Homda CB750 Restomod

[JackyJoll]

Are they trying to make it look not much worse than the original?

Is that a worthwhile endeavour? I’m having difficulty seeing the point.

[Felix]

I prefer that too.

I can't see an electric starter, are they kick only?

Both https://www.motorcyclespecifications.co ... 50k3-1973/

I had a early GS550E with the slide carbs that was electric and kick.

[DefTrap]

Bit of a niche market. Anyone who is still in love with an old CB is in it for the rose tinted spectacles of the original and therefore "ruining it" like the above is a crime.

Everyone else is probably puzzled why you would put any money into changing something that is ultimately flawed by having such an average motor.

[The Spin Doctor]

I've never had a kickstart 4 pot, but they've got to be loads easier to kick over than a big single, even if it's got a 180 crank it's still only 400cc to kick over.

My 400-F was much harder to kick over than my XBR500. With a single you ease it just over TDC then give it a steady firm downward pressure. Even when the decompressor cable snapped, it was still easy enough because you could build up some momentum.

With the 400 there was always one cylinder on the compression stroke which which made it quite hard to spin.

Mind you, the right bastard to start was a mate's GN400. God, that was a dreadful bike even if he did buy it for a pittance to commute on. Not sure I'd like to have tried a Panther

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

What Spin said, multis are horrible to kickstart, there's a lot of friction from 4 pistons and you can't get a good swing at the kick start.

[Druid]

This popped up on my local bike search...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203836598376 ... SwjBJiD73p

I'd rather this one than the OP.

Only until you had to make an emergency stop. That pivoting caliper and a single disc was only marginally better than dragging your feet on the floor. A mate of mine had a 550K with the same setup and it was terrifying

[mangocrazy]

This popped up on my local bike search...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203836598376 ... SwjBJiD73p

I'd rather this one than the OP.

Only until you had to make an emergency stop. That pivoting caliper and a single disc was only marginally better than dragging your feet on the floor. A mate of mine had a 550K with the same setup and it was terrifying

Even more so in the wet, until sintered pads became A Thing. Quite what Honda were thinking only putting a single disc on a lardy lump like the CB750 is beyond me.

[The Spin Doctor]

Only until you had to make an emergency stop. That pivoting caliper and a single disc was only marginally better than dragging your feet on the floor. A mate of mine had a 550K with the same setup and it was terrifying

The problem was two-fold - the pivoting pin was steel and corroded, stopping the pivot moving. And then a lot of riders didn't realise that the brakes actually needed adjusting to compensate as the pads wore, or you ended up with only the pad in front of the piston actually making any kind of contact with the disc...

If you knocked the pin out, cleaned it up and coated it with copaslip once a year, the pivot moved as designed. There was also a screw with a spring behind it partway down the pivot and that needed to be tweaked to correct the clearance between the fixed pad and the disc - if you did that, both pads gripped. It was a two minute job IF the screw moved (more copaslip from new).

Plus, you needed to throw the standard Honda pads in the bin since they didn't work well in the wet. As soon as metal sintered pads appeared, the wet braking lag disappeared.

I agree, you wouldn't outbrake a modern bike but correctly set up, the brake was quite powerful enough to lock the front tyres of the time.

The big problem with the 550 was absolutely terrifyingly bad handling. I can still recall tipping into a roundabout at the same sort of speed I'd have taken it on my 400-F and the 550 going into a tank slapper for no reason I ever figured out, other than the fact it was an evil basta@rd of a bike!

[A_morti]

Very mild restomod.
Change the forks and rear shocks for something newer, put the headlight too low, chop the mudguards, remove the chainguard, replace the exhaust for a pattern one.
What else has been done here?

[JackyJoll]

Quite what Honda were thinking only putting a single disc on a lardy lump like the CB750 is beyond me.

The gross over-sophistication of putting any disc on a bike had the Belstaff suit brigade biting through their pipe stems in indignation, when the first Honda 4 came out.

[mangocrazy]

Quite what Honda were thinking only putting a single disc on a lardy lump like the CB750 is beyond me.

The gross over-sophistication of putting any disc on a bike had the Belstaff suit brigade biting through their pipe stems in indignation, when the first Honda 4 came out.

Indeed. I remembered the indignation when Mike Hailwood tried out disc front brakes on his private 500cc Honda 4 race bike.