Honda 550 Four Part 5
A few shots of the engine casings with a clean and paint and the bolts plated:
Looks like the engine may have been apart before - I don't think Honda left snots of Honda-bond around joints! I ought to have scraped that off before I painted the front - hey ho!
Not perfect but 'coming at' as they might say in these parts.
The centre stand came up very well and I decided to spray the lower parts of the legs and centre bridge tube with Bilt Hamber 'Electrox', which is a 90% zinc rich paint I've used on our MX-5 brake calipers with amazing results but just left bare on those - that was 3 years ago and they still look great. On the centre stand this was then covered with Upol etch primer, grey primer and finally satin black. I also removed and stripped the battery carrier, which was in really good condition with just few lightly rusted patches to treat and then it was primed before finishing in satin black.
The speedo outer case was finally re-fitted using my home made support ring so that the stainless ring could be crimped back on. I'll do the rev counter in exactly the same way when I get the chance.
I've decided that I'll fit the '627B' (500/4) carbs that came with the bike but without the air filter box and plenum for now just to get it up and running on all four; I've bench synced them but will balance them to this engine. Once done, I think I will do the spare set of the correct 069As thoroughly and then fit those properly with the filter casings and the new rubbers. This will mean that if I ever wanted to sell the 627Bs, I will be able to say with confidence that they are ready to fit to a 550 or a 500 if the jets are changed back.
I filled, primed and blocked down the replacement tank using Upol 'smooth and easy' and Graham at Hatston Motors in Kirkwall, sprayed the top coats and lacquer for me and fitted my new decals. I had taken a side panel to him for colour matching by Dingbros in Inverness and they mixed a litre of Shiny Orange.
As the bike is still on the bench, I removed the whole contact breaker plate and advance/retard unit so that it could be checked and tidied up before re-fitting and static timing done. I think I will wait until it's running again and then do the front end, which will need quite a bit of detail work: the left headlamp ear, the lamp shell itself, the brake caliper and that small dent teasing out from the front mudguard. The lower fork sliders will need stripping and polishing, so I may as well strip the front wheel, clean the hub and disc and then re-plate the spokes and nipples - that always tidies up the front end. If all that turns out well, then I will probably strip the rear wheel too and tidy up all of those small nuts, bolts and fittings at that end but that might be next winter.
It might make the road this season, assuming that Honda and the DVLA get their acts together regarding date of manufacture and registration, otherwise it's runs up and down our drive! It's an annoying exercise really, as there is a firmly attached VIN plate on the headstock which tallies with the stamped in VIN number on the other side and that plate clearly states the date of manufacture as 6/75 - Grrrrrr! So far it's closing on 3 months since I requested DOM from Honda which they said could take up to 6 weeks!