goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,887
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Oct 31, 2015 12:37:19 GMT
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Suzuki T500 Cafe Racer / Custom build starts on page 2Motorbikes are awesome. I've been riding bikes for about 10 years now, and to begin with were my only transport. Going into my second winter of commuting, riding a totally inappropriate Ducati 748, I decided it was time to learn to drive. Within a year I'd got into retro/modifed cars and to an extent bikes took a back seat. They didn't go away totally though, and I still had bike projects and got plenty of miles under my belt on a variety of different bikes, they just somehow always seemed secondary to the cars. Life never stops changing though, and over the past year I've found myself getting more excited about riding bikes again and for the first time cars seem to be taking a more secondary role. With this in mind I planned to enjoy a summer of riding and tinkering with bikes and to buy a car that would just 'work'. Frustratingly about the time I came to this conclusion, my super fun, and incredibly impractical, Gas Gas EC200 enduro bike that I had converted to be a supermoto, succumbed to the dreaded tin worm  So once I'd recovered a few quid by breaking the Gas Gas for parts, it was time to go bike shopping!  I fancied a change, it's been a couple of years since I've had a sports bike, so that was top of the list. I'm a fan of smaller capacity bikes, which I can use closer to their full potential (rather than riding round on a 'fast' bike never getting past 1/4 throttle unless it's a dead straight road on a warm summers day), so the late 80s/early 90s japanese race replica 250/400s are always a good place to start. I've previously had an RVG250 and a VFR400, the price of both has gone up a fair bit since I sold mine sadly. CBR400s are still cheap though... and I've never owned an inline 4 bike... hmmmm....   The bike I settled on was a 1990 CBR400RR, fairly high millage with a mix of KMs and miles on the clocks totalling 48,000, but it looked fairly well cared for, all original fairings (though they were a bit battered) and some nice new Bridgestone tyres. The seller also threw in a pair of the later design forks, which are a cartridge design rather than oil bath and offer rebound adjustment, they will need a rebuild though and I think the stanchions are too heavily pitted so will need rechroming. Anyway, that can wait, the weather was nice, and all I wanted to do was to go out and ride!  I'm really enjoying riding it, being small and fairly light, it turns beautifully, one of those bikes where you almost feel like you feel like you just have t think about cornering and round it goes (not like my Ducatis which needed more muscling round!). I like the engine, it's the most highly tuned inline 4 I've ridden and is all the better for it. Lazy V twins and singles can be cool, lazy inline 4 bike engines just feel like a car engine, haha. This one really rewards you for revving it and has a really great sharp response, with it being only a 400cc you can really get it up in the rev range, riding right to the 14.5k redline without going too fast, it's nice to be able to ride the bike at least party how it's meant to be ridden.  It's also impressed me with how well it works in ways it wasn't really designed for! It works with a pillion, neither my wife nor I are big people, and we fit quite we'll on the small bike. There's surprisingly good room under the seat, enough for a decent sized padlock and chain, and it's pretty frugal when not being thrashed, doing 150 miles on a tankful at ~60mpg. So. I was having fun riding the bike and yet the urge to start 'improving' it was still there...
