I
really don’t go chasing after vintage Honda twins these days. There
is so much work to do to get them cleaned up, especially when they
have been off the road since 1977. That’s the case of the “Pink
Panther” Super Hawk that was offered to me from the local SD
Automotive Museum. I'd helped them out with a decent CB77 many years
ago, which was sold for some small profit for the museum funds.
Here,
years later, I get a text message from Jack at the museum saying…
“Are you interested in a 1964 CB77 that was donated to us
recently?” He forwarded some small photos of what appeared to be a
mostly complete bike sporting a custom “Pink-ish” paint job that
had swirly red and black drips and tiny metallic flakes embedded into
the finish. It looked almost 3D, but putting a hand across the
finish, it was quite smooth. Obviously, someone with great skill and
imagination painted it long ago.
I
drove down to National City just to have a look, a few days later. Apart
from the bobbed front fender, the other changes were a set of CL72
exhaust pipes installed, some CB350 rear shocks, the centerstand had
been deleted and the optional side stand bolted up to the chassis.
The pipes were tight up against the left side cover, so the heat from
the pipes and proximity left a burn spot on the cover.
In the beginning.....
The
original photo set showed the starter motor attached, but no starter
chain connected. When I saw the bike, apparently Jack had decided to
remove the starter motor, which is held on with 4 bolts and the long
top right side bolt snapped off, flush with the case surface….
The
worst part of the bike’s condition, apart from the layer of rust
and corrosion all over the chrome parts, was the kickstarter cover.
This was a 1964 bike with engine number 6750, so has the early,
first-generation kickstarter cover, which was prone to breakage and
damage to the kickstarter shaft bushing and hole. This hole was
elongated so much that it would take a monumental task to weld back
up and find the original hole center again. That one would go on the
junk pile right away.
Despite
the 19k miles showing on the speedometer, the meter needles were
still in place with some fading to the face. If the engine was still
original to the bike, I would expect a lot of worn parts inside,
especially the kickstarter and transmission gears.
I
had a CL77 project spread all over my work table, so I told them that
I was interested but couldn’t find a place for it for a few weeks.
If it was still available when I was ready, I would take a shot at
bringing it back to life again, but it was going to be a pretty
full-on revival.
Fast
forward a few weeks later, and the bike was still available and I had
space to park it out in the driveway under a cover for the moment.
The biggest challenge I could foresee is that the front brake seemed
to be locked up and the front tire didn’t hold air. Getting it
loaded up into the Tacoma and then back off in the driveway was going
to be a challenge to say the least.
Pickup…
no worries
When
I arrived at the Auto Museum warehouse, I brought a whole box of
tools, a portable bike lift, ATV ramp, a new tire, tube and rim band
and plenty of tie-downs to help get this bike off the floor and into
the truck. Well, none of that happened, because my friend Jack had
hoisted the bike up on the Harbor Freight bike stand and removed the
front wheel, took the brake plate apart and lubed the brake cams.
With the wheel already off, I was able to change the tire and we both
guided the front wheel back onto the bike and got enough brake lever
leverage to safely get the bike out of the shop and onto the Tacoma
safely. I tucked all the spares away behind the front seats and on
the floor of the passenger side seat and started for home. All during
the drive home, I ruminated about how to handle this new project and
how to keep the cost from going crazy.
Panther’s
Anatomy…
It
took about 2 hours to gingerly remove the engine from the chassis
without the benefit of the centerstand. Ironically, I had the
centerstand on the shopping list, but when I went to pick up the bike
someone had come by and dropped off the centerstand for the bike,
which had been mislaid somewhere in the garage. I’ll still need to
round up some centerstand bolts, including the longer one for the
side where the side stand bracket mounts up. It wasn’t mounted
properly before and the whole bracket had a big bend/twist that will
need a press to straighten out.
I
had an adjustable rear axle stand, so propped up the chassis and went
about removing the engine. It had been running stock air filters, all
of which were dirty and tired, along with the air filter tubes. The
Scrambler exhaust pipes had no baffles in the back, so that would
need to be remedied or just replace them with David Silver Spare
reproductions when available.
