Clutch Cover Crack

A common issue on the Honda Bros is a crack on the top left bolt hole. I have seen this on a few bikes that have come into the garage, although I have only seen it on 650s never on a 400 although it is an identical part.

Crack from the inside.

The crack can be seen here, it appears to initiate from the corner and work outwards. To remove this cover the rear exhaust has to be loosened to allow it to be pulled off, plus the end can and Y-pipe needs to be removed.

 The Y-pipe was a little corroded and the lower pipe was covered in oil, this is from the cracked case.

Once the cover was off it was just a straight swap, I used a new gasket. I had a cover lying around off of an earlier model bros there is a slight difference in covers. The earlier models have an oil feed pipe that goes up from the clutch cover and splits to each cylinder. I used a bolt to blank this hole off.

I cleaned the surrounding frame and mainstand which had been covered in oil.

 Thw new casing and gasket all in place. I put the bike on its side stand when I took the case off but I still lost about half a litre of oil.

I cleaned the pipes with some rag and solvent. I then used high temperature sealant on the femal side of the joint to help with the sealing.

Other than this crack the bike has been faultless, even with regular use and abuse in all weathers.

Honda Benly Cafe Racer

Now that I have a bit of extra time I have decided to give a little tlc to the honda benly that has been sat in the garden for the last couple of years.

 I have another running benly and two benlys in boxes, this gives me a wide range of good spare parts to use. The first job is to strip the paint off and paint it all black. I am going for a simple black and chrome cafe racer look.

The front headlight shroud was replaced with a black item off of the shelf. I also chopped the indicator stems to bring them closer in at the front.

The handle bars were re-mounted upside down, this is to lower the riding stance.

I used NITRO-MORS to remove all of the old paint from the tank, this is a green gloopy substance that you dab onto the tank with a brush and then wait. If any areas go dry then re-apply some of the gunk. After half an hour or so it is noticeable that the paint starts to bubble completely off but it was very patchy. After re-applying the whole tin to make sure the whole tank was well covered I left it for a couple of hours to work its magic.

Final outcome was not as good as I expected, the paint was either completely bubbled off or still intact, this left me with a mixture of bare metal or solid paint which was a bit of a pain. This meant I would have to rub the tank down with glass paper to finish it off. The stripper did show alot of surface corrosion especially on the underside of the tank.

I decided to take a wire brush tool in a drill and try and remove as much of the rust as I could on both the top and underside of the tank. 

Once the underside was as rust free as I could manage I painted on KURUST which reacts with the rust and prevents it spreading further. 

The liquid turns blue when it has fully reacted.

I painted iron oxide paint straight over this once the rust treatment had gone off completely. I used the same iron oxide paint as a primer for the whole of the tank. I did rub down the top side of the tank in stages up to 1000 grit glass paper.

 I smeared grease over the petrol cap, this sealed the tank and it means I can paint overall of it and just wipe the petrol cap clean afterwards.

I left the topside to dry over night, I flatted this with some 1000 grit and then started applying the top coat of satin black. I painted the side panels at the same time.

 I screwed the honda badges back on and I have to say I am happy with the finish, it only took a day and it cost £9 so it was well worth it in my eyes.

I flushed the tank through with fresh petrol, after cleaning out the carb and a fresh battery the bike fired up straight away.

I am yet to take the bike out for a proper run, it is waiting on a new pair of tyres and rear shocks. It will also be getting new renthal grips and some small bar end mirrors. The tyres on the bike have huge cracks in. I used openeo tyres source some new rubber.

I will put a picture of the overall bike when the sun comes out.

EXUP Clocks Mount

The bike has been sat in my garage whilst I have been away. No work has been carried out since last summer, however now I have more time, energy and parts to get cracking. I hope to get the bike up and running before the end of my summer which lasts about a month.

I have had an adapter machined up to make the speedometer fit the EXUP im not sure what bike it was originally fitted to. The adapter just screws onto the new speedo M16x1.0 and has a male thread to fit the existing speedo cable M12x1.0.

I decided to make up a speedo and rev counter holder today, I will use 16swg stainless steel. I started by using a cardboard template to get an idea for how it could be mounted to prevent it fouling the headlight. 

I used the clocks and the ignition barrel as a template to draw around. There are two M6 studs underneath the top yoke that hold the ignition barrel on. These will be used to support the bracket.

After getting a rough idea of what shape material I needed, I cut some sheet metal and drilled one 6.5mm hole for one of the mounting studs. Once I had offered up the bracket I marked a location for the next hole.

The clock holes were a pain, I haven't got hole cutters so I had to remove as much material as I could with an angle grinder and file the details. I am actually pretty happy with the roundness and the fit of the clocks but it took alot of work.

I used the studs locations as a datum for my measurements for the bend line and the clocks baseline.

 Clocks fit tightly into the bracket.

 Bracket prior to bending.

This is a C-clamp that uses studs on the back of the clocks to tighten down onto the bracket and hold the clock in place. Again stainless sheet metal was used for the brackets.

The next step will be to start looking at the wiring and sorting the fabrication of the seat unit.