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Last Edit: Dec 25, 2020 22:40:41 GMT by goldnrust
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,887
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Oct 31, 2015 13:22:11 GMT
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First up, the fairing. Having the full original Honda fairing is a good feature of this bike, often the fairings have been damaged somewhere in its life and have been replaced by aftermarket fibreglass fairings where often the fit and finish doesn't match up to the proper Honda stuff. The problem is my original fairings have had a fairly tough life, they've been repaired in numerous places. The immediate problem was that a couple of the mountings are damaged, which makes the fairing feel a bit floppy.  They look like someone has tried 'plastic welding' them in the past but clearly with little success seeing as it was broken again when I got it. This type of plastic doesn't glue well either, so I figured the best best was to use a little bit of fibreglass.  Not pretty but with this fixed, along with the other 2 mounting that were broken, the fairing feels solid as a rock The next thing I decided to look at was that it required quite a bit of throttle to start when warm, needed very little choke and the initial throttle response from closed throttle was a bit lumpy. I figured this meant it was idling rich, and was all set to have al look at the idle mixture screws in the bottom of the carbs. Working on bikes can be much easier than cars sometimes, they are smaller and lighter and there's simply less parts, on the other than they are so tightly packaged that sometimes it feels like you've gotta take the whole thing apart to just get to something fairly basic! In this case as I was working my way through removing the air box, to make enough room for me to get my hand down under the carbs, I found the likely culprit of my rich running.  Guess which was the old air filter! That really really needed changing. I checked the oil before buying the bike it was nice and fresh, and topped up to the correct level, so I took the owners word that it had been looked after. This air filter makes me question that a bit! Anyway, with the new air filter in, the bike seemed much improved. It started much cleaner and the throttle response off close throttle was noticeable smoother. It idea now felt more lumpy though. So back to the carbs! |
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Last Edit: Feb 27, 2018 21:59:05 GMT by goldnrust
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,887
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Oct 31, 2015 15:07:31 GMT
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I considered just trying to balance the carbs, but then thinking back to the air filter I thought it was worth spending the time to take the carbs apart and clean them out properly. By this stage I'm starting to get more used to how the bike comes apart, so it didn't take long to while the carbs out.   The good/bad news is that they appear to have been recently rebuilt; good that it means I don't need to do the work myself, bad that it means this is not the problem!. The float chambers were nice and clean, none of the jets were blocked and all the seals appeared to be pretty new, they were all soft and flexible still.  Hmmmmm. Looking back at the engine, I spotted some damage to one of the carb rubbers, this could well cause an air leak, and cause some of the rough running I was suffering.  They had all gone a bit hard with age anyway so a full new set will be on order soon. While I had the bike all apart I figured it would be a good moe to work through some other service checks, so spark plugs next. This is where the real fun began! As you can see from the photo at the start of the post, the head is tucker right up under the frame, and so access to the plugs is pretty limited. I did manage to find a combination of plug socket and adapters that would fit, but I just couldn't get the plug socket to locate on the plugs. After a few minutes of head scratching, I had the idea to use my phone as a sort of endoscope, it could get in between the frame and the head to take a picture of the plug.  Yeah thats not normal! It seemed like there was part of a broken off plug lead still stuck on the plug??? Even more odd, it was the same for all 4 plugs. I then wondered if someone had tried to seal the plug caps on to the plugs with silicone or something? Either way the only way I was going to be able to do anything about it was to drop the engine out. To be fair it doesn't take long to strip a bike down, an hour or two later it was pretty much ready to come out.  At that point I stopped and waited for some reinforcements to pop round and help me man handle the engine out. Motorbike engines aren't too heavy, and I could probably do it on my own but it seemed a good excuse for an evening in the garage wit some friends talking rubbish about cars and bikes! Unfortunately it didn't quite goto plan, after fighting with the engine for a few minutes with it not moving at all, and have that all too familiar feeling of 'there's probably still a bolt holding this in place', we found the bolt in question!  This had thrown me slightly, as a longer bolt ran through the middle of it, actually holding the engine in place, but this is a sort of adjustable depth spacer than seemed to be tightened down hard agains the engine. Despite not actually screwing into the engine is was locked down hard enough that we couldn't slide the engine out. As it was too late to fire up the grinder and welder to start making some DIY tools to deal with the castle nut and 12mm allen key, we gave up and just talked about cars and bikes so more, far from a wasted evening! The next day I knocked up a bit of DIY tooling...  ... and got the engine out in no time. I used a scissor jack in place of friends this time to help me lower the engine in a controlled manner.  Woo progress. With the engine out, and more improvised tools I was able to get the rubber bit off the spark plugs. They look like someone has cut up some other rubber item and repurposed it to make a seal for the plug caps? The plug caps and these rubber bits have got signs of glue on them, so I'd say when originally fitted they were glued together.  After a bit of googling, these are clearly not the original plug caps. Best get a new set of leads and plugs on order too then! With that mystery solved, I could finally get the plugs out.  Yup nothing really looking like a problem with those then! The only thing is they are a 9 heat range, which some people recommend for track use, Honda says 8s for any occasion, so I'l order some nice new 8s. While I waited to get paid, I figured it was worth continuing the engine servicing and that I should check the valve clearances while the engine was out of the frame and access was easy. Mmmmmmmm... gear driven double overhead cam loveliness!   The good news is that all is in order with that That brings us up to date, it's just a case of waiting to get paid, doing some online shopping, and then hopefully I'll be able to get out and ride again in a week or two! |
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Last Edit: Feb 27, 2018 22:08:17 GMT by goldnrust
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lewis
Part of things
Posts: 82
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Oct 31, 2015 20:18:41 GMT
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Love all the small capacity J bikes of this era, really cool bike.