With
the engine on the bench, careful disassembly proceeded. At 19k miles,
it had to have been apart before and there were certainly signs that
someone had done just that. The stator wires were pushed though the
crankcase drain hole instead of the hole with the rubber grommet. The
starter clutch had 3 rollers but no springs or caps. One of the
starter clutch hub screws was slotted instead of a Phillips screw.
All of the clutch cover screws were roughed up from being reused from
the last tear-down.
I
noticed some evidence of water up inside the exhaust port on the
right side, which corresponded to the corrosion on top of the right
side piston. The pistons were.. .50 oversize, but there didn’t seem
to be a lot of wear on the cylinder walls. A good hone job and new
piston rings should work fine for this motor.
There
were odd little grooves ground in the top edges of the rocker arms,
as if to give clearance for them in a high lift camshaft application,
but there was no signs of anything making contact around there. The
right side rod end was a little bit burned, where it may have seized
at one time. This is not uncommon as the right side ignition timing
tends to lead the left when the ignition is statically tested and not
re-checked running. This leads to a wrist pin hole that is a bit out
of round and the pin rocks in the pin bore. If left as-is, there will
be an audible clicking noise at part-throttle during normal riding
operation. Unfortunately, the usual remedy is to have the crankshaft
dismantled and the rod put in a mill for a clean-up pass and a thin
bronze bushing installed and fitted to size.
The
clutch was a Barnett racing clutch with no separator rings installed.
It was stuck together but pried apart easily. Overall, the insides of
the engine were pretty clean and no signs of metallic grinding of
aluminum or steel or brass evident. The
cylinder head combustion chambers showed a bit of soft carbon from
burning oil over time.
The
carburetors, were original round-bowl units and were surprisingly
clean inside with #140 main jets vs the stock #135, probably due to
the exhaust system being replaced with the uncorked Scrambler pipes.
Honda used aluminum needles on early model carburetors, which usually
hold up okay even after 60 years.
The
next day, the whole chassis was torn down for powder-coating. The
bike had some aftermarket Scrambler-style handlebars and longer
cables installed. The handlebar switches had some OEM switches
installed with longer wiring leads than what are usually seen with
stock CB switches. Unfortunately, there were some poorly done wiring
connections inside the headlight shell which will be remedied later.
All the sheet metal parts were originally black painted and in
surprisingly good condition. The fork seal holders are hard to
remove, especially the first time. One side required some serious
heat from my Mapp-gas torch to soften the o-rings grip on the fork
slider. Luckily, the correct length fender stay bolts were installed,
so the fork sliders were not damaged and the forks came apart easily.
I
have about 20 lbs of Scarlet Red powder-coat leftover from a CL72
project that was done during the pandemic and I have been waiting for
something to use it all on. For the moment, the black chassis will
become red, but I am leaving the custom-painted parts intact to see
how they will look on a red frame. I hate to ruin the artwork of the
previous owner’s efforts, but in a worse case, the fenders will go
back to silver and the tank will become red to match the chassis.
Transformation…
The
tab on the powder-coating. was $600 for all of the chassis parts,
apart from the tank, side covers and fenders. Despite having
something close to 20k miles on the odometer, the frame and bodywork
was undamaged and now looks new with the Scarlet Red finish. I had to
order new centerstand bolts, including the proper 268-810 left side,
which reaches through the side stand bracket to secure the
centerstand properly. We were able to straighten out the old bracket
on a 50t press, so it is usable once again.
Coming along.....
4nto1.com
came up with an inexpensive tapered roller bearing kit for the
steering stem, as well as gaskets, a seal kit, some 5.5mm fuel line, some replica
CB400F handlebars, and some inexpensive mirrors. The stock 041
rectangular mirrors are useless on most 250-305s due to the head
angle, which was designed for scooters not street bikes. CMSNL.com
came up with the other centerstand bolt, the rubber dust seals for
the swing arm, Rubber cushions for the fork ears, plus misc nuts and
bolts.
I
took the engine cases to the local engine re-builder to have them
hot-tanked and degreased before reassembly. Vapor blasting all of
these parts generally runs about $350, so I may just paint the center
cases with cast-aluminum paint and do the clutch cover and
kickstarter cover in the Duplicolor paint that is close to the Cloud
Silver colors. I am not going for a 100 pt show bike and plan to use
it for local runs to the post office, so am trying to keep it on a
reasonable budget. A big budget item would be the new stock style
exhaust. The stock CL72 pipes are very loud, even with the
Snuff-or-Nots installed, so something else will have to be
considered, so I don’t get thrown out of the neighborhood.
