Eye Candy

Thanks to Tyler Nutter for my new banner photo.

CB550 35mm Forks

You might recall a few weeks ago I ditched the original headlight brackets for some shiny aftermarket ones. The process revealed some fairly pitted and rusted upper forks that were hiding beneath those original brackets. No amount of sanding and polishing would make them look good, but buying new ones was out of the question. I looked around and forks are just too expensive. I emailed Forks by Frank, who come highly recommended by the SOHC4 veterans but they wanted over $250 bucks for a pair of CB550 35mm forks. So I tried my luck on eBay but everything on there was just as snotty as my forks. Until….

I found a pair that were in gorgeous shape. Complete forks for $35 bucks not including shipping. The chrome is perfect. They just need to be wiped down and cleaned. They even still had a label on them that reads: 1976, 1977, 1978 Honda CB550 Forks. This will be a project that I’ll work on in the next few months, but not anytime soon. I’m going to polish the lowers and sell them, take the dust covers and forks for my bike and then sell my crusty forks.

Mini Starter Switch

So you might have read my last post and asked yourself: Where did he put the starter switch? Well, the truth is I had no plan or strategy for the switch, just some vague ideas that I never put into action. In the end it all worked out though.

I had replaced the original switch with a mini SPST momentary switch. The switch measured small enough to actually fit inside the bar but I had no real intentions of attempting to mount it inside so I kinda just stuffed it in the existing hole I had made last summer for running the wires. I figured I would worry about it later but it turned out that after I had installed the new throttle the switch kinda just worked the way it was (haphazardly stuffed at an angle in the bar hole). The hole is underneath the bar so you can’t see the switch from any angle, but I can still reach it with my thumb when I need it. It’s out of the way, works, and doesn’t look half bad. I’m keeping it that way until a better alternative comes up. As far as I’m concerned I’m done with the right side of the bars.

Motion Pro Throttle Assembly

I replaced the throttle assembly for a number of reasons:
1. I wanted to clean up the front end.
2. I took apart the switches and couldn’t put them back together again, and keeping the throttle assembly without switches would look weird.
3. My buddy Tyler replaced the throttle on his CB and I wanted to one up him.

I knew I wanted the assembly to be made of metal but I couldn’t find any cool looking billet aluminum assemblies. I ultimately went with a cast aluminum throttle from Motion Pro.

I’ve purchased their cables before and they are a good company to deal with. The kit even came with an allen wrench.

This particular model is a push/pull throttle but can be used for just pull much like the original OEM assembly.

It also comes in chrome but I chose black enamel for contrast on the chrome bars.

The whole thing is around an inch wide. Much slimmer than the original Honda part.

Gee whiz that’s pretty.

Before shot with original master cylinder, switches, and throttle.

Headlight Switch

Relocating the kill switch was an easy decision. It was independent of the starter switch and didn’t interfere with any other electrical system. The starter switch is another story because the headlight is wired into it. It took me a few days to decide to separate the two systems mainly because I couldn’t find the proper switch small enough to fit inside the bars. Actually, I did find a switch but no one had it in stock, anyway I’m glad I went the other way and separated the headlight from the starter switch. It looks good, and the “Brit Style” switch lets me turn off the headlight when I desire (or forget to turn it on like my ride this afternoon).

Luckily these headlight brackets had cosmetic holes in them begging to be filled with mini switches. Clearly, down is the off position and up is the on position.

Kill Switch Re-Located

Though this is a temporary location, I am very happy with how clean it looks. I started by splitting the plastic wire harness housing behind the bucket before it entered the clubman bars. I pulled the black/white wire and one of the black wires out of the bars and out of the plastic housing. I then slid some heat shrink wrapping over the wires, cut them down to size, soldered them to a mini toggle switch and mounted in them in the nearest hole I could find, the headlight bracket.

Split harness.

View from top. Nice short wires, neatly heat shrink wrapped and mounted.

It doesn’t look bad, and it’s not terribly awkward. I have something in mind for the future, but for now it will do. Tomorrow morning I’m adding a switch for the headlight (on/off) and mounting it somewhere away from the bars, that will leave me with just the starter switch to deal with which will remain near the throttle.

Honda CB Bulbs NEW BATCH! WIDE ANGLE!

I hand test each and every one of these LED bulbs. That means I actually put each bulb in a vintage socket to make sure the contacts touch and complete the circuit. I guarantee these bulbs will work and will issue a full 100% refund if they don’t.

Check out the new wide angle bulbs in the Austin Cafe Racer Store. Please click the link on the right hand side bar or click below.
http://www.austincaferacer.com/store/store.html

Cafe Racer Parts

Replacing the Kill Switch and Starter Button

This first post is more exploratory than practical. I wanted to get my bearings and take a peek inside to understand what I was dealing with in terms of wiring. Once again I was amazed at the complexity of the industrial engineering concerning the button and switch fabrication. Of course, we can make this entire system simpler and more pragmatic which is what I intend to do in the next weeks. First things first let’s take the thing apart.