I've always found working on bikes to be more enjoyable than working on cars.
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Oct 31, 2015 22:10:09 GMT
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Ahh Baby Blade......
David Silver spares is the place to go for older Honda spares,they buy up NOS from all over the world including genuine plastics.
The bigger CBR engines are good for 100K miles plus with regular servicing, so a smaller one should be very similar as they weer home market bikes and really over engineered.
Fork stanchions can be reground snd chromed easily. Philpots in Luton do as good job.
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Needs a bigger hammer mate.......
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Hey, Goldenrust, top choice of ride there. I have to totally agree with the above posters, they're a great bike. I'd wanted one for ages - but the usual problem of being permanently skint, meant they were out of my reach, - until a bike shop working mate came across a little "gem" !!! It had suffered some serious damage, from a disagreement with two kerbs. Smashed plastics, holed alternator cover, bent forks, big section broken out of front wheel - generally knackered !!! My wife bought it for me, as a birthday pressie !!! Over the next few months, I managed to turn it around, to become a thing of beauty once more.      |
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No idea why the photos have loaded out of sequence, but you get the idea. My first go at painting something too - so I was pretty happy with the results. Graphics were done by a local sign maker, then heavily lacquered over, for protection. It ended up with a lovely Art stainless can, which gave it the most beautiful howl as the revs rose. I miss it big time - this was done about the year 2000 & it was sold to finance a bathroom Reno !!!!!!! Sad eh ?
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,887
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Nice one oldntired ! You've done great job of burning that one back to life I'm liking your painted heal guards and mud guard, I've been tempted to do mine black as the standard sort of off white just looks a bit curse word. Did they hold up to much? My main concern as that the heal guards would soon wear through the paint. duggers cheers for the heads up on the fork rechroming Yeah I'm not too worried about the millage. Looking at the MOT history, knowing when it was imported, etc, I'm pretty sure almost all of the 48,000 will be KM, so could be closer to 30,000 miles. Either way it's not showing any signs to me of being worn out yet! Yeah David Silver are great, as are Graeme France Racing for these 400s. lewis yeah this era was the ultimate for small capacity sports bikes! The new small capacity sports bikes are just so 'safe' and tame in comparison, whilst I've not ridden them, to me a CBR250 or an R3 just seem like commuter bikes with a full fairing, whereas there's no denying that something like the Nc30 or RGV250 are true small race reps. I'd like another 2 stroke from this period at some stage, would love to try an NSR250, but that'll have to wait till I've got a bit more cash floating about! |
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Hey Goldnrust, yes, surprisingly, they lasted ok. To be fair this was never going to be a daily user, so perhaps with more use they would have worn through, but they're easy to remove & repaint. They were only done with rattle can too - I never needed to re-do them with two pack. Still, anything was better than the hideous creamy white/grey as standard, eh ? This was supposed to be a quick " let's get this back on the road " project - but I got a bit carried away !! Chromed fairing bolts, nickel plated exhaust, recovered seats (not shown in these piccies). It went really well, but was a little bit cramped on a longer run, as I recall. Huge fun in the twisties though !! Good to see that yours is the same as mine started out - I inlay changed mine due to so many different replacement panels / repairs. I wanted something unique, but with original graphics. Same 'H' reg too. I also did a similar repair to an equally sad looking 93 'K' reg FZR250. Ah, good memories .
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I loved my CRB400RR, my first "big" bike bought to encourage me to pass my test - I'd only ever had 50's and 125's.
