remarkable CB72 (early ?) kickstarter sidecover

[jensen]

Hi,

Thanks everyone for your responses.
I will take the cover off, will look at the rear-side (again),
and take some pictures to display in this thread.

Jensen

[G-Man]

A picture from the inside would be really useful.

Here are a couple of my CB72 covers. They are different on the lower edge but I do not know whether they are early or late. The inside where Jensen's feature looks like the second picture on all the cases I have.

G

[teazer]

Don't they all have a small mark in the side cover to indicate the nominal position of the screw adjuster? If so, that would be a casting insert added to the original mold and not quite level with the rest of the mold.

[rzgkane]

As far as I've read, the mark is there to indicate where the adjuster has to be in order for grease to enter the fitting via the zerk and nothing more. The adjustment of the fitting will depend on the dimensions and wear of the clutch.

Don't they all have a small mark in the side cover to indicate the nominal position of the screw adjuster? If so, that would be a casting insert added to the original mold and not quite level with the rest of the mold.

[Tim Miller]

Hi Jensen,

I believe this is the the correct very early cover. My early cb72 has this same casting mark.
If you compare this cover to the next generation you will see how light weight it is around the kick starter shaft boss. It's very rare to see one not cracked. The early cover also has the thinner clutch cable adjuster that's located 1" toward's the rear. What number is it?

Tim

[jensen]

Hi

Thanks everyone for the comments, and thanks Tim, for the positive identification.
This afternoon I took the cover off and took some pictures, please look at them carefully and compare with your own. I have the feeling the within the first 400 to 500 engines a lot of (small) changes were made, and this could only be one of them,

The engine number is 1100XX, please pm me for more details,

Jensen

[G-Man]

Jensen

Interesting. Looks like a clumsy way of adding a feature to the casting die at the last minute. Casting the indicator slot would require them to add metal to the die in that area which is not easy.

It looks like they have made an insert for the die, drilled a location for it and then set the new piece in. Judging by the casting surface, the new piece was not flush with the rest of the die, resulting in that raised feature with the slot in.

Subsequent dies were obviously made from scratch with the piece that creates the alignment mark built in from the beginning.

G