I had 2 of them growing up. They run awesome. Wish I had one again. I've been looking and ended up with a Suzuki GS450 to satisfy my craving. I'm building right now and I stole it for $100!
I wired up a the coils to a battery, fueled it through my plastic service tank, and the damned thing started on the 3rd kick. I only ran it for 15 seconds or so, but it ran on both cylinders and sounded pretty much like any normal DOHC 450. Now the transformation can continue.
