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Now THAT is sweet. Reminds me of my old SOHC. Miss that bike. Lotta memories there. Congratulations on that score.

...I hate this bike. So very very much.

You see, I spent quite a bit of money on my other rides. More than I'd like to admit. And while they run quite well most of the time, they also fought me every step of the way. Simple procedures were either overcomplicated by me or by circumstances, and ended up accomplishing nothing. They run, but just barely. And the less said about my KZ1300, the better.

But this **** CB750. Bought it for 300 bucks, sitting outside for 20 years, with nothing but some spray paint, another $200 parts bike, and some choice pieces here and there-

AND THIS CUSSED THING RUNS BETTER THAN EVERYTHING ESLE!!!!!!!

Seriously though. I checked the sync on it, and two of the carbs were slightly off. Half a turn on one, quarter turn on the other, and the idle settles right down to 1.5K and STAYS there. Revs up butter-smooth from idle to (near) redline, and drops right back down, pretty as you please.

[sigh]

I was going to sell this thing, too. NOW I've got to put enough money into it to get it roadworthy. Son of a gun.

Congratulations . Its a never ending pursuit,......but great when it all comes together

I know what you mean. I never seem to have a problem spending money on my 750 to make it even better. Right now it needs a paint job but I just can't get motivated to do it because I want to strip it down to the bare frame. And when ever I find a reason to split the cases on the engine again (and I'm sure I will) the trans will get treated to back cut gears.

So.... yeah. I'm only posting this photo because it's AFTER the ride, and I'm not dead. I present: the jankiest setup on two wheels.
So.... IV bottle gas tank, no front brake, no tail light, one blinker, and no mirrors. I put all of about 1/4 mile into it, and... here's my breakdown.

The Good:
-Clutch works. Very nicely actually- dropping from neutral to 1st is more like a click, vs. a KACHUNK.
-On acceleration, everything sounds... normal.
-It goes down the road straight!

The Bad:
-Ride is.... not great. A bit of (real light) bouncing on the front end, which may be forks need rebuilding (they do).
-Lots of sharp popping from.... somewhere. It might be cylinder 1 again, which might be the plug wire.
-Every time I decelerated, the motor died. Not quite exactly sure why yet.
-It starts REALLY hard. Like.... full choke will get it to hit, then die. Letting the choke off helps a bit, but it will eventually die there, too. Granted it was pretty cold out, but to warm it up I pretty much had to hold the throttle slightly open until it was warm enough to settle down on its own.

ANYWAY- this gets me something to work with. Next up- tank cleaning. Gonna try some electrolysis!

Lucien Harpress wrote:
-Lots of sharp popping from.... somewhere. It might be cylinder 1 again, which might be the plug wire.
-Every time I decelerated, the motor died.

Check your idle mixture screws. My son's K3 popped a bunch and sometimes died on decell and it turned out he had the idle mixture screws backed way out (too lean). I can't remember at the moment how many turns out they should be but once I had them set it was all good. You may also want to pull your points cover off while it's running and see if the points arc arcing real bad, if so then it could be a bad condensor and they'll make the engine pop loud too. As far as the front end bouncing, what condition is the front tire in? Any signs of dry rot or cracking?

EDIT: And another thing, there's no fast idle cam for the choke so they can be cold blooded when started cold as in you have to play with the throttle sometimes till it warms up a bit but should only need the choke on a cold start, it should start easily without it once warmed.

I was wondering about the mixture screws. I fiddled with it a bit earlier in the year, but I don't want to lock anything down until I replace the coils. While the coils themselves spec out, the plug wires are pretty trashed. Like, no rubber left at all- you touch it, it just crumbles. Once I eliminate poor contact at the plug caps, then I'll move on to carb tuning (which will hopefully be easier with 4 individual exhausts). Good call on the condenser, though. It only seems to be popping out the one pipe though, so we'll see.

As for the front tire... old? Dry-rotted? Cracking?

How about "Yes, to all of the above"? O_o' The tires are really only good for rolling it around the yard. They'll get replaced once a few other things get ironed out (clean tank, correct length throttle cable, etc.)

Even with the IV bottle and the split seat, it is looking pretty good.

Speaking of the seat, I'm not sure what I want to do with it yet. A new cover is a must, but I was hoping to save the foam. Problem is, some mouseys made a nest in the back, so there's a giant void in the passenger section. The "right" thing to do would be to replace the foam with something new, but I'm wondering how difficult it would be to just fill in that section.

Musings for another day, I suppose.

Mixture screws factory setting is one turn out.

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Because it's winter for me (with no heat in the barn), bike projects have kind of wound down. However, I was able to learn some valuable information about the gas tank after a long soak in evaporust- namely the gas tank is trashed. I'm getting a couple of pinhole leaks in the back corners- I'm guessing the evaporust blasted through enough of the crap inside the tank to reach the outside. I realize I could probably coat the tank and be done with it, but given the fact the inside still looks pretty trashed, this is probably the first leak among many. As I was going to get it repainted anyway, I'm not out much.

So, after I get my tax returns and pay off some dental fillings, it's off to find a tank that's at least solid and (surprisingly enough) the mounts for the emblems aren't filled in, for preferably under 100 bucks. There's a couple of ebay hits, but this is way too soon to be shopping for them.

In the meantime, I may try to free up all the (frozen) front brake parts, and see if any of that is still usable.

I’ve got the seat foam off a ‘72 CB350. Need to find it, but maybe you can graph a piece of it onto the 750 foam. Also have used carburetor parts, let me know if you need something (free).

Lucien, as rabid a bike guy as you are, how tough would it be to tack up some Visqueen to seal the biggest holes in your barn workspace and light off a kerosine heater? (I know, easy for me to say when a cold night in the desert is 35F, but just asking). Might not be suitable for Jan-Feb, but Oct/Nov, March/April maybe?

That way, the rest of us would get real reports rather than frustrated musings...

Honesty? Kind of a PITA. I've got this weird combination of a couple pretty large spaces that (due to having to share with both my parents and a couple of my siblings) have a LOT of stuff in them. My 4 main bikes are in a one-car garage, so I have just enough space to squeeze around them, and that's about it. Because of this, most of my major work is done in the driveway, which is a big no-no when there's ice and snow all over it. ESPECIALLY since my lightest bike starts at 500 lbs. and they just go up from there.....

I've tried it once or twice, and it's honestly more trouble than it's worth.

So I managed to find a tank on Ebay for a reasonable price. There's a bit of internal rust, but nothing too bad (especially with the build-in petcock sediment bowl- a nice touch). The most important thing is that it's solid.

I threw on the petcock, ran some lines, splashed in some gas, and took the bike for it's first ride longer than about 500 feet down the road and back. The clutch needs a minor adjustment, no suspension travel on the front makes for an interesting ride, and it's so different to ride a bike that actually has an EXHAUST note, but overall this bike runs VERY well. A bit rich on cylinder 1, which I'll confirm when I pull plugs, and it could use some new coils, but I'm getting to a point where this bike is actually getting finished.

In fact, in a couple days I'm sending the tins out to get painted, but...... I'm no so sure I should.