Last owner: “hmmm seems this thing has an engine issue, lemme just take the spark plugs out real quick and leave it in the rain for a few years that ought to sort this issue out”
I drove a CS 550 cross-country in '72 as a graduation present to myself- sorry I ever sold it many years later. Never an issue- and it attracted locals with food.
Great video. Very well described and presented. No one here in the UK seems to upload stuff like this. I have got so much good advice from you Americans . Thanks a lot for taking the trouble to show all this . Good luck from a fellow biker in the UK .
i road my dad's 78 CB350 all 4 years of high school back in 83 to 87. i loved that bike, got great gas mileage and cruised at 55-60 no problem, never broke down. i almost bought it off my dad, iv always wished i did. liked your video and how casual u are.
Wow, so sad that a shop destroyed a nice bike engine, that’s why it’s worth taking bikes to people with proper experienced mechanics! This video was awesome as usual, thanks for the learning opportunity! 👍🏍
Back in 78 a buddy of mine showed up at my place needing me to ride with him to pickup his Log Truck at the end of the drive I hopped off and he stopped (ridding that same bike in your video) and asked me 'what the heck' Randy? I told Rodney a voice just told me not to go. The next night while at the local Tavern having a beer with my older brother, I bumped into Rodney and he had both his arms bandage from his wrists to his elbow. On the way to get his Log Truck he picked up a rock that locked up his front tire throwing him off and onto the pavement. He had his leather riding jacket on thankfully but the pavement peeled them to his elbows. The pavement ground the side of his helmet down to the inner padding. I'd have either been dead or in pretty bad shape if I'd stay on for that ride.
I was riding my ZX11 home one day after service at the local dealer, including an oil change. I pulled away from a light, turning left, when the rear suddenly went all squirrelly. I suspected a flat tire but nope! Dealer only hand tightened one of the oil drain plugs. So lucky it happened at slow speed.
Thinking at Six Min - 58 Secs in, the Link from the Chain link extractor went Flying across the top of those heads...at least there was footage of where it went...
Hey Taylor bro! Good to see you back! I have no words descriptive enough to show my disdain at the shocking way this motorcycle has been treated! All that water and rust have left me gobsmacked! On the flip side, this bike would make a hell of a restoration video! Lol.
I have several cb750's and went to the automotive shop and purchased an oil line kit that I plugged into my oil galley then ran the line up to my handle bars where I have the oil gauge mounted. The oil line is a small plastic the works very well. I use this on all my cb's. I'll be watching as you move along on the build - happy wrenching...
My two cents, , run a hone thru the bores, clean the pistons, and use file fit gap rings, as for the cylinder head, dont mess with porting those engineers got it down, if no valve guide wobble, is okay then just lap the seats and install new valve stem seals
You're awesome dude, archeology is definitely the word for it bro, I love to make sure that everything is still used that's usable, and try and keep original when possible, it's absolutely amazing what survives these kind of catastrophic engine failures, which are not usually the engines fault 😉, thanks awesomely for such a great channel and very inspiring ideas and your very talented style of work.
At least thanks to you that we know what happened to the bike. And it as been for incompetence. Let's see how to recover it. Thanks for your dedication.
Great video, Taylor. I especially like your oil pressure gauge and I think running one where you can see it while riding is a great idea.Too bad about the maintenance error coupled with the missing sensor that killed the engine. I really enjoy your channel and it's great when a new video pops up. Keep up the great work!
These are my favorite kind of videos to see of yours, keep it up Taylor, love the Classic Honda content 👌 Never get sick of it. Currently restoring and rescuing CB500/550's and CX500's up in Canada 🇨🇦
@@niquejoling8603 Love the track at Assen, when i was living in the UK in 88 and 89, i travelled there to watch the Grand Prix. We could only afford to do 2 GP races on the Continent, and my mates wanted to do the German and Austrian, But i talked them around to do the Dutch and Belgium, Assen and Spa! At Assen Wayne Gardner won in 88, and Wayne Rainey in 89 (after leader Schwantz's Suzuki shit itself with one lap to go) Gardner won Spa in 88, but the 89 Spa GP was a bit of a disaster and the race was stopped.
Good lesson - if the oil light doesn't come on when you turn the ignition on, then turn off when you start it, get that pressure sender and light fixed!
I remember quite a few years ago a Kawasaki Z650 coming into the shop were I worked as a mechanic. The whole machine had been restored, including the motor by another company and the bike looked better than new. The owner brought the bike to us because the motor was not running right and asked us to balance the carbs. On starting the motor it sounded dreadful and did not want to rev at all, in fact the motor sounded like a bag of hammers. To cut a long story short I checked the engine oil and it looked grey and cloudy so I dropped it into a drain tray to find it was a sludgy mess. What had happened is the company that worked on this bike before us had the crankcases and top end vapor blasted and they did a very bad job of cleaning remaining blast media out of oil ways and the like and the result was a wrecked motor, main bearings, big end journals and rods, in fact most of the moving internal parts were damaged. The owner bought another motor and we fitted the polished outer cases off the original motor, but cleaned them out properly before fitting them and then fitted the replacement motor into the bike. The guy then went back to the other company with the wrecked engine, I never did hear the outcome.