The best thing I did to it was fit a set of sticky tyres to replace the Japanese things that were on it when I bought it, they totally transformed it.
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Scotsdave, unsurprisingly, I put new ones on this project - I didn't think it wise to trust that front one, seeing the damage the wheel had suffered !!!! I seem to remember Dunlop GPR's went on it, & yes, the grip surpassed my talent ( or bottle). I only ever really fancied the Gull arm one though, the very early Aero, or next Tri arm, didn't float my boat. But the Gull arm was - & still is a very cool bike in my eyes. There were even a few guys squeezing the CBR6 lump in them, to make an even more fun sized package. I had a Hinda VF1000 years earlier, & I can say the little CBR was just as much fun - except for outright speed, obviously.
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Hi, I happened upon this forum by accident after searching Google for cbr400 related pages. I usually frequent 400greybike forum and although quieter nowadays it's still a wealth of info on there. So if your not familiar with that forum give it a look. Just to say your bikes coming on. I notice the carb gaskets are new and from a seller who gets recommended on many sites, II use them myself. The best thing you can do for this bike is to sort the electrics with a decent rectifier/battery and new front springs and possibly rear shock if not already sorted as that's it's biggest problems. For the fairings use plastex. Good luck. Edit: a link to my bike.. sites.google.com/site/cbr400rrrnc29/home |
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Last Edit: Nov 2, 2015 19:53:22 GMT by durka
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We once had a cbr250 and 400 in at the same time, I'm sure the 250 redlined at close to 20000 rpm!!
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,887
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Thats good to know about the paint oldntired, I'll add that to my to do list! This bike wont be a daily rider, but I am hoping to make good use of it when the weather's vaguely friendly, I don't ind getting a bit damp from time to time, but having done my 2 winters of pushing bikes through flash floods and the experiencing joy of riding in freezing fog, I'll probably take the car on this kinda days now! haha. I'd say it feels less cramped than my RGV did, and it's more comfy for a long run than my supermoto was, practically a tourer compared to some of my past bikes, haha. ScotsDave, yeah I wouldn't have anything but sticky tires on a bike nowadays, I don't do stupid miles and so if I need a pair of tires every year, I'll pay that price of the sake of knowing I can trust them. I've got a set of Bridgestone BT90s on this, which I'm liking a lot. I had some Dunlop GPR Alphas on my RGV which I liked at the time and RGV guys rated but most of the 400 guys seem to prefer the BT90s, I suppose there is ~40kgs difference in weight there to consider. durka, thats good to know that the carb gaskets were new like I thought I was on the old 400greybike forum ~8 years ago when I had my Nc30, and I have signed up to the new forum with the same user name as here, mostly just lurked and read things so far but I did do an intro thread and was going to post about this build, just haven't quite got round to it yet! One of the good things about being 5'7" and a shade under 10 stone is that the stock suspension on a bike like this isn't as far out as it is for lots of bigger built guys. I've managed to get some good sag numbers within the adjustment range on the stock shocks, and the damping doesn't feel too bad I mean it could be better, but it's not bouncing all over the place or anything Once I've got it running nice I might look into a bit of a suspension tune up next. Your NC29 looks great BTW dodgerover, yeah the 250s rev crazy high! Think it might be 18k red line but theres a 20 on the clocks  IIRC it was the ZXR250 that revved highest of all? Either way they all sound awesome revving away that hard. To be fair the CBR sounds pretty awesome itself past 11k, even with stock exhaust and stuff. Might be nice to get a subtly louder can at some stage, nothing antisocial but something just a bit easier to enjoy the sound of over the wind noise. |
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Last Edit: Nov 2, 2015 22:26:54 GMT by goldnrust
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Dodgerover, I suspect that's about right, as my wife had a Kwaker ZXR250, & that had a 19/19:5 redline. Thing was though at motorway speeds the engine was as smooth & quiet as an electric motor. It want eerily quiet.
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simes
Part of things
Posts: 734
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I didn't realise these had gear driven cams.
I've got an NC30 which as you know has the same.
Valve clearances are on my list of winter things to do........