And
all back together again…
I
have squirreled away CB77 parts whenever I came across them over the
years, perhaps hoping that that one last Super Hawk would come my
way and the shiny bits could be put into use. I did have a set of
re-chromed fork seal holders available, which brightened up the
forks. Other little bits like a side-stand return spring and good
used chassis parts all were put into use for this project. The
chassis came back together fairly quickly, but the engine languished
on the bench as competing project bikes took up time and space. A
CL77 project took up 2 months on the bike bench while bits were
re-chromed, powder-coated, polished and finally all reassembled. Once
the CL77 was completed, a CL160 took its place for a week or so, then
finally the CB got it’s place on the stand.
The
CB400F bars had a nice bend and height to them, but the wiring holes
for the switches were a little far in to allow for the grips and
lever brackets to all group together, so I had to lop off an inch or
two of the ends to make everything fit up again.
I
took time to grind off powder-coat from various locations on the
frame so that the rear fender would have a good ground path to the
frame. Otherwise, the tail light wiring does weird things without a
proper chassis ground. I was able to reuse the main wiring harness
and the ignition switch. I even put the original rectifier back onto
the frame mount after cleaning off the powder-coat on the tabs.
Apart
from a little short circuit in the dimmer switch, the rest of the
wiring all went back together properly and the headlight bulb was
still functional on both filaments.
Once
the new rings were received, the pistons were scrubbed up and ready
for installation. I did have my machine shop do a fast hone job to
break the glaze, but aside from a few little marks, the bores should
be fine to seat in the new rings. I lapped in the old valves and
seats together and put a little bit more tension on the camsprocket
return weights to help the spark timing return properly. There is
inherent slop in the whole mechanism, so you can only do what you can
with them. My friend Tim Miller down in TX can take them apart and
rebuild them with a different advance curve that is more
engine-friendly, but this one was good enough. I actually had
several used units, so picked out the best one.
I
did decide to install the endless camchain while the cases were
split, so that always adds some consideration when reassembling the
top end. You have to install the inner ball bearings in the head,
then feed the camshafts in from both sides while you hold the
camsprocket up with the chain, all the while watching that the
crankshaft stays at TDC during the assembly.
I
always plane the gasket surfaces off with a big, flat single-cut file
to knock down the high spots on the cylinders, cylinder head and
clutch cover gasket surfaces to minimize any leaks. I decided to use
an inexpensive Allen (hex) bolt kit for the fasteners to assemble the
engine. The only other challenge was to figure out what to do with
the clutch setup. The Barnett clutch plates were the old Kevlar
units, and there was no place to install the retainer wires to keep
the plates from moving as a unit instead of spreading apart during
disengagement. I wound up using a hybrid clutch setup using some
original 6 plate clutch components interspersed with some of the
later metal backed -020 plates from a 5 plate clutch setup.
Interestingly the whole clutch outer was a billet unit, apparently
from Barnett made years ago.
I
replaced the low gear bushing, kickstarter pawl and installed some
offset gear cotters to maintain good gear engagement while the
transmission was apart. For a bike with 20k miles, most of the
internals were still pretty nice.
I
did have to extract the broken off starter motor mount bolt from the
engine case. The starter chain was missing, so I cut down the old
camchain and put a link in it to get the starter motor all setup.
Only after the bike was pretty much together did I discover that the
starter motor had no armature inside! So that lead to a appeal for a
working starter motor, which was fulfilled by a vintage Honda friend
in Los Angeles who sent one to me for free. My friend Jack Stein
gifted me with a good used kickstarter cover, which was rebuilt with
the parts from the original bike, plus a NOS clutch adjuster that had
been in safe-keeping for the last few years. Little by little, it
all started coming together.
Instead
of the Snuff-or-Nots for the Scrambler pipes, I bought a pair of $11
each VW Bug exhaust tips and with a bit of fiddling around got them
to fit into the stock pipes with a bit of hammering with my plastic
mallet. These do take some of the exhaust note bite out and makes the
bike look a bit more interesting with some extra long pipes now.
