I love to tinker on things and I've always been fascinated with motorcycles but I don't have all that much experience with them. As a kid, I had a little Honda dirt bike but not for long. I crashed while learning to ride it and that was the end of that. When I moved out here, I bought a pristine XR250 and had it for a while before selling it and then upgrading to an XR400 which...I crashed and got hurt on. I ended up selling it not long after that but I always look at them when I see them. What's odd is that I've had some pretty bad crashes while racing bicycles but I never stopped doing that and I have never been afraid of riding them. Why I get scared on something with a motor is a mystery to me. Truth be told, I never approached the motorcycle thing in the right way. Never did a rider safety course and the last crash was entirely because I was riding way beyond my ability level. There are still times where I think something like a BMW F800 or a KTM Adventure would be so nice out here to explore the fire roads on and go camping in a very similar style to what I do on the mountain bike.
None of my dirt bikes were ever as dirty as this CB650 is. I hate dirt. If it were mine, I'd strip a lot of stuff off it and power wash it. But...it's not mine so I'll just fix what needs fixing and try my best to ignore the rest. Always baffles my people don't take better care of their things. I think it was my friend Ethan that once commented about how all my bicycles always look like they just rolled off the showroom floor. Generally, they functioned that way too. I think that goes back to as a kid and growing up, I didn't have a lot of "things" so I took very good care of the ones I did have. Anyways.
This is the left side of the motor with the cover removed along with the sprocket and chain. There are really 2 seals here. One is on the shifter shaft where it enters the motor and the other is on the counter shaft. I am pretty sure that all of the oil was coming out of that shifter shaft seal. It's so loose that I could start wiggling it out with just my finger nails. Before I take it out, I wanted to at least clean the area that was going to be exposed so there would be less chance of dirt getting inside the motor.
After about an hour of cleaning and scraping, this is what it looks like. Much better but my OCD started to fan out and soon I was trying to get all of the grime off the frame and kickstand. I had to quit because soon I would have started pulling the motor entirely. I really did not do much cleaning around the counter shaft area. It looked really nice. I do not think that seal is leaking. My plan was to replace it while I was already there but I think you have to split the engine cases to get it out and I'm not going that far.
I did remove the foot pegs and kick stand to give them a good cleaning. So far this has been a fun project to start the summer off with. I've always thought about getting an older bike to fool around with and Heather and I have always liked the early CB's. We would like to make one into a cafe racer but I honestly don't think I could ride it that way with my neck issues getting worse as I get older and I don't care for the stock styling of the bike.
So it sits like this until my friend gets me the parts I need to continue on. He actually has them but he lives up in Keystone so I just have to wait for him to run them over which may happen tonight. My plan now is to replace that shifter shaft seal and then change the oil and filter, put it back together, install new plugs, clean the air filter, install a new battery and see if it fires up. If it does fire up, I expect it to run like total shit because of those rotted out pipes. As long as it does start, then he can order new exhaust and ship it my way.
Heather and I went to a graduation party last night for about an hour. We drank a beer and chatted a while. This guy was seated at the table near us. I took his picture because just his face and his voice were spot on with Danny from the show King of Queens. I was amazed and kept staring at him.
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