The housing is too bulky and it certainly doesn’t fit in with my new master cylinder. I’m currently looking for a sleeker aluminum alternative.

It’s no surprise its pretty dirty in there.

Black electrical tape.. tisk, tisk, the previous owner must have been in here sometime ago.

Bottom enclosure with button removed.

Starter button, all taped up and nasty.

Here you can see some type of green stuff growing on the exposed wiring.

Bottom of the starter button. Metal plate is rusted and dirty.

Metal plate removed.

These pieces represent the entire starter button disassembled. I’m consistently surprised by how tiny these little components are. Seems a bit overkill for a switch. I can’t believe they didn’t have anything resembling today’s mini SPDT or DPST switches.

This shot is of the wiring connected to the three metal leads that the button slides against. Like many old Honda CB owners, I experienced the occasional starter button sticking problem. The frayed ends of the yellow/red wire explains the occasional main fuse blowing. If the black wire is grounded in any way the main is going to blow.

Here is the bottom of the wiring assembly. We can certainly do better than this right? The strategy is simple enough. This is a three wire setup, where the black wire is feeding power, the black/red wire is the power to the headlight, and the yellow/red wire heads to the starter. So, the starter button is actually doing two jobs at once, almost like a simple relay circuit. First, the button in it’s up or open position is closing the circuit between the black and black/red wires, feeding power to the headlight. Second, when the button is pressed in the mechanism slides the tiny copper leads to connect the black wire to the yellow/red. This process turns off the headlight, while the starter turns the engine. When you let go of the button it reconnects the black to the black/red. BRILLIANT! But old fashioned.

So we have two choices here:

1.) We can go the simple Brit style way and connect an on/off SPST button that closes the circuit between the black and yellow/red wires. This process eliminates the black/red wire (headlight), which means we have to rig another simple on/off SPST switch somewhere to turn on the headlight. This is kinda cool, because we can have control of the headlight bulb, turning it off and on when we please.

2.) Or we can replace this overcomplicated starter button mechanism with a mini SPDT switch that will do the same job. This presents two problems:

a. We need to find a mini switch that will fit inside the bars. This means finding a switch whose body along with soldered wires is shorter than 7/8inch.

b. If we choose not to mount inside the bars, we can find any size button and relocate it somewhere else (easy). What makes this problematic is being unable to push the button while turning the throttle while simultaneously holding in the clutch in.

These are issues I’ll be pondering in the next few weeks.

The kill switch, on the other hand, is a more manageable system.

This is a simple two-wire setup. Our original switch was three way, with an off-on-off routine. In reality this is just a single throw switch.

This tiny little clip is the first thing you have to remove to pop the red switch out.

Careful not to lose these itty bitty pieces.

Here are the two leads, black and black/white. The red switch has a metal tab that closes the circuit when it falls between the two round leads.

Check it out. Another small ball bearing. Those 70’s era engineers were clever but also kinda weird. The ball bearing was used to give the switch that tactile feel of “clicking” when you turned it.

Here you can see the worn grooves where the ball bearing had rolled over for the last 35 years. Once again, we can make this switch much more aesthetically pleasing as well as relocate it somewhere else on the bike. The wiring is a piece of cake, we just need a simple SPST switch and solder the two wires to each lug. It will be the placement of the switch that will be difficult, not the actual placement but the design. It has to look good, not out of place.

I’ll post more on my progress in the next few days. Remember.
Don’t be afraid to take things apart.
Have fun.

Cafe Racer How To

Miscellaneous post:

Don’t be disheartened if your comment doesn’t appear as soon as you post it, I have to sift through nearly 390 comments every week to find the ones you guys are leaving. Keep in mind as soon as I approve your first comment your next ones are immediately posted. I’m writing this because I just installed a new spam comment plugin for WordPress that will automate the spam deleting process. If your comment somehow falls through the cracks, don’t worry, just post again. I’ll find them eventually.

In the following week, I’m going to:
Replace the throttle assembly.
Replace and relocate the kill switch with a mini Toggle SPST switch.
Replace the starter switch with a new SPDT Mini momentary button.
Finally get some new grips (mine look several years old).

Mini Gauges, Shiny Bar Clamps, Radial Master Cylinder, Oh My

Finally I’m posting some photos of my modified front end. I’m not even half way done, but it’s looking sweeter everyday, and the performance is much improved. The speedo is the proper 2240:60 ratio and the tach is 20:3 ratio, sometimes referred to as 1:7. The bar clamps are made by Carpy, and the radial master cylinder is off a 2008 Honda CBR600RR.

These are some gorgeous little gauges and the look even better next to each other.

Fresh stainless steel bolts on everything.

The reservoir sits perfectly level now. I’m so happy.