I just done a bandit 600 rebuild .Freind gave me the name off a spray painter to get the frame done .he then talked me in too getting it powder coated .I picked it up four month later once all parts etc had been cleaned polished etc it was time to start the rebuild .every hole on the frame was powder coated threading for every frame bolt had been left unplugged and they had been fully coated .always check who you use as a worker on any part off you’re bike .tap n die set later and few hours a job that didn’t need done was done . On another note does anyone reading this have any ideas on spoked hubs or wheels I could use for the second bandit I’m building .u cld put a reply on the video ,cheers
@@Crosshatch1212 Yeah you have to put some old bolts in any threaded holes you dont want covered in powder coat, the powder coaters won't do this for you. Another thing is powder coat is quite thick, and can cause some issues when putting the motor back in, as all the gaps between mounting points and engine have now got a thick coat of paint on them.
Great video. I've learned so much from you. Many times in the past I have rewound your videos to make sure I've got it right. My favorites are these mystery videos and the wiring videos. Keep up the good work.
WOW!!! That's all I can say - completely speechless at the complete negligence of this other shop! That shop really owes the original owner another bike (obviously that'll probably never happen) but it just goes to show how a 'simple oil change' isn't so simple when not done correctly! I feel really bad for the original owner of this bike and hope he was able to find another bike he enjoys. Thank you Taylor for this brilliant video - very well done and excellently explained and great and thorough job going through the engine! I've also seen some bad/blown engines when draining the oil but I've never seen one quite as bad as this one was - absolutely incredible! Thanks so much again for sharing and definitely looking forward to seeing this bike completed and running again - it will be absolutely awesome!!! 🔥🧨🔥🧨🔥🧨👏👏👏
That's a great idea about the oil pressure gauge. I have fully restored a 1975 Honda CB 360t. No oil gauge at all. perhaps a oblong gauge to go on the bars and would be easy to line up the lines with a light to be able to see at night. Make it and I'll buy it for my bike.
I have a 79 CB 550 my brother-in-law has now, sitting around. Runs great. He rebuilt the carbs so runs even better now, but he bought a goldwing... and hasn't driven my 550 in two years. I should get it back! Always wanted to do something like this to it, don't have the talent or the time. Interested to see what you make of this one, if it's anything like your other builds, it'll be a sweet ride for sure.
I haven't done an oil change yet, but I've been through the workshop manual enough to know that the spring is in the wrong place. Waiting for some parts, then I'm going to do a oil change.
Having an actual oil pressure gauge for these bikes would be really nice, especially one that wouldn't require drilling and tapping somewhere in the engine. That's a clever idea using that cover in that way. I dunno how much of a market there would be for them, but I'd definitely be interested in a permanent mounted one. I don't have a lot of trust in the idiot lights.
uhhh, looks like you have a little oil in your crankcase water. i just gotta say, you know it's bad when your aluminum head has rusty combustion chambers. i'd have to agree with your analysis of what killed that engine. the oil pressure sender being deleted was a total boner move on someone's part, and contributed greatly to the tech not realizing he installed the filter incorrectly, and the owner not being able to shut it down before catastrophic engine failure. good job there taylor!
Great video, shame such a small screw up could cause the engine to seize. I recently got a 1980 CB650c up and running after it had been sitting for a long while, just needed some carb and clutch work and she rides very well.
@@jeremycaylor9151 yeah doing rings and gaskets, the last guy never got it on the road because of the smoke, so it's been like that for nearly 10 years. Have it all ready to go back together now
People have to be soo careful when working on motorcycles. I knew someone who was killed after work was done by a dealership.. He was riding on the motorway (freeway) and the engine seized, Turned out that the mechanic put the clutch plates in the wrong order. Such a simple mistake but with massive consequences. Greetings from the UK.
I wonder if the previous owner THOUGHT the low oil pressure switch was bad because the light was staying on. bypassed it and it was actually low oil pressure that was the issue and not the switch. Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot.
Dino, aka Hackaweek, installed an oil pressure guage on a CB750 he restored and he did it so you could see it while riding. This was right after his oil pump broke in his hands while he was going through the engine.
One of the mates had one back around that time It was a real rocket and handled beautifully even two up on a dirt road Top thing I often say to people who are looking for a bike to try to find one
Ben watching all of your videos it has gotten me to an almost finished 73 CB500 4 Rebuilt carbs to your videos and a bunch of other stuff. Thanks for all the help.have pictures of my engine mounted pressure gauge you might like can I email them to your link?
Looking at these old single cam Honda's it's easy to see where Benelli got the inspiration for their range of four and six cylinder motors. I've had my 1980 Benelli 900 Sei since 1986, the Benelli sixes are very rare indeed, 3200 of the 750 Sei were produced between 1974 and 1978, and only 1867 of the 900 Sei were produced between 1979 and 1989.
I also found my KZ750 LTD to have the oil filter spring in the wrong place when I changed the oil. Fortunately the engine seems to still be in good condition. The flat washer that goes between the spring and filter was also missing.
Having a manual oil pressure gauge would be a good piece of mind, if you make some sort of set up and sell them I would be interested. Like the Videos, very helpful on these CB550s
THAT is a crying shame! All Hondas want to do, is run. Run run run. And someone completely prevented that. So much impeccable engineering ground into the ground by incompetence. Treat her well. Please.
Wherever possible I always do my own work The only things I haven't done myself in the last thirty five years or more has been machining and magneto rebuilds and sometimes upholstery I've seen some horrible and at times dangerous things done by bike shops
Oooow man what a shame to ruin a bike like that one ! that mechanic deserve at least few (hard) kicks on his but !!! Thanks for sharing, and keep up the good Honda CB work
I've seen that oil filter error in videos from Mexico, it seems like mechanics in a rush tend to put oil filters and o-rings in the wrong way and on different types of bikes causing catastrophic failier.
