Survivor Chop: Gauge and dash plate install

I was told that this old blue chop used to have stock gauges, but when it arrived here, it had nothing.  It was however dropped off with a mini speedo, so I snagged a matching mini tach and modified a few brackets to mount them to the top of the risers using one of the top clamp bolts.  It was difficult to find a good, clean location for these, but I think the final location looks very tidy and doesn't add a lot of bulk to the look of the chop.  Sometimes a chop can look pretty cluttered when they have all of the gauges and wiring intact.

The front wheel is a stock CB750 wheel, so it uses a stock speedo drive.  John had a custom length speedo cable made that worked perfectly.  I needed a custom tach cable as well, but it was so close to stock lengths, that I looked for an oem part that would work.  I found that the VT500C cable, motion pro PN 02-0110, was almost perfect.  I would prefer that it was a little longer, but it's so close to being right... and at a great price compared to a custom cable.

Modified mounts for the speedo and tach.

Gauges installed.

The wires were not covered under the light cluster when the bike arrived.  Before John picked it up, the previous owner had cut all the wiring for the handlebar controls in an attempt to put ape hangers on.  they were poorly spliced and I'm guessing this is the point in time when this cover went missing.  I cleaned up all the wiring and organized it in the housing.  I made a new cover out of 0.6 mm thick mirror polished 304 stainless steel plate.

Shiny plate, pretty face.

Survivor Chop: Front Brake Setup

Brake work was completed back in June of 2020, just before my second left ulnar nerve surgery.  I had some brake lines made up at Colliflower and purchased a radial master cylinder with a remote reservoir.  The master cylinder was from a Beull, part number H0507.1B7.  I used a radial master cylinder with a remote reservoir because a standard linear master cylinder with integrated reservoir was too big to fit on the 6 bend bars.  After rigging up a remote reservoir and awkwardly bleeding the system, it worked very well.  

A rough picture of the master cylinder during mockup.  Notice the limited space on the bars.  Here, I was trying to mount the reservoir on the top of the bar, but I ended up making a tab and mounting it to the frame of the master cylinder.

Finished reservoir setup.

This bike has the complete stock wiring harness with all the lights, bells, and whistles.  This includes the handlebar controls.  They take up quite a bit of room on 6 bends, where real estate is at a minimum.

Awkwardly bleeding the system with the new reservoir mounted.

The pressure switch for the brake lights was incredibly tricky to mount, but I eventually fought it into submission.  It did not make bleeding the system easy.  Honestly, for a relatively simple system, this one took quite a while to bleed.

Caliper hanging out while trying to get all the air up to the m/c.  I ran a 90* into the caliper so the brake line looked cleaner.

The caliper is a Hurst Airhart setup, which only gives you a little more braking power than a hill holder.  It's good enough to slow you down a little in the curves, but wont help much in an emergency stop.  It fits well with the vintage look of the bike, so it had to stay.  I cant say that for the radial m/c, but it's the only thing that seemed to work.

I had to replace the caliper bolts and the brake stay as well.  These were simple fixes.

Survivor Chop: Clutch Repair

This one is short, but important.  When removing the clutch, you can use a pair of channel locks to keep the basket from rotating as you use the clutch nut tool to remove the nut.  Same for reinstallation. Just use the sides of the jaws to resist the rotation by placing them against the flat bosses next to the springs and pressure plate posts. Clutch nut torque is 33 - 36 ft-lb.  When removing or installing the pressure plate, be sure to tighten or loosen the 4 bolts evenly.  The pressure plate breaks easily when this is not followed.  I've only ever broken one... this one... out of many.  But I'm usually careful.  The proper torque for the pressure plate bolts is 6 - 7.5 ft-lb.

Removing clutch nut.

Ensure that the pressure plate bolts are evenly loosened or tightened.  When installing, make sure that the plate is moving down onto the clutch hub studs properly to avoid the bolt clamping down prematurely on the wrong surface and potentially leading you to snapping the pressure plate.

