I did it again... Bought a baby blade to rebuild...

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Reminds me of my old cb-1 loved that little 400. They feel so different to ride compared to the bigger brother scarily snappy response and sound beastly.
 
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Don
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That fairing looks nice. Which place did you use?

Straight out of Ebay :) Its the only seller I found who included a tank cover for the NC23. After customs fees and delivery, it costs me about £400 for the set.

Reminds me of my old cb-1 loved that little 400. They feel so different to ride compared to the bigger brother scarily snappy response and sound beastly.

Looking forward to getting it out on the road, and seeing how it sounds for real! :D

New air filter arrived:
CBR400rr130.jpg


Cracked in three places, so had to get the cyno glue out :D

CBR400rr131.jpg


Replacement exhaust hanger arrived:

CBR400rr132.jpg


New rear brake cylinder, which bled in about 2 minutes flat, which was nice:

CBR400rr133.jpg


You can see the air-duct tubes on the floor on the right here:

CBR400rr134.jpg



Test fitted:
CBR400rr140.jpg


Other side:

CBR400rr143.jpg


Cowl/mirror mount arrived, and fitted:

CBR400rr135.jpg


Both fairing front mounts arrived!:

Makes the front fairing/cowl fit a lot more nicely:

CBR400rr136.jpg


Other side:

CBR400rr137.jpg


Testing out some of the fairing fitments:

CBR400rr139.jpg


Relocated the shock remote part:

CBR400rr141.jpg


Much neater, and should be hidden away once back together :)

These were some of the fairing brackets that were missing, to hold the belly fairings:

CBR400rr142.jpg


The rear twist bolt is not seating, turns out its a bi worn, so will drill it out and replace it asap.

Cockpit coming together. Need to do some wiring routing, which is currently not playing ball :(

CBR400rr144.jpg



Having a couple of issues with the seating of the new radiator and clearances with the fan/head. Got to get that sorted, and I think that's the last thing keeping it off the road for moment!
 
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Don
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Sort out some more little niggles I had forgotten about.. The indicators were behaving a bit oddly, took apart the control unit, as I wanted to work out why the horn would not work. Turns out the controls by default had the clutch switch and horn sharing a feed, but the clutch feed on my bike is not permanent live, so I had to split them, and move the horn switch feed to the main beam flash feed as its a permanent live.

Did that and it worked perfectly (might have accidentally sounded the horn at 11:30pm... OOPS!

Turns out, once I took the switch to bits (had to do so to get to the wires for the horn switch) and put it back together, the problem went away!

Got some connectors coming tomorrow to let me add in a generic headlight relay, and will look to add a second relay and fused live from the battery to allow me to run the standard H4 bulbs (standard ones on this bike are 35w), if you don't do this, you are running 55W through the switch-gear and that will not end well!

Hope that I can get it up and down the road again, with everything on it this weekend :D
 
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Don
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New indicators turned up:

CBR400rr148.jpg


Did a couple of these - Replacing the quick turn mounts for the fairings, just drill out the old pop rivet, and replace the bracket:

CBR400rr149.jpg


Routed these cables around correctly to the front, and its made things a lot neater. Most of these brackets will need to be cleaned up and painted/powder-coated in the near future:

CBR400rr150.jpg


new mirrors arrived, but they had no backing rubbers, and would be butting right up against the screen:

CBR400rr151.jpg



Cut off some thick fuel line, slice down to make a bit I can flatten out - put in some holes, and bolt it onto the mirrors:
CBR400rr156.jpg



Trim with some scissors:

CBR400rr155.jpg


CBR400rr157.jpg


Testing out the generic headlight relay, worked fine, and now has a nice 4pin 6.3mm bracket rather than the small pins on there in the pic:

CBR400rr152.jpg



This is the wire (in pink) that I moved out of the clutch sensor live to the flash switch live:

CBR400rr153.jpg



These little sidelight bulb holders are missing, so managed to find some generic T10 12mm rubber connectors that should be here today, and also managed to get the rear fairings back on and mocked up again.

Got it out on the drive to test out a few things, and got the carb primed again, as I let the tiny amount of fuel in it evaporate like an idiot :D

CBR400rr159.jpg


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CBR400rr161.jpg


Looking at it in the light, I think I will need to get the wheels changed to white, and there are a few little bits to line up and finish around the front and rear lights.

Also, I really need to clean my driveway!!
 
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Don
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My sidelight holders turned up - fitted quite nicely. Stuck in some LED T10 bulbs, will see if they survive the heat, as they are quite close to the headlight bulbs.
CBR400rr162.jpg


Fitted:

CBR400rr163.jpg


That makes them look SUPER bright, this is more representative:

CBR400rr164.jpg


Some heatshield fairing protector material turned up too:

CBR400rr166.jpg


Chain and sprockets which I was trying to fit:

CBR400rr165.jpg


When I found the new chain is a bit too long after fitting the two sprockets. I could not adjust the chain adjusters enough to make it tight enough, then I rounded the adjuster off.. It was pretty much already totally rounded anyway, so not the end of the world. Just delayed me a bit! So, now I had to remove it..