Eh! Canuck here. Death by Mechanic! I run a 22 yr old - VW diesel. 260K km. I had to do a complete weld up and body repair - after 20 yrs in Salt-land. I am pulling the oil filter - and it has TWO seals on the plastic top piece - and 2 seals on the bottom {Dick extender} - uh - anyone who knows - knows the description is accurate. These two errors could have fragged my engine with time. At 61 - I will change my oil - because of Daffy Duks. { insert your Fav dump phrase} - Sadly - your engine was great - until Daffy got a hold of it. Great Job! My current build - is a Seca 750-4 - 1984. Thank you! Cheers!
Best to do a dry then wet (oil in cylinder) compression test. If there's little or no difference in pressure, that indicates valves, (or head gasket if one, or two adjacent cylinders remain low). If there is a significant difference , i.e much higher wet, that indicates worn rings and / or bores.
By far the most failure prone part of any engine with chain driven OHC engines is the cam chain. I've owned a lot of Japanese bikes, and the engines in three of them failed due to broken cam chains. A chain will always wear considerably faster than any other part of the engine. And automatic cam chain tensioners don't help. Virtually all of them fail at fairly low mileage. There was a time when bikes had manual cam chain tensioners and replaceable cam chains.
The Honda 750 F1 (1976 model) I owned threw a dog tooth in the gearbox at 120 kilometres per hour on the freeway. Fortunately it only locked up briefly while destroying the two clusters in the gearbox. It is possible to remove just the lower crack case half on the engine and leave the top end in place. Useful if just accessing the gearbox.
Dog be damned I've had a 1978 SR500 for near seven years it had about 62,000 kilometres on it when I bought it, when I got it I straight away registered it and put it in my ute (pickup) and drove from my home on the NSW North Coast to Sydney and then rode with my Harley mates down the south coast heading for a bike show in our Snowy Mountains On the way down we stayed at a caravan park and while there I gave it it's first oil change To properly change the oil on these you don't only drain them and replace the filter, if you know what you're doing and I did having owned one before you also clean a screen in the bottom of the frame's oil tank and a screen in a sump plate under the engine When I removed the sump plate a "dog" fell out We'd come about three hundred kilometres and my friends were alarmed and suggested I should try to carefully ride it back Anyway to cut a very long story short I didn't go back, it had gotten me that far so I continue to the mountains gave it it's first clean at the local carwash a few minutes before the show hit it with some WD wipped it off with some paper napkins and took out Top Japanese Since then to my friends amazement I've done another eighty thousand kilometres it now reads 142,000 there's not much I haven't done to it over that time other than the engine I've been gathering parts including what I think is the damaged gear and I bought a complete second-hand gearbox just incase I'm about to pull it apart after it recently developed a bit of a rattle in the top end that I can't tune out I haven't ridden it since yesterday I might ride it today but I'll probably get onto it in the next week or so Yamaha rules
@@hodaka1000 After the gearbox disaster on the freeway with the Honda 750 it would only select 2nd gear so I decided to ride it home as is. I recall the bike would do close to the freeway speed limit, just with second gear, for the 15 kilometres (10 miles) to get it home. After removing the lower crankcase I was surprised even second still worked given the level of damage to the two main gearbox clusters.
@@malibu188 I was lucky my dog must have fallen through the gears and made it to the bottom of the motor without causing a detonation I had a local GMH 1958 Holden about forty years ago actually I have never not owned one since I was eighteen I'm now sixty four and still own one but this one forty years ago had just been stolen but was recovered and I think it was the next day I was driving towards Sydney when I came up next to my old mates dad my mate and his dad were or are top machinists and mechanics the old boy had a Datsun Bluebird a two door 1600 rare car here and he'd adapted a Fiat 5 speed to it as I said top machinist anyway I came up next to him at a set of lights and naturally when the light turned green we both got into it but this old Holden had probably had a real flogging while it was stolen and as I changed in to second gear the box detonated, as it went off it felt like the whole car lifted into the air, old mate probably didn't notice and was on his way to work so I lost sight of him in the traffic so tried to drive home these cars when standard have a three speed column change and I was left with what turned out to be about a third of the teeth on top gear and with about fifteen miles to go to get home, amazingly I managed to go about ten miles before the clutch burnt out but sort of did well to get that far Next day when I pulled the box out there was just about nothing left of it but a half a bucket of teeth and the few still remaining on top gear If you want see the type of vehicle I'm talking about I recently put a couple of videos on my UA-cam channel of the one I've owed since about 1983
Love your Videos, build myself an 750 because I learned here so much. about it Thank you for That! Only one critic/thing/suggestion. I saw your Instagram images today and realised that your Videos would benefit so much from an proper Video cam :) No Harm if not. But your content deserves better production Value! Keep going love all your Bike content also the style is unique.
Uh, I got tools…must be a mechanic! Seen this at my local mc shop, kids that ride or hang out doing the oil changes and filter changes while you pay the $100+ shop rates!😡
Once I had a bike pouring water from de foam on the seat...right on the air filter...and directly on the crankcase by the hose that goes connected down in the airbox...
I was in our car park once when I saw a neighbour pouring water into the oil filler, I asked what she was doing and she told me it was getting hot so when she opened the cap and saw no water she was topping it up like her husband had told her to do when she told him she could not see any water after taking the cap off. He should have gone out to check which cap she had opened to check the coolant, instead he spent the day draining and re-filling his oil as well as fixing the leaking top hose and topping up the coolant correctly, he never got her to check anything under the bonnet again.
