Honda CB550
Well, these bikes are now gone. My buddy came up from Milwaukee and took them back with him. They were cool, but now they're gone.
Here they are. Not quite brothers, yet very closely related. They both came to me within a span of 2 weeks in the summer of 2000.
1974 Honda CB550
This one came from the guy across the street. It had sat in his garage for a while and he was tired of tripping over it. It turned over, and caught a couple of times, but no starting it did.
The right side.
The left side.
This one is pretty beat up. The mufflers are pretty hollow, the tank's been painted a flattish red and it's just generally dirty. I have the missing side cover. The odometer says 22,000 miles. The tires are in pretty good shape and it has that basketball-court-sized rack on the back.
6/17/01
I fiddled with this bike over the weekend and it started. It didn't run very well and poured gas out of the right side carb, but ran it did. I was shocked, but that's how that goes. It's as loud as all hell with the baffles hollowed out. Nasty.
1977 Honda CB550
The '77 is from my pal Charlie. He got it a while back and even though it runs OK, it doesn't charge the battery. It's also seeping on the left side from the head gasket. I'll give it some slack seeing as it's about 25 years old, but it's something else to deal with. I'm going to have to get really cozy with those folks down at Honda Town.
The right side.
Cosmetically the one from Charlie is in pretty good shape. The side cover on the left side is missing, and the seat's had it. The paint on the tank is the original brown.
The left side.
Aside from the charging problem, this one's tires look to be in pretty tough shape. There's a hole in one of the four (!) exhaust pipes and one of the rear turn signals has been broken off. This one has covered just a bit less than 18,000 miles.
6/19/01
A bit more fiddling with this one tonight. I swapped the stator assembly from the other bike into this one to see if it would charge any better. It seemed that it did, but we'll just have to see what happens over a longer while. The voltmeter said 12V almost on the nose for this bike's original stator. That number climbed to a tick over 13V with the new stator. That's still pretty anemic, but it's better. It could also be my weedy voltmeter.
I also adjusted the pedal heights, took the handlebar risers off, put a side cover on the right side (from the other bike, again), and adjusted the cam chain tensioner a bit. It may need a bit more adjustment, but I'll not do much more adjusting this particular thing until I get a book for the bike.
I also took down the numbers on the bike. The title hunt begins.
6/17/01
I messed with this one this weekend as well. I must say that everything Charlie said about this bike was correct. It's a sweet runner that's just not charging the battery. I was floored that it ran as nicely as it did. The kicker is that it ran nicely on gas that's at least a year old. Watch for more updates in the near future on this one.
