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Repair Log - 1964 Honda Superhawk CP77
 


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Date

1999:    July  -  December

   
12.10.99 Mileage:  16,863

Bike needs nothing right now, but to be ridden...

   
09.03.99 Mileage:  16,650

I have spent the last two days installing the Electronic Ignition Conversion System. This conversion deserves its own section on this web site (which it will receive). I am now waiting for photos to come back from processing. Please check back. One more thing: they were real, and they were ...spectacular.

Changed shocks to Red Wing (all chrome). Now this is exactly what was needed! The damping action has made the bike a lot more stable and well behaved. In conversation with many folks, everyone seems to agree: the CB/CL 72/77 factory shocks are too lacking, even when new. The Red Wings have a thicker shaft and a larger oil reservoir. They do it better.

Also:

  • Oiled the chain
  • Disassembled and oiled the throttle cable; end to end.

I don't know why I did not try this before, but I moved the throttle cable to the left side of the frame (the section with the one into two distribution junction). Things seem to align better this way and the carb slides snap back.

Note: I tried a light coating of fine lubricating oil on the carb slides and the results were bad. The oil actually interfered with the slides' movement. Once the oil was removed, things went back to normal.

 

   
08.12.99 Mileage:  16,160

Getting the bike ready for another long trip - a mystery rally, in fact. You get a route sheet at the beginning with directions and landmarks, but no road numbers. All modern bikes; I am the only one with a 35 year old bike and brass round objects a bit south of the waist. When it was all over, I really could say that the bike ran fantastic, but I am getting ahead of the story:

Short write up:

This was a perfect opportunity to follow Ed Moore's tuning directions, which, in the end, really did produce a very strong running bike.

Unabridged:

Let me get straight to the point here. I have discovered a very stealthy, but subversive malfunction in the bike. This goes back to and actually solves the lingering question of why the bike failed to run well, earlier in the year (see the entry for 05.14.99) and made me suspect the coil to be the culprit.

Instead, it turned out to be the left side points. While doing a static timing test, with the test lamp attached (one side to chassis the other to the points lead), I discovered that the test light simply does not come on at the left points when the motor is cranked over by hand. Since the bike would run if kicked over or started with the electric starter, it became apparent that the points had a weak tension spring: too week to fully close the points unless aided by the bounce induced by a nominally fast motor revolution.

So it all came together - the bike running rather weak over the last several hundred miles, feeling soft and tired, and also that incident back in May when it refused to run for a while, making the left coil a suspect - all the evidence was finally accumulated into a preponderance. The fix was a simple one - I removed the left points and gave the tension tab an extra bend in order to increase the tension. As soon as this was done things came together. I was able to complete the tune up and the bike began to run very strong.

Let me reiterate that this would not have been discovered had I not been following Ed Moore's Power Tune Up instructions; all the more reason to follow good advice. I can report to you that when done, the bike has been running very strong. The 600 mile rally had me running in hot summer heat and then through pouring rain; torrential downpour for about 30 minutes soaking me to the bone, followed by several hours of just rain. Pavement, packed gravel/dirt and plain ol' mud. The ride also took my '64 SuperHawk high into the mountains of Vermont, so high in fact that I was riding through clouds. Clouds, not fog, literally. The high altitude actually made the bike perform differently at the top than the bottom, but more on that some other time.

This tune up consisted of:

Also:

  • Oiled all linkages
  • Oiled the chain
  • Drained and refilled front shocks: 220ml ATF

Note to self:

  • Rear shocks are gone. No damping action, whatsoever.

 

 

 

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