Personally I think the CB550 as a whole should be considered a boat anchor - the worst machine I've ever had. It put me off motorcycling for 25 years and off in-line fours for ever!
Do you usually use the Jump-n-carry when you test your engines rather than hooking up a battery? I'm putting together a couple of 30+ year old Honda's and I was thinking of getting one.
The problem isn't just the water, it's that there's next to no oil in the engine. I'm confident that if the engine had been parked with the correct amount of oil... and then without sparkplugs the coating of ail on the components would have preserved them much better is the case. That's been my experience with a Moto Guzzi which was parked under a tree for ten years with holes in it's tappet covers...Oh, and you should spin the engine in the big socket (23mm?), not by the 6mm screw. That way the torque isn't transmitted by the 6mm screw but by the locating pin.
So there must have been a flood for that much water to penetrate in breach into the lower engine. But the other metal parts outside seem clean , little rust, except for the chain?
Wow. That water looked drinkable, like it was coming straight out of the faucet. : ) Don't let your bike sit outside, people...and if you do, make sure to put the spark plugs in! That's an engine killer. I don't even let my bike sit in my garage with open spark plug holes. I'm paranoid something might fall in there.
We got a Kawasaki ZZ-R1100 in the shop once and the owner said it had been running fine when he parked it, but it had been sitting for 5 years (in a garage with a cover over it) and now it wouldnt start. Fresh battery, hit the starter, nothing. Took a cover off and got a socket on the bolt in the crank to see if it would turn, and it was locked tight. Further investigation revealed a massive rats nest in the airbox, (thankfully they werent in there when it was found:-) they had gotten in through the ram-air snorkel and ripped up the filter and chewed plastic to make their home. Over the years of god knows how many rats pissing in there, the piss had dribbled down into the inlet, past an open valve and seized the pistons of a couple of cylinders. 1000s of $$$ in damage.
I love your videos man! I'm rebuilding my 78cb750f at the moment, The engine wasn't locked up, I took it apart to do a top end rebuild. The cylinder walls and pistons are super clean with no marks on them, I was wondering if I could reuse the piston rings?
Hello; so a complete rebuild included all those many (x4) parts that you need to put new is still on the cheap side in USA? For a Triumph; including dynamic balancing; buy Amal carburetors; new cylinders; new pump; new EI and all the other stuff are thousands of Dollars. but are classics however a Japanese, and is not a CB750 four is still possible to sell it for top Dollars then?
rust not have big problem, elektrolysis can take all rust off, but cylinders need honing or maybe drilling next size. and bearing need ofcourse old bike change all new, and chain and chain tightens.
I got rid of my HD"Good Riddance" and now back to riding Kaw. I own a 02 Vulcan Classic 800. It had three miles on it when I drove it off the dealers parking lot. Now it has 18k. I do all the wrench work on all my junk because of what the Cheap Trick someone did on that guys bike "oil pump." Get you a shop manual. Way cheaper.
As a motorcycle guy and wrench. It always breaks my heart to see stuff like this.
Man thats unfortunate for the previous owner and the whole situation. That sucks to see poor work being done but you will give it a second life!
I know someone that could unseize that engine and get the old girl running again :-)))))
Hey! Just wanted to say thank you for posting these bike rebuild videos. I got my 1974 kz400 running after watching all your Honda videos!
Last owner: “hmmm seems this thing has an engine issue, lemme just take the spark plugs out real quick and leave it in the rain for a few years that ought to sort this issue out”
The healing power of nature! :-))
Well, it did go from 'frozen' to 'frozen solid'.
I wonder if it was before or after they drained the oil out of it?
When I first saw the water I thought "They forgot to add antifreeze", then I remembered that the CB is air cooled... 🤨
Me too!
it's custom, so it's vodka koolink
lol snap
Check out this little bike
ua-cam.com/video/CzfV11sXPU4/v-deo.html
Lol same...😂😂 first i thought ...they forgot to add coolant..😂😂
Thanks for taking the effort to find out the fault. Finding reasons for failures is always exciting.
I drove a CS 550 cross-country in '72 as a graduation present to myself- sorry I ever sold it many years later. Never an issue- and it attracted locals with food.
That’s incredible! This leaves me with so many questions. I appreciate the work you do and for making these videos available.
Great video. Very well described and presented. No one here in the UK seems to upload stuff like this. I have got so much good advice from you Americans . Thanks a lot for taking the trouble to show all this . Good luck from a fellow biker in the UK .
Search for Allen Millyard. An absolute tea drinking cake munching master, right here in the UK.
i road my dad's 78 CB350 all 4 years of high school back in 83 to 87. i loved that bike, got great gas mileage and cruised at 55-60 no problem, never broke down. i almost bought it off my dad, iv always wished i did. liked your video and how casual u are.
I’m surprised a company doesn’t remanufacture larger engine parts like jugs and heads, cases... there is definitely a market
Wow, so sad that a shop destroyed a nice bike engine, that’s why it’s worth taking bikes to people with proper experienced mechanics! This video was awesome as usual, thanks for the learning opportunity! 👍🏍
Back in 78 a buddy of mine showed up at my place needing me to ride with him to pickup his Log Truck at the end of the drive I hopped off and he stopped (ridding that same bike in your video) and asked me 'what the heck' Randy? I told Rodney a voice just told me not to go. The next night while at the local Tavern having a beer with my older brother, I bumped into Rodney and he had both his arms bandage from his wrists to his elbow. On the way to get his Log Truck he picked up a rock that locked up his front tire throwing him off and onto the pavement. He had his leather riding jacket on thankfully but the pavement peeled them to his elbows. The pavement ground the side of his helmet down to the inner padding. I'd have either been dead or in pretty bad shape if I'd stay on for that ride.