Teething
problems, of course…
I
rolled the bike out to take a few photos and noticed that the new
tire and tube were flat on the rear wheel. I aired up the tire to 34
psi and then spit on the end of the valve stem to check for leaks..
and it was leaking. I removed the old core and replaced it with
another one.. aired back up to 34 psi and it was still leaking! I
cranked down on the cap and it has held up some, but obviously that
isn’t the final solution.
I
had cleaned the tank with Metal Rescue leaving the petcock in place.
I added a couple of gallons of gasoline to the tank, put on Reserve
just to be safe and the bike stalled out on me 3 blocks away! I
pushed/rolled it back to the driveway and pulled off a fuel line.
Nothing on RESERVE, but it was flowing in ON! Duh! I drained the
tank, removed the petcock and cleaned out the reserve hole and
passage into the 4-hole gasket. Refilled and it was good to go
again.. except when I throttled it up under load, the “hybrid”
clutch started slipping! Arrrgh.
I
went online and someone had a NOS late-style clutch hub (shallow
splines) for sale at $45 and then I got a set of new aftermarket -020
metal friction plates for $35. So, I’ll wait until next week and
replace the clutch plates with something fresh. Maybe I’ll put in
some heavier springs, as well.
(Update:
While sifting through my old engine parts bins, I discovered the late-style shallow-spline clutch hub for a 5-plate clutch. I had a stack
of used 268-020 metal-backed friction plates, so I removed the whole
hybrid clutch setup and replaced it with a good used 5-plate clutch
assembly. It works fine now!)
Oh,
to begin with, the left side carburetor (of course, right behind the
exhaust pipes) had a bit of a fuel weep around the float bowl gasket.
The bowl gasket was original. Despite looking pretty nice, it was
hard as a rock and needed to be chipped out painstakingly a little at
a time. I replaced the original round bowl float with the new
aftermarket square bowl floats which give plenty of room around the
float inside the chamber, well away from the gasket edges.
So
far, the carburetor is not weeping and the bike usually starts up
with little or no choke at all. It’s running #140 main jets and #38
idle jets and seems to be pretty crisp.
I
have found that those original gray plastic spark plug caps that all
the restorers seem to want to use on their restorations are now
checking in at 8-11k ohms, instead of 5k ohms or less. So both of
those were replaced and I readjusted the Pro-Trigger electronic
ignition system after a few miles or run-in. One of the several
problems with the 250-305 point cam design is that when you install
new oil seals in the point side cover, there is quite a bit of
friction on the point cam, so it is slower to retard when the engine
is returned to idle Once the seal has been run-in for a few hours, it
usually relaxes its grip on the point shaft, allowing a smoother
advance and return to idle speed.
Today
(3/25/24) my Google photos sent back a few memories from 8 years ago
and that was the time that I had built another one-off CB77, aka the
“Silver Special” which was a completely silver powdercoated bike.
And today, we have the Pink Panther equivalent. I really didn’t
want to disturb the original “artwork” paint job from the 1970s,
so it is what it is….Swirly pink paint and a Scarlet Red chassis.
I
began the DMV/CHP odyssey, waiting 45 minutes just to get the bike
verified at DMV only to have them immediately refer me to CHP without
even looking at the numbers. I have to wait until April 10 just to
get an appointment for CHP to inspect the bike to verify the serial
numbers. I already have an appointment to have the CB1100R verified,
so hopefully they both can be seen at the same visit. After that, it
is BACK to DMV again to submit all the paperwork and finally in an
additional week or two, the DMV in Sacramento will issue clean titles
for both bikes.
(UPDATE:
The cooperative officer at the CHP verified my CB1100R which was in
the back of the truck. When I called earlier, he said he
couldn’t do both bikes at once and gave me an appointment another
month away! On a hunch, I brought the paperwork for the CB77 and with
photos in my phone, he decided to spend an additional ½ hour and
finalized my paperwork for that bike.)
I’m
hoping to ride the Panther bike to the Distinguished Gentleman’s
ride in May, close to my birthday on the 24th.
There are always a lot of cool bikes and riders at these events, but
I doubt that they will overlook the Pink Panther CB77 this year.
DGR .... MADE IT!
Bill
Silver
aka
MrHonda
03/31/2024
www.vintagehonda.com
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