What did you do with your CB500 today?

I put some lights back on. Still experimenting with wiring and so on, so back to the transparent parcel tape for mounting! Had a tense few minutes on way home being followed by one police car and another alongside. Nothing technically wrong with the lights, but you never know when you're going to get pulled just to check them out!

Be ace if you came back to it this morning and there were loads of presents underneath it.

Maybe I should paint my CB green. I draw the line at wearing a fairy costume though!

Vexx wrote:Opened up the right hand carb to unstick what was sticking.. now runs on both cylinders again  
Found a bit of foam sponge in the carb as well, under the diaphragm.. just how the fishcake did it get there???

I've read somewhere recently when looking for reasons mine wouldn't start the little pre filter foam element that sits above the valve cover disintegrates and can end up in the carb. Mine had turned into a sticky gunk! I replaced it with a bit of cut up dishwashing sponge

rwhitton wrote:

Vexx wrote:Opened up the right hand carb to unstick what was sticking.. now runs on both cylinders again :D 
Found a bit of foam sponge in the carb as well, under the diaphragm.. just how the fishcake did it get there??? :shock:

I've read somewhere recently when looking for reasons mine wouldn't start the little pre filter foam element that sits above the valve cover disintegrates and can end up in the carb. Mine had turned into a sticky gunk! I replaced it with a bit of cut up dishwashing sponge

I'm not quite sure how the sub-air filter could manage to find its way into the carbs, unless a bit of sponge fell out of it and got sucked in - even then it would get stuck in the air filter!

The only way it could get there would be via the breather hoses and this seems a bit far fetched to me.... but who knows.

At least you found it and managed to fix the problem...

Not got a clue mate. It was someone else's post. Sure it was on here somewhere. I'm not sure what is plumbed to what☺

Fitted fork gaiters. Easy enough job-fairing off (mines the s-model), wheel off, mudguard off, brake caliper off, drop the fork legs out, bit of a clean, slide the gaiters over then put it all back as it was. Only snag i ran into was the horn-in its standard position it rubbed on the gaiters and stopped them compressing properly, so after a bit of head scratching I managed to relocate it on the back of the instrument panel.






Relocated horn

Carbs off, new jets and float valve needles in, good clean out of all the crap that was in there. Idle screws were all over the place - right hand one almost fully in, left hand one stuck about three turns out. Freed it up and reset to one and a half each. Put everything back together and re-balanced the carbs. Running much more evenly now.

False neutral-ed coming down from 4th to 3rd and went round a corner with no power.
It was 'orrible, my least favourite corner as well; downhill, off camber, long tight right-hander with gravel at the edge.

I got another one... Yup, I got another cb500 for donor parts since my current cb500 as it'll be needing a few expensive parts soonish front forks, discs and every spare part I'll ever need, so I'm hoping it'll temporally save myself some money... that is until I've got some sort of job then I can start restoring the new donor bike.

As the title says, I - and sixty other people - joined at our driving instructor's business, from where we went on a collective tour round the landscape of middle Jutland. We visited the lake area around Silkeborg, had coffee and then went on to visit his home address, where the barbecue was lit.

This is becoming a tradition and ever more people join in. A nice day out - not a cloud in sight all day - where you get to meet people from all walks of life and see the machinery they own.

Now it's my turn to call you a lucky bastard, I guess...I rode to work this morning at 4° centigrade...

I replaced the Led indicators with normal bulb ones and they're so much brighter! At last I fitted a pannier rack with the addition of having to go to four shops for the bullet connectors that I didn't end up using and... another three shops for two m8-60 bolts. 

It seems your right bag (left in the image) is differently set than the right one. That config is great. You can go dinner with the lady, and save helmets and jackets in a safe place!

Fitted new mirrors.  Fingers crossed these are better than the poxy pattern ones that came with the bike.

I put my GoPro on my swingingarm and ground away my hero blobs, because I'm an idiot.

Hahahaha awesome. 

Today I looked under my fork gaiters to find that both seals have gone. Never had to do this in 145,000 miles on my previous CB so I have no experience of doing it. Luckily I have all the parts as I bought them just before deciding to retire my previous bike. 

Got the forks off. Got the springs and damper rods out. Spent half an hour trying to separate the stanchions from the legs. Gave up and decided to wuss out and take them to the garage tomorrow. I don't have a blowtorch or anything. I'm just going to get him to take the old seals and bushes out, the rest I'm doing myself. I'm worried about getting the new bushes in but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Keep the old seals and bushes to use as drifts.

Good tip, will do. 

Tomorrow I'll post a photo of what the old dust seals look like. One of them is all bubbled and rust coloured - the spring inside has presumably rusted and basically started destroying the seal. 

The bike only had 13k when I got it a year ago. It has 37k on it now and I've changed the fork oil once, about a month ago, but I reckon the oil in there was the original, 17 year-old soup. I think the new oil has washed away some of the corroded sh*te and allowed the seals to start leaking. It'll be a very satisfying job to finish.

yea and start off afresh again

'xactly.

Passed MOT no advisories although did have to adjust the headlight slightly. The tester said my bike was an 'excellent bike' although maybe he says that to everyone 

When I bought the bike last year I got the bike MOT'd the same day and rear wheel alignment was an advisory. I checked it out and the little guides were matching either side but the was wheel blatantly mis-aligned. I know those guides are never 100% but I'm quite surprised just how far out they are on this bike. This morning I corrected the tension in the chain before the test and had a hard time getting the wheel straight again because I can't use those guides. I tried the method of measuring from the axle to the swing arm pivot but is a bit difficult on this bike due to exhaust in the way etc. Waiting out side the test centre and looking at the back of my bike I'm still not convinced its dead straight although it never got picked up. I asked the MOT guy about it and he told me not to worry because he gets '3 year old BMW's that are impossible to have correct wheel alignment because of the way they are made' 

Either way I'm going to have a go at this guys method in a minute just to put my mind at rest:
http://www.pegmonkey.com/node/1057

I'm quite sure that 'excellent bike' comment is reserved for CB500s. With all other bikes it would either be stating the obvious or untrue.   

made a radiator guard.... nothing wrong with the old one just didn't think the plastic suited the bike and felt that the offerings at mikes grilles didn't look all that and were overpriced - I'm pretty sure I only paid £50 for a Beowulf stainless one for the old CBF so got some R&G universal stuff and some lockwire for £25 delivered at got to work using the old rad to mock up on with help from my father in law.

Looks lovely, Dan. I never liked the crappy plastic original one which is why I made my own one, too.