I was riding my ZX11 home one day after service at the local dealer, including an oil change. I pulled away from a light, turning left, when the rear suddenly went all squirrelly. I suspected a flat tire but nope! Dealer only hand tightened one of the oil drain plugs. So lucky it happened at slow speed.
Thinking at Six Min - 58 Secs in, the Link from the Chain link extractor went Flying across the top of those heads...at least there was footage of where it went...
Hey Taylor bro! Good to see you back! I have no words descriptive enough to show my disdain at the shocking way this motorcycle has been treated! All that water and rust have left me gobsmacked! On the flip side, this bike would make a hell of a restoration video! Lol.
I have several cb750's and went to the automotive shop and purchased an oil line kit that I plugged into my oil galley then ran the line up to my handle bars where I have the oil gauge mounted. The oil line is a small plastic the works very well. I use this on all my cb's. I'll be watching as you move along on the build - happy wrenching...
My two cents, , run a hone thru the bores, clean the pistons, and use file fit gap rings, as for the cylinder head, dont mess with porting those engineers got it down, if no valve guide wobble, is okay then just lap the seats and install new valve stem seals
You're awesome dude, archeology is definitely the word for it bro, I love to make sure that everything is still used that's usable, and try and keep original when possible, it's absolutely amazing what survives these kind of catastrophic engine failures, which are not usually the engines fault 😉, thanks awesomely for such a great channel and very inspiring ideas and your very talented style of work.
Excellent bit of diagnosis Taylor, that was brilliant to watch.......
At least thanks to you that we know what happened to the bike. And it as been for incompetence.
Let's see how to recover it.
Thanks for your dedication.
That water in the oil tank was cleaner that most water supplies. Hot damn.
A good reason to learn as soon as possible. Basic motorcycle matinence. Save you a ton of money and maybe your engine's life.
Great video, Taylor. I especially like your oil pressure gauge and I think running one where you can see it while riding is a great idea.Too bad about the maintenance error coupled with the missing sensor that killed the engine. I really enjoy your channel and it's great when a new video pops up. Keep up the great work!
These are my favorite kind of videos to see of yours, keep it up Taylor, love the Classic Honda content 👌 Never get sick of it.
Currently restoring and rescuing CB500/550's and CX500's up in Canada 🇨🇦
I am doing my cb650z in the city os Assen, home of the dutch grandprix also known as TT👍
@@niquejoling8603 Love the track at Assen, when i was living in the UK in 88 and 89, i travelled there to watch the Grand Prix. We could only afford to do 2 GP races on the Continent, and my mates wanted to do the German and Austrian, But i talked them around to do the Dutch and Belgium, Assen and Spa! At Assen Wayne Gardner won in 88, and Wayne Rainey in 89 (after leader Schwantz's Suzuki shit itself with one lap to go) Gardner won Spa in 88, but the 89 Spa GP was a bit of a disaster and the race was stopped.
Probably the best quality borescope images I've seen on YT.
I can’t wait! Don’t mess around with videos Taylor!
As many others have said, I really enjoy your bike builds and 'will it run ' videos. Much more than the car videos (just my opinion).
Just picked up this exact same ‘78 CB a few months back. Excited to see that you do with it!
Good lesson - if the oil light doesn't come on when you turn the ignition on, then turn off when you start it, get that pressure sender and light fixed!
I remember quite a few years ago a Kawasaki Z650 coming into the shop were I worked as a mechanic. The whole machine had been restored, including the motor by another company and the bike looked better than new. The owner brought the bike to us because the motor was not running right and asked us to balance the carbs. On starting the motor it sounded dreadful and did not want to rev at all, in fact the motor sounded like a bag of hammers. To cut a long story short I checked the engine oil and it looked grey and cloudy so I dropped it into a drain tray to find it was a sludgy mess. What had happened is the company that worked on this bike before us had the crankcases and top end vapor blasted and they did a very bad job of cleaning remaining blast media out of oil ways and the like and the result was a wrecked motor, main bearings, big end journals and rods, in fact most of the moving internal parts were damaged. The owner bought another motor and we fitted the polished outer cases off the original motor, but cleaned them out properly before fitting them and then fitted the replacement motor into the bike. The guy then went back to the other company with the wrecked engine, I never did hear the outcome.
I just done a bandit 600 rebuild .Freind gave me the name off a spray painter to get the frame done .he then talked me in too getting it powder coated .I picked it up four month later once all parts etc had been cleaned polished etc it was time to start the rebuild .every hole on the frame was powder coated threading for every frame bolt had been left unplugged and they had been fully coated .always check who you use as a worker on any part off you’re bike .tap n die set later and few hours a job that didn’t need done was done .
On another note does anyone reading this have any ideas on spoked hubs or wheels I could use for the second bandit I’m building .u cld put a reply on the video ,cheers
@@Crosshatch1212 Yeah you have to put some old bolts in any threaded holes you dont want covered in powder coat, the powder coaters won't do this for you. Another thing is powder coat is quite thick, and can cause some issues when putting the motor back in, as all the gaps between mounting points and engine have now got a thick coat of paint on them.
