The Rebuild Has Begun

It's been close to a year since my last post and I finally found the time to start working on the CB550. The oil leak (probably from O-rings in the head) had worsened to the point where the fins were saturated with lubricant.

The wiring harness has lots of connectors which I carefully unplugged and checked to make sure they all matched up color-wise.

So far I've removed the top end of the motor and painted it with KG (formerly Kal-Kard) silver coating. The coating is darker than stock, I think it looks good though as long as the color is consistent. After the coating dried I noticed there are still thin spots that need another coating or two. I might run out of the coating and do not want to order another bottle from KG (it's expensive!). If it looks like I won't have enough of the KG coating, maybe I'll switch to VHT silver engine paint.

The valves removed and lapped, then new valve seals were installed by Al at Cycle Tech in Moiliili. While he was at it, Al decarbonized the combustion chambers and valves.

Yesterday I removed the pistons, then removed the rings and cleaned them up. Pistons 1 and 4 were pretty clean. Pistons 2 and 3 had some carbon on the rings as well as in the ring grooves. I scraped the carbon off the rings and used a scotchbrite pad to clean out the ring grooves.

Piston ring gaps were also measured and found within spec. Okay, I admit that I only measured the top rings for each piston.

Next step - removing of the crankcase from the frame!