All steels should have the sharp edge facing inward or at least in the same direction.  I placed a v notch on each of the oiling holes in the clutch hub to aide with oil collection.  This is a tip from Hondaman that I did on my heavily built 836 in Rock Flute and there was slightly noticeable difference in the smoothness of the clutch.  Before doing this, the clutch was grabby and neutral was impossible to find. Cut the V groove so oil is funneled into the oiling holes.  I.e. on the left side of the holes when looking at the bottom of the inner side of the clutch hub.  The clutch rotates clockwise.

Clutch parts cleaned and inspected.  Note the v grooves in the hub at the top left. Not the prettiest work, but it seems to help.

Survivor Chop: Clean and Polish

This topic isn't exactly the most exciting, but it's very rewarding.  When this bike showed up, it was dirty, the chrome was pitted and flaking, and the paint looked dull.  It looked a lot better in pictures than in reality.  

Time to get to work, pulling it apart, scrubbing, polishing, waxing, and blistering.  For this, I'll be using, blue magic metal polish, Collonite 845 insulator wax, 0000 steel wool, microfiber cloths, plastic brushes, degreaser, carb cleaner, soap, and water.  I made a deal with a polisher to get a full set of engine covers polished in exchange for some spare covers for him to polish and sell.  It worked out great because, well, I hate polishing and have quite a few spare engine covers.

One thing to note that is very important.  If you have your engine covers polished, be sure to wash them thoroughly to remove any remaining rouge before putting them on your engine.  Rouge is abrasive and while it may seem insignificant, you don't want chunks of this stuff floating around in your oil.  also, while the covers are off, this is the best time to put a good coat of sealing wax on.  Enter Collonite 845.

This work was done quite a few months ago, but I haven't been able to keep up on the blog.  I was in between a surgeries to fix damaged nerves in my arms, so my Dad was helping out quite a bit.  And he continues to do so.   We basically scrubbed and polished everything we could. While tearing the bike down for cleaning, we inspected everything to ensure it was in good order, greased the greasy parts, and replaced all gaskets.  The rear wheel turned out surprisingly good, considering it's perceived condition when it arrived.  My Dad is obsessed with doing great work, and it shows.

Dad working on the rear wheel.

Bolting the sprocket to the carrier.

Piles of parts.

The pipes cleaned up nicely even though they still have some sort of acid drip markings on them.

Scrubbing every tiny bit.

Polished engine covers.

In the picture above, notice that the stator cover it dressed up with some black paint for accent.  This is a relatively simple job and I think it looks great.  Just roughly mask off the stator cover except the outer ring and the Honda logo, spray black and let dry to touch.  Once the paint is dry to touch, remove the tape and gently wipe away the paint on the side of the outer ring and the lettering with a solvent, leaving the background black.  I follow this by carefully polishing the exposed aluminum to minimize oxidation.

Unmasked and painted stator cover before wiping off the excess paint with solvent.

While removing excess paint, you may accidentally remove paint from the background.  Just dab a little paint on the bare spot to fill it back in.  Oops.

Finished product.

Once everything is cleaned, polished, greased, etc. it's time to throw it all back together.  I bought a stainless steel bolt kit for the engine and polished all of the heads.  When using stainless bolts on an aluminum block, consider using a dab of antiseize.  The contact between stainless steel and aluminum causes galvanic corrosion and can cause the bolts to bind up and make removing them in one piece difficult or impossible.  Its a little more work up front, but it's good insurance.  A little dab will do ya.

Polish, polish, polish.

Polish, polish, polish.

ANTISEIZE people!!!  I hate snapping these bolts off.  Also, 5 ft-lb of torque is the spec for most of the engine bolts.  You might need a little more to help it seal on worn surfaces, but be careful.  The antiseize will also help you get more torque without binding up the threads.

Here's a little before and after of the paint and polish process.

Before.

After.

More after.  So pretty.

Ok, one more.

I installed a few parts that John had given me, including that super shiny bread box air cleaner.  Thanks John!

It runs and rides now, but still needs more work.

Out for a little celebratory ride with my homey.

Now, onto more work. I still need to replace the front brake line and master cylinder, tune the carbs (they're way out...150s are a no-no for a stocker), make a plate cover for the instrument light cluster, etc. etc. etc.