@@uhtred7860 or, you could just do what OCC did and wiggle a drill in the hole, and convince the tv people that's the cool way to do it.
@@davidbesant Why am i not surprised they did that. :-))
Good 👍 Excellent Explanation good service I enjoy your videos very informative
Great video. I've learned so much from you. Many times in the past I have rewound your videos to make sure I've got it right. My favorites are these mystery videos and the wiring videos. Keep up the good work.
WOW!!! That's all I can say - completely speechless at the complete negligence of this other shop! That shop really owes the original owner another bike (obviously that'll probably never happen) but it just goes to show how a 'simple oil change' isn't so simple when not done correctly! I feel really bad for the original owner of this bike and hope he was able to find another bike he enjoys. Thank you Taylor for this brilliant video - very well done and excellently explained and great and thorough job going through the engine! I've also seen some bad/blown engines when draining the oil but I've never seen one quite as bad as this one was - absolutely incredible! Thanks so much again for sharing and definitely looking forward to seeing this bike completed and running again - it will be absolutely awesome!!! 🔥🧨🔥🧨🔥🧨👏👏👏
That's a great idea about the oil pressure gauge. I have fully restored a 1975 Honda CB 360t. No oil gauge at all. perhaps a oblong gauge to go on the bars and would be easy to line up the lines with a light to be able to see at night. Make it and I'll buy it for my bike.
I have a 79 CB 550 my brother-in-law has now, sitting around. Runs great. He rebuilt the carbs so runs even better now, but he bought a goldwing... and hasn't driven my 550 in two years. I should get it back! Always wanted to do something like this to it, don't have the talent or the time. Interested to see what you make of this one, if it's anything like your other builds, it'll be a sweet ride for sure.
Glad you're back, keep up this kind of videos..👍
I haven't done an oil change yet, but I've been through the workshop manual enough to know that the spring is in the wrong place.
Waiting for some parts, then I'm going to do a oil change.
Having an actual oil pressure gauge for these bikes would be really nice, especially one that wouldn't require drilling and tapping somewhere in the engine. That's a clever idea using that cover in that way. I dunno how much of a market there would be for them, but I'd definitely be interested in a permanent mounted one. I don't have a lot of trust in the idiot lights.
uhhh, looks like you have a little oil in your crankcase water. i just gotta say, you know it's bad when your aluminum head has rusty combustion chambers. i'd have to agree with your analysis of what killed that engine. the oil pressure sender being deleted was a total boner move on someone's part, and contributed greatly to the tech not realizing he installed the filter incorrectly, and the owner not being able to shut it down before catastrophic engine failure. good job there taylor!
Great video, shame such a small screw up could cause the engine to seize. I recently got a 1980 CB650c up and running after it had been sitting for a long while, just needed some carb and clutch work and she rides very well.
Got mine going but lots of blue smoke. Oops
@@tortron Sounds like it's burning oil, new rings might be in your future lol.
@@jeremycaylor9151 yeah doing rings and gaskets, the last guy never got it on the road because of the smoke, so it's been like that for nearly 10 years. Have it all ready to go back together now
Check out this little bike
ua-cam.com/video/CzfV11sXPU4/v-deo.html
When using the compression tester you can also add air to the hose and listen for leaks at the valves
That would be called a leak down test.
People have to be soo careful when working on motorcycles. I knew someone who was killed after work was done by a dealership.. He was riding on the motorway (freeway) and the engine seized, Turned out that the mechanic put the clutch plates in the wrong order. Such a simple mistake but with massive consequences. Greetings from the UK.
had a '77 550f supersport back in the early 80's, basically the same bike with a 4 into1 exhaust
Good luck bud with the rebuild!
Excellent , I'm a big Honda Twin hoarder/fan and the oil pressure gauge has got me thinking.........
I wonder if the previous owner THOUGHT the low oil pressure switch was bad because the light was staying on. bypassed it and it was actually low oil pressure that was the issue and not the switch. Nothing like shooting yourself in the foot.
Awesome detective work, can't wait to see the rebuild 😊
Dino, aka Hackaweek, installed an oil pressure guage on a CB750 he restored and he did it so you could see it while riding. This was right after his oil pump broke in his hands while he was going through the engine.
From the looks of that thumbnail, that engine needs a complete re- machining of every part.
I had a CB 550 as my daily driver for years. Great bikes!
That milkshake ain't bringing ANYone's boys to the yard...
In the 80s I had a cbx 550f I twisted the camshaft, serviced regularly, never flogged it. Australia
One of the mates had one back around that time
It was a real rocket and handled beautifully even two up on a dirt road
Top thing I often say to people who are looking for a bike to try to find one
Ive been looking for a good endoscope! Thanks for posting the link for it!
Ben watching all of your videos it has gotten me to an almost finished 73 CB500 4 Rebuilt carbs to your videos and a bunch of other stuff. Thanks for all the help.have pictures of my engine mounted pressure gauge you might like can I email them to your link?
Cool project. I had a CB750 back in the day. Man that's a damn nice Camaro in the background
Looking at these old single cam Honda's it's easy to see where Benelli got the inspiration for their range of four and six cylinder motors. I've had my 1980 Benelli 900 Sei since 1986, the Benelli sixes are very rare indeed, 3200 of the 750 Sei were produced between 1974 and 1978, and only 1867 of the 900 Sei were produced between 1979 and 1989.
Brilliant video! Keep them coming.👍
I also found my KZ750 LTD to have the oil filter spring in the wrong place when I changed the oil. Fortunately the engine seems to still be in good condition. The flat washer that goes between the spring and filter was also missing.
