my $125 Honda CA77 part bike/next project

[clarenceada]

Thanks for all the kind words, but I'll only take credit for all the effort to get it; the beauty was built in by Mr. Honda.

Yes, I think the solo seat really changes the whole attitude of the Dream; my other Dream is a flat seat and it makes the bike look smaller then it is, the solo seat drops the outline of the bike making it look longer and more "hunkered" to the ground; looks like a classic cruiser, maybe like a mini Indian Chief.

Speaking of the seat, here are three pictures of it and can anyone tell me the manufacture , as there is no brand on it; as I may decide to get one like it for my Blue Dream. The mount looks homemade, look at that square chunk of metal under the spring; the corners are very sharp, could cut somebody.








Thanks again


Clarence

[clarenceada]

Been working on this 1963 Dream lately and found a few problems and answers that I thought someone may find helpful; just know that I work under the light of the shad tree mechanic; a list of things found wrong:

1. Key would not turn ignition lock.
a. the key and lock both have the same number, but as you can see the key has been ground down to about half it's thickness, must have had a problem with the lock not turning and ground the key instead of fixing the lock: (click on thumb nails)







b. replaced with 1965 blue Dream ignition lock. the locks are a little different, the 63 has 9 wires coming out of the back and the 65 has 8, they used a y connection to make up the extra wire. Hooked it up and works all lights and switches.













The 63 was a six postion switch while the 65 has five. Don't know what the extra position was for.












2. put in new battery and found short with everything off when I hooked up the
positive cable.










a. Unplugged one wire at a time on all connections inside the headlight shell: still have short.
b. Unplugged the connection to the rectifier and short stopped: bad rectifier







c. Looked around for a rectifier; Honda wanted $107 so I went to Radio Shack and picked-up their 25amp rectifier and the only heat sink they had:








The rectifier that was on the bike was from the eighties, it's one I've seen on other bikes and must have been the generic replacement rectifier as there's one on the CT90 from the 60's that I have. The heat sink I got from Radio Shack didn't seem very big compared with the old one so I decided to mount the rectifier to the original heat sink:








the wires are connected with rivets:







which I drilled out:







then I drilled a hole through the fins of the old rectifier:






and taped out the second hole for threads for a Honda small bolt with an 8mm head; I didn't use a tap, just drilled a loose hole in the aluminum and the bolt self taped into it and mounted the new rectifier to the fins with silicone sealer between:








Then I used a large crimp-on connector to ground the negative terminal of the rectifier to the mounting bolt:











so next I need to mount it to the bike, fire it up and see if it charges












Thanks for looking





Clarence

[e3steve]

Nice work, Clarence! To be fair, and IMPO, for our bikes a 25A rec of 50WVDC or greater probably wouldn't need a heatsink at all. Better safe than sorry, of course, though.

[brewsky]

Nice to know, Steve, .....I once contemplated adding the CPU cooling fan to the sink I robbed for my replacement, but thought it might be overkill!

[e3steve]

Point of fact and FYI: my replacement rec is mounted using a small, cylindrical Avid Thermalloy heatsink which barely gets warm. I'd say that you could just mount a modern type rec directly in contact with the mounting bracket for heat dissipation.

Here's an older pic before I fitted the AGM battery and tidied up the wiring:

EDIT: found the (poor-res) phone-pic

[clarenceada]

Thanks Steve; when I got the rectifier from Radio Shack I had wonder how much the little heat sink would help so I looked up hear sink ratings and didn't get anything easy like a chart on how large it should be for a given wattage of power. I found computer sites on airflow across heat sink tables and like this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_sink

They can't tell you what size of heat sink you need for your CPU or rectifier cause it all has to do with how much air flow the sink is getting and if it has a fan or not and a bunch of other variables. With a forward voltage drop of 1.7 at a max current of maybe 5 amps when over revved that's 8.5 watts of power, not a whole lot but if somebody didn't use a hear sink and put it in an area where it wasn't getting air flow it may over heat; the less heat the diodes have on them the better. This bike already has went through two rectifiers and one of the newer type; so over kill couldn't hurt. Honda must had a reason to put that large a sink on it ; Besides it looks almost stock.


After I rebuilt this thing I found this site on nothing but rectifiers and regulators and for $40 they have one for a CL350 and other bikes that looks like it would bolt right on the Dream with no modifications; I may get one for the Blue Dream as it has the old selenium rectifier.



http://www.regulatorrectifier.com/catalog/Honda?page=2

Nice work, Clarence! To be fair, and IMPO, for our bikes a 25A rec of 50WVDC or greater probably wouldn't need a heatsink at all. Better safe than sorry, of course, though.

[e3steve]

...... With a forward voltage drop of 1.7 at a max current of maybe 5 amps when over revved that's 8.5 watts of power, not a whole lot but if somebody didn't use a hear sink and put it in an area where it wasn't getting air flow it may over heat; the less heat the diodes have on them the better. This bike already has went through two rectifiers and one of the newer type; so over kill couldn't hurt. Honda must had a reason to put that large a sink on it ; Besides it looks almost stock.

Selenium diodes do get much hotter than silicone or Schottky. Mine's the latter; forward voltage drop is a mere 0.5V max.

After I rebuilt this thing I found this site on nothing but rectifiers and regulators and for $40 they have one for a CL350 and other bikes that looks like it would bolt right on the Dream with no modifications; I may get one for the Blue Dream as it has the old selenium rectifier.

http://www.regulatorrectifier.com/catalog/Honda?page=2

Nice work, Clarence! To be fair, and IMPO, for our bikes a 25A rec of 50WVDC or greater probably wouldn't need a heatsink at all. Better safe than sorry, of course, though.

I think it's Retro Bikes who sells a ready-made, direct replacement rec of 'modern' diodes. Those on the site that you've provided a link-to are reg-recs and, as such, do require greater heat dissipation.