The FZR 250 revs to 18.5k, I was followed home through London by someone who was using all of them!
I'm on Greybike too!
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Last Edit: Nov 7, 2015 23:56:27 GMT by simes
Simes
205Mi16 - 262 cams, Jenvey Throttle Bodies, Emerald managment blah blah......
E91 320D MSport
Honda NC30
Vespa 300GTS
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Seeing as how I've been out of the country for a few years now, it's surprising to me to hear that there is still a grey bike scene going. Me & my wife were heavily into them in the mid '90's, for several years. Does this still cater for the smaller 250/400 sized bikes, or is it different now ? Much as I loved mine, I've seen some of the ridiculous prices that dealers are now asking for "rare" models (£10k for a nearly unused RVF400 !!!!), that's too rich for me, I'm afraid. Not that I'd pay anything like that, if I had it anyway. There must be monied customers out there, somewhere ?
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goldnrust
West Midlands
Minimalist
Posts: 1,887
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simes yeah I didn't realise these were gear driven cams wither, till I started seriously looking into them. No-body makes a big deal about it, whereas its a feature always mentioned with the VFR series. I'm not 100% sure, but I've a feeling that none of the larger CBRs got the gear driven cams, only the 400 and 250. @oldandtired yeah there's still a scene for the 250/400s, but I think it's now more of a classic or retro scene. When I got my first NC30, around 2008, they were still considered a good first proper sports bike and were on the general biking public's radar. Coming back to 400s now, I'd say you have to have a specific want for that bike to own one. Late 90s/early 2000s 600 sports bikes are cheaper, faster, newer technology, etc. Prices are on the rise for the VFR and RVF, especially for special editions, the best clean original paint schemes etc. But CBRs and GSXRs can still be had pretty cheap. £1300-1700 seemed the going rate for a half decent CBR when I was looking. I can't say much for the 250 4 strokes, but the 250 2 stroke scene is turning into a proper desirable classic scene. Lots of interest for a close knit group of enthusiasts, with prices for RGVs and NSRs definitely on the rise. I sold my VJ21 about 3 years ago, I'd defiantly be asking over double the price if I was to put it up for sale today. p.s. the pile of parts here is growing, hopefully by next weekend I'll have a bike to ride again!
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Last Edit: Nov 8, 2015 14:03:16 GMT by goldnrust
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goldnrust, that's the point. There's not a huge choice if you want a 'proper' sports bike of that CC. The stuff that they're making now - to be fair - I've got no experience of, but they seem like a weak/lame version, compared to the 4 cyl ones of the 90's. ( 2 strokes excepted). I'd be surprised if the modern 2 cyl CBR400, is a patch on the original. Can somebody disprove me ?
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Nov 16, 2015 19:26:26 GMT
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I am jealous of the head light rubbers. I need some for my NC30 but they don't come up often.
Both my NC and 749 are off the road for winter, NC should hopefully come out of winter with a nice new paint job and a few bits done as the service needs doing and the suspension is not the intuitive seamless handling they are meant to have.
Expensive hobbies though as like cars they always seems to be something that could be done. That and Rick Oliver could quite easily empty my wallet for the next few years.
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Some days you just need to take a grinder to an inanimate object, just to make your day a tiny bit better!!
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I fancied a change, it's been a couple of years since I've had a sports bike, so that was top of the list. I'm a fan of smaller capacity bikes, which I can use closer to their full potential (rather than riding round on a 'fast' bike never getting past 1/4 throttle unless it's a dead straight road on a warm summers day), so the late 80s/early 90s japanese race replica 250/400s are always a good place to start. I've previously had an RVG250 and a VFR400, the price of both has gone up a fair bit since I sold mine sadly. CBR400s are still cheap though... and I've never owned an inline 4 bike... hmmmm....
IIRC it was the ZXR250 that revved highest of all? Either way they all sound awesome revving away that hard. To be fair the CBR sounds pretty awesome itself past 11k, even with stock exhaust and stuff. Might be nice to get a subtly louder can at some stage, nothing antisocial but something just a bit easier to enjoy the sound of over the wind noise.