Having a manual oil pressure gauge would be a good piece of mind, if you make some sort of set up and sell them I would be interested. Like the Videos, very helpful on these CB550s
that was a shame but i suppose it does happen you will get it back to life loved the video
THAT is a crying shame! All Hondas want to do, is run. Run run run. And someone completely prevented that. So much impeccable engineering ground into the ground by incompetence. Treat her well. Please.
Water, add antifreeze 🤭 🤣🤣🤣
So sad that guy didn't go back to the shop and confronted that mechanic.
Wherever possible I always do my own work
The only things I haven't done myself in the last thirty five years or more has been machining and magneto rebuilds and sometimes upholstery
I've seen some horrible and at times dangerous things done by bike shops
I've worked on small engines and Mother Nature can really destroy anything sitting outside in no time.
Oooow man what a shame to ruin a bike like that one ! that mechanic deserve at least few (hard) kicks on his but !!! Thanks for sharing, and keep up the good Honda CB work
Great looking bike. Can't wait till you work your magic on this one
I've seen that oil filter error in videos from Mexico, it seems like mechanics in a rush tend to put oil filters and o-rings in the wrong way and on different types of bikes causing catastrophic failier.
That is a cool looking bike! I also love the colors.
Definitely be keen for an oil pressure gauge 👀
Eh! Canuck here. Death by Mechanic! I run a 22 yr old - VW diesel. 260K km. I had to do a complete weld up and body repair - after 20 yrs in Salt-land. I am pulling the oil filter - and it has TWO seals on the plastic top piece - and 2 seals on the bottom {Dick extender} - uh - anyone who knows - knows the description is accurate. These two errors could have fragged my engine with time. At 61 - I will change my oil - because of Daffy Duks. { insert your Fav dump phrase} - Sadly - your engine was great - until Daffy got a hold of it. Great Job!
My current build - is a Seca 750-4 - 1984. Thank you! Cheers!
Wherever possible I do all my own work
Excellent video. Really interesting.
Best to do a dry then wet (oil in cylinder) compression test. If there's little or no difference in pressure, that indicates valves, (or head gasket if one, or two adjacent cylinders remain low). If there is a significant difference , i.e much higher wet, that indicates worn rings and / or bores.
By far the most failure prone part of any engine with chain driven OHC engines is the cam chain. I've owned a lot of Japanese bikes, and the engines in three of them failed due to broken cam chains. A chain will always wear considerably faster than any other part of the engine. And automatic cam chain tensioners don't help. Virtually all of them fail at fairly low mileage. There was a time when bikes had manual cam chain tensioners and replaceable cam chains.
The Honda 750 F1 (1976 model) I owned threw a dog tooth in the gearbox at 120 kilometres per hour on the freeway. Fortunately it only locked up briefly while destroying the two clusters in the gearbox. It is possible to remove just the lower crack case half on the engine and leave the top end in place. Useful if just accessing the gearbox.
Dog be damned
I've had a 1978 SR500 for near seven years it had about 62,000 kilometres on it when I bought it, when I got it I straight away registered it and put it in my ute (pickup) and drove from my home on the NSW North Coast to Sydney and then rode with my Harley mates down the south coast heading for a bike show in our Snowy Mountains
On the way down we stayed at a caravan park and while there I gave it it's first oil change
To properly change the oil on these you don't only drain them and replace the filter, if you know what you're doing and I did having owned one before you also clean a screen in the bottom of the frame's oil tank and a screen in a sump plate under the engine
When I removed the sump plate a "dog" fell out
We'd come about three hundred kilometres and my friends were alarmed and suggested I should try to carefully ride it back
Anyway to cut a very long story short I didn't go back, it had gotten me that far so I continue to the mountains gave it it's first clean at the local carwash a few minutes before the show hit it with some WD wipped it off with some paper napkins and took out Top Japanese
Since then to my friends amazement I've done another eighty thousand kilometres it now reads 142,000 there's not much I haven't done to it over that time other than the engine
I've been gathering parts including what I think is the damaged gear and I bought a complete second-hand gearbox just incase
I'm about to pull it apart after it recently developed a bit of a rattle in the top end that I can't tune out
I haven't ridden it since yesterday I might ride it today but I'll probably get onto it in the next week or so
Yamaha rules
@@hodaka1000 After the gearbox disaster on the freeway with the Honda 750 it would only select 2nd gear so I decided to ride it home as is. I recall the bike would do close to the freeway speed limit, just with second gear, for the 15 kilometres (10 miles) to get it home. After removing the lower crankcase I was surprised even second still worked given the level of damage to the two main gearbox clusters.