The offending article:
CBR400rr167.jpg


I left it overnight with penetrating oil to try and ease it up a bit. I then dremeled a slot, but even with a twist punch thingy, it would not come out. So I went digging into the toolbox, and found these:

CBR400rr168.jpg


Awesome! Removed the circlip, took off the axle bracket, and managed to twist one of these onto the end, and it gripped :D

CBR400rr169.jpg


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Two on order from David Silver spares, and should be here before the end of the week hopefully!

To slot into this newly cleared hole!!

CBR400rr171.jpg



I also ordered a new chain joining link as the one that came with the chain is a one time deal, so I got a clip type, so I can remove a couple of links, and remove and reuse the link if needed. I do have another crush type one coming for the future once i am happy with the chain length.


So, more little niggles slowing me down, but plodding on through them!!
 
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Don
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Since I was replacing the adjusting screws, which arrived:

CBR400rr172.jpg


I decided to clean up the adjuster brackets a bit, so I dumped them in some Citric Acid, and left them for a few hours:

CBR400rr173.jpg


Ended up coming out, with new bolts fitted, looking like this:

CBR400rr174.jpg


Back on the bike, with th, yet to be tensioned chain, and new rear sprocket :

CBR400rr175.jpg


CBR400rr176.jpg


I think I will do some cleaning up of this area once I have the wheels off again to be changed to white :D
 
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Don
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Honda! We have a problem!

Started it up today to have a poke about before running it down the a garage for an MOT, noticed it sounded odd and cyclinder 4 was cold on the down pipe after a couple of minutes running.

Checked HT lead, plugged in a spare plug, spark was good.
Removed the spark plug from 4, tested it in the lead, messy spark, but working.
Ok, stuck in a compression tester, turned it over... came up as 60!! Oh no....
So dropped a smidge of oil down the bore, retested.. 110ish..
Looks like the rings in 4 are shot. I could probably get it tested like this and pass it's MOT, but no point riding it round with knackered rings really.

Soooooo looks like an engine out job, take a look and see what's what, then work out what to do!

Will test the compression on all the others later when the engine is out and access is a bit easier.
 
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Honda! We have a problem!

Started it up today to have a poke about before running it down the a garage for an MOT, noticed it sounded odd and cyclinder 4 was cold on the down pipe after a couple of minutes running.

Checked HT lead, plugged in a spare plug, spark was good.
Removed the spark plug from 4, tested it in the lead, messy spark, but working.
Ok, stuck in a compression tester, turned it over... came up as 60!! Oh no....
So dropped a smidge of oil down the bore, retested.. 110ish..
Looks like the rings in 4 are shot. I could probably get it tested like this and pass it's MOT, but no point riding it round with knackered rings really.

Soooooo looks like an engine out job, take a look and see what's what, then work out what to do!

Will test the compression on all the others later when the engine is out and access is a bit easier.

If the bike was running fine there is no reason to think you have broken a ring unless you was very unlucky also the pot would still run hot but under perform same as valve problem.
At a guess it's a simple fuel problem dirty carb or sticky float.
 
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Don
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If the bike was running fine there is no reason to think you have broken a ring unless you was very unlucky also the pot would still run hot but under perform same as valve problem.
At a guess it's a simple fuel problem dirty carb or sticky float.

It's possible I might have missed it before, as I was running it without the manifold done up properly, so it was always sounding a bit odd!

I did the oil down the plug hole trick, and the compression shot up, which usually means rings I think?!
 
Soldato
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It's possible I might have missed it before, as I was running it without the manifold done up properly, so it was always sounding a bit odd!

I did the oil down the plug hole trick, and the compression shot up, which usually means rings I think?!

When a bike has been standing for a long period of time or just plain old a ring can stick,gummed up normally the oil ring so dropping some fresh oil can help free the ring but there are other better methods also.

Filling the pot with oil will just give a wrong reading.
 
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Soldato
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It's possible I might have missed it before, as I was running it without the manifold done up properly, so it was always sounding a bit odd!

I did the oil down the plug hole trick, and the compression shot up, which usually means rings I think?!

The second from last video you are definitely running on 4 but a little rough.

If it's not smoking badly or losing lots of power when riding nothing wrong with that motor.

The last one when riding to short and loud to tell but sounds also the headers are blowing and or mid section or just the endcan blown out which can sound nice in the flesh but hard to tell in video.
 
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Transmission breaker
Don
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The second from last video you are definitely running on 4 but a little rough.

If it's not smoking badly or losing lots of power when riding nothing wrong with that motor.

The last one when riding to short and loud to tell but sounds also the headers are blowing and or mid section or just the endcan blown out which can sound nice in the flesh but hard to tell in video.

Look what I found :D

CBR400rr177.jpg


Some rather more shiny wheels, with nearly new tyres (which it needed anyway), and a little engine :D

It is supposed to be a well running, strong engine. Also, the head looks to be in a lot better nick in terms or exhaust studs. Will see when I can get it all put on the bike, and might be able to get an MOT soon!
 
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