SOHC Project

I'm moving forward slowly...but I'm moving forward. So in the last post I was struggling with getting the motor started. Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees, and thats what I was doing. The goal was to get the motor started, so I said the heck with the electric start and just used the kick start. When I did that she fired right up on the 2nd or 3rd kick. This was Wednesday. As soon as it started it reved up to 4 or 5000 rpm and wouldn't come down. I found that when I assembled the carbs I put the slides in backwards. So I think I'm going to skip welding tonight and knock that out...I'll need to pull the carbs off the rack, so thats about a 3 hour job. Hopfully that will solve my high idle problems.

I also began work on the cutting a slot that will allow the chain to pass through the fender. I should have that wrapped up by the weekend. And of course I'm still waiting on my throttle housing of come back from being fabbed. So more waiting...

Spent a long day on Satruday working on the chop. The goal was to get spark at the plugs, and maybe try to start the engine depending how that went. Well, the goal was accomplished...sort of. I spent all day saturday checking and double checking wiring, points, coils, and all points (no pun intended) in between. No luck on saturday, but the day wasn't a complete wash. I also got my carbs mounted, and all associated hardware on my gas tank installed. So I have the tank mounted with gas in it. The shot above is with the carbs mounted. Not a huge accomplishment, but as soon as I get the wiring straightened out, she should be ready to fire up. On Saturday I also put a smaller (42 tooth as opposed to 48 tooth) rear sproket on my stocker. Should give me better gas milage. So yesterday after more troubleshooting on the wiring I found that if I manually break the points contact that I am getting good spark at the plugs. Evedentely whats happening is that [for whatever reason] I am loosing voltage to the coils when the switch is in the "Start" position. Someone said that sometimes automotive switches are set up to kill power to the coils in the start postion because there is a separtate curcuit that provides power to the switch??? At this point I'm just glad I feel like I have a resonable handle on whats going on. A few guys on the hondachop board have said they have had good luck with a Walmart swich, so I may try that. The other option is to use the stock solinoid to wire it up. More to come...but I'm get'n closer!!!

...and it smells good! Got the fender mounted this weekend. Drilled four holes in the swingarm portion of the frame so the fender s good and stable. I had considered using a harley style strut to strenthen it. I want a passenger to be able to sit on the back and I want the fender to support the weight. The fender is pretty hefty (12 gauge steel???) and after mounting it, I'm confident it will hold an average persons weight. Also got my "Po Boy" pipes on it. I plan to wrap them in heat tape at some point...only becuase they look like crap, but I'm not in any rush. Also got the electrics mounted, I'm very proud of this work. I tucked them in nice and neat on the back side of the battery box:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/marklocklear/detail?.dir=8c67&.dnm=9409.jpg&.src=ph

And also mounted the ignition switch. I tinkered with this some more last night, and still have work to do. The starter seems to be engaging in the ON and START postions on the switch. It should only be engaging in the START position, so I have a little more research to do there. Mailed off my throttle sleeve and housing this morning to Jason Held at http://jhcustoms.hortoncustoms.com/ This guy does awesome billet aluminum work, hes making a set of grips for me that look something like these to the right. Hopfully that won't take more than a few weeks. I'm ready to fire up the engine, but with my throttle housing gone I may have to wait til this one comes back. I may try and pull the housing off my stocker until these come back.

Made some awsome progress in the past week. Lets start with the oil lines. I got a set of sweet (don't ask me how much they cost) stainless steel oil lines from www.oldbritts.com . Very pleased with them...even though they are a little pricey, they look 10 times better than black rubber hose. Nots sure if you can tell in the pic to the left, but I'm gonna pull the fittings coming from the oil tank and are brass, and I'v got some aluminum paint that will look good on them.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/marklocklear/detail?.dir=8c67&.dnm=ec13.jpg&.src=ph

I think I'm settled on how I'm going to mount the gas tank. I took it with me to welding class last night and welded a U-Bolt to the inside of the tank. I only welded one U-Bolt, so its still not real sturdy. Then it hit me this morning while laying in bead. I'll weld a tab on the end of the tank (right where the seat meets the tank), and use a worm screw/strap to secure the bottom end of the tank.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/marklocklear/detail?.dir=8c67&.dnm=f207.jpg&.src=ph

Did a nice little project in class last week. I added 6 inches of stretch to a stock CB750 swingarm. I'll use this on the stock bike that I'm modifing.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/marklocklear/detail?.dir=42ee&.dnm=7672.jpg&.src=ph

Also big ups to DW Locklear...he won a nice CB750 down in "Hot"lanta, GA...

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/marklocklear/detail?.dir=cf51&.dnm=47e3.jpg&.src=ph