@@malibu188
I was lucky my dog must have fallen through the gears and made it to the bottom of the motor without causing a detonation
I had a local GMH 1958 Holden about forty years ago actually I have never not owned one since I was eighteen I'm now sixty four and still own one but this one forty years ago had just been stolen but was recovered and I think it was the next day I was driving towards Sydney when I came up next to my old mates dad my mate and his dad were or are top machinists and mechanics the old boy had a Datsun Bluebird a two door 1600 rare car here and he'd adapted a Fiat 5 speed to it as I said top machinist anyway I came up next to him at a set of lights and naturally when the light turned green we both got into it but this old Holden had probably had a real flogging while it was stolen and as I changed in to second gear the box detonated, as it went off it felt like the whole car lifted into the air, old mate probably didn't notice and was on his way to work so I lost sight of him in the traffic so tried to drive home these cars when standard have a three speed column change and I was left with what turned out to be about a third of the teeth on top gear and with about fifteen miles to go to get home, amazingly I managed to go about ten miles before the clutch burnt out but sort of did well to get that far
Next day when I pulled the box out there was just about nothing left of it but a half a bucket of teeth and the few still remaining on top gear
If you want see the type of vehicle I'm talking about I recently put a couple of videos on my UA-cam channel of the one I've owed since about 1983
einstein you take out cam chain tensioner and can easy flip that chain on cam shaft and get to that bolt out
Wow that’s a brilliant oil mix for keeping things still ,not moving .just being
Love your Videos, build myself an 750 because I learned here so much. about it Thank you for That! Only one critic/thing/suggestion. I saw your Instagram images today and realised that your Videos would benefit so much from an proper Video cam :) No Harm if not. But your content deserves better production Value! Keep going love all your Bike content also the style is unique.
Uh, I got tools…must be a mechanic! Seen this at my local mc shop, kids that ride or hang out doing the oil changes and filter changes while you pay the $100+ shop rates!😡
Squirt some oil down the plug hole to get a better pressure reading, It creates a seal,
dry rings score the liners,
Once I had a bike pouring water from de foam on the seat...right on the air filter...and directly on the crankcase by the hose that goes connected down in the airbox...
great watch bro, love the work 🤘😎
I was in our car park once when I saw a neighbour pouring water into the oil filler, I asked what she was doing and she told me it was getting hot so when she opened the cap and saw no water she was topping it up like her husband had told her to do when she told him she could not see any water after taking the cap off. He should have gone out to check which cap she had opened to check the coolant, instead he spent the day draining and re-filling his oil as well as fixing the leaking top hose and topping up the coolant correctly, he never got her to check anything under the bonnet again.
Did the previous shop think it was water cooled😂 I cannot believe it actually ran at all.👍🇬🇧
Personally I think the CB550 as a whole should be considered a boat anchor - the worst machine I've ever had. It put me off motorcycling for 25 years and off in-line fours for ever!
What chain breaker was that you used? Looks very good quality
Do you usually use the Jump-n-carry when you test your engines rather than hooking up a battery? I'm putting together a couple of 30+ year old Honda's and I was thinking of getting one.
The problem isn't just the water, it's that there's next to no oil in the engine. I'm confident that if the engine had been parked with the correct amount of oil... and then without sparkplugs the coating of ail on the components would have preserved them much better is the case. That's been my experience with a Moto Guzzi which was parked under a tree for ten years with holes in it's tappet covers...Oh, and you should spin the engine in the big socket (23mm?), not by the 6mm screw. That way the torque isn't transmitted by the 6mm screw but by the locating pin.
So there must have been a flood for that much water to penetrate in breach into the lower engine. But the other metal parts outside seem clean , little rust, except for the chain?
Wow. That water looked drinkable, like it was coming straight out of the faucet. : ) Don't let your bike sit outside, people...and if you do, make sure to put the spark plugs in! That's an engine killer. I don't even let my bike sit in my garage with open spark plug holes. I'm paranoid something might fall in there.
We got a Kawasaki ZZ-R1100 in the shop once and the owner said it had been running fine when he parked it, but it had been sitting for 5 years (in a garage with a cover over it) and now it wouldnt start. Fresh battery, hit the starter, nothing. Took a cover off and got a socket on the bolt in the crank to see if it would turn, and it was locked tight. Further investigation revealed a massive rats nest in the airbox, (thankfully they werent in there when it was found:-) they had gotten in through the ram-air snorkel and ripped up the filter and chewed plastic to make their home. Over the years of god knows how many rats pissing in there, the piss had dribbled down into the inlet, past an open valve and seized the pistons of a couple of cylinders. 1000s of $$$ in damage.
Back in the day, we used to use 450 master links.
I love your videos man! I'm rebuilding my 78cb750f at the moment, The engine wasn't locked up, I took it apart to do a top end rebuild. The cylinder walls and pistons are super clean with no marks on them, I was wondering if I could reuse the piston rings?
Probably if you know which cylinders they came from
But while you've got it's apart would be a good time to replace them
Hello; so a complete rebuild included all those many (x4) parts that you need to put new is still on the cheap side in USA? For a Triumph; including dynamic balancing; buy Amal carburetors; new cylinders; new pump; new EI and all the other stuff are thousands of Dollars. but are classics however a Japanese, and is not a CB750 four is still possible to sell it for top Dollars then?
One of my dream bikes there in the background BMW Paris Dakar. Way out of my price league even if one turned up.
rust not have big problem, elektrolysis can take all rust off, but cylinders need honing or maybe drilling next size. and bearing need ofcourse old bike change all new, and chain and chain tightens.
They made a liquid cooled sohc!!!
Great Video! When is the next video please.
Sooo ... after your strip/diagnosis .. did the previous owner go back to the shop and tell them and try get some compensation ?
I got rid of my HD"Good Riddance" and now back to riding Kaw. I own a 02 Vulcan Classic 800. It had three miles on it when I drove it off the dealers parking lot. Now it has 18k. I do all the wrench work on all my junk because of what the Cheap Trick someone did on that guys bike "oil pump." Get you a shop manual. Way cheaper.
Where is the next video for this? There is no link in the description and no future titles indicate they are the follow-up to this one…
Are u going to do a rebuild on the carbs? If so, it would be great if u did a video on how to rebuild the PD carbs:))