Honda CB550 CB550F CB550F2 CB550-F2 CB550 SuperSport CB550 Super Sport Honda SOHC

The ongoing story of the rebuilding of a 1977 Honda CB550 F2                                          by  Tom McQuiggan

 
26th Nov 2005. Although this isn't gonna be an award winning rebuild, I am going to do the best I can.  Because of work commitments, I can only work at weekends, so progress is not going to be swift. Wherever possible, I'm going to keep the bike original and will do my best to use NOS replacement parts (good old Ebay). If I do change any parts to non-standard specs, I will keep hold of the old parts so that the bike can always be converted back. As a time-served mechanic from the 70's, I don't expect to come across anything that I can't sort out, especially with the help of Haynes and Clymer!
 

Background Information

I became interested in bikes in the early 70's when my cousin (and lifelong friend) Pete bought one. He was into Japanese triples and in particular, Kawasakis. I was immediately converted from my previous passion (Ford Cortina's) and grew more and more interested in two wheels. Just around the corner from where I lived was a Honda dealer called Charlie Robinsons and it was there that I first experienced true love!
 

Almost every day I stood at their window and gazed in wonderment at the red Honda 400/4 in the window. I used to find any excuse possible to go inside and talk to the shop owners so that I could be closer to this amazing dream machine. Needless to say, I was absolutely skint! I couldn't afford more than 5 Woodbines at the time, so the 400/4 remained a dream for a  l-o-n-g  time. What the 400/4 did though, is "forge" me into a Honda man and although I played with other makes over the years, I've always remained attracted to the Honda range. I always remember Charlie Robinson telling me that there was no need for anything bigger than a 400 on UK roads. And I believed him!
 

Anyway, it will come as no great surprise to learn that the very first bike I owned was a Honda. I bought this off my cousin Pete in 1976. I can't for the life of me remember how he came across it (seeing as he was a firm Kwak man). It was a blue CB250G5.  In my eagerness to get it home that night, I was foolish enough to ride it on thick snow. It wasn't long before I was riding sideways, sliding along the compacted snow with the side-panels making more road contact than the tyres! This was repeated a number of times throughout the 3 mile journey.   After that, I had another G5. Remember "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind"? Well that was the paint job on the tank. It looked superb! Of course the bike was more like "Close encounters of the turd kind", but it looked the part and as a biking newbie, it was pretty damned impressive as far as I was concerned.


The G5 was used for jaunts to the pub and back and Sunday trips to Rivington Barn. Not a bad introduction to the world of bikes I suppose, but hardly life-changing! Well, actually, it nearly did change my life, because one night whilst on my way to the "Castle" pub in Bolton, I was thrown off the bike and into the path of oncoming traffic.  As I slid across the road toward a bus in slow motion, I remember hearing my sister screaming (she was riding pillion on her boyfriend's bike). It all seemed very calm and serene from my end despite having the potential for being the end of my life. Luckily, nobody squashed me and when time returned to its normal speed, I stood up and found that a group of bikers had pulled up and were working on my bike. Apparently, the chain had come off the sprocket and that's what had caused the crash. They refitted the chain, tensioned it and checked me out. Then they escorted me to the Castle pub and proceeded to buy me beer! Wow!! I realised there and then, that the bike-community were a special breed and that I would always want to be connected someway.

I should point out (for those who don't know) that back in the 70's, drinking and driving was just as illegal as it is today, but it wasn't the social crime that it is now. It almost seemed normal to "have a few pints" and then ride carefully home. One night, I got pulled up by the bobbies and when asked if I'd been drinking, I admitted that I had. They told me to keep things at a slow pace and be careful. They gave me a producer and let me go.  Of course things are (quite rightly) totally different now. I now never drink and drive. Never!! Drink-driving kills people, so don't do it.
 
Later on in the year, Pete and I decided it would be a good thing to go see the TT Races in the Isle Of Man. Pete was inbetween bikes at the time, but he somehow managed to scrounge a Suzuki GT250 off someone for the week. His opinion of Suzuki bikes wasn't particularly high, but when you don't have a choice, you can't be too fussy. Anyway, we threw some scruffy clothes together, blagged a tent and set off to Liverpool for the ferry. We had a great time and I remember that a Pint of "Onchan" beer cost me 25 pence. Cool!  I could get very merry on £2.

The summer of '76 was awesome and the days were filled with warmth and sunshine. During the daytime, we spent most of the time watching the races and moving from pub to pub, drooling over beautiful bikes and gorgeous girls. Needless to say, none of them drooled back at us.  Life was great though! Pete laughed his socks off when I purposely damaged my silencer in a bid to make the boring G5 sound a bit more aggressive.  A strong screwdriver through the end of the baffle produced the desired effect and I scooted around the island thinking I was some big Ducati rider.
 
After the G5, there was a period where I moved back to cars until 1980, when I bought a brand new Black CB250 Super Dream. It cost me £800 and I purchased it from Ken's Motorcycles on the Westgate Rd in Newcastle. I happened to be working up there for a few months. I know it's nothing of a bike now, but back then I thought it was the dog's dangly bits. I used it to commute between Newcastle and Bolton and it never let me down once. Yeah, sure, it was relatively slow, but it was all that I could afford at the time. Maybe I should have bought something bigger and secondhand, but the attraction of having something absolutely brand new was too great. I kept that bike for about 2 years and then it was wife and kids time - and cars again.
 
In the mid 80's I started working as a car salesman and now and again I would take a bike in part-exchange! If it was something decent, I would "write it down" to an almost worthless value and then buy it! That's how I came across the next two bikes. The first one was the realisation of all my dreams up to that date - a 400/4.
 
It was a very early 75 model and was pretty damned rough looking. Hell, it was a shed! At the time I didn't have much spare cash so I knew that I wouldn't be able to restore it to anything like its former glory, so I just used it as a bit of weekend fun. It had non-standard handle-bars that played havoc with my wrists and a lousy 4-into-1 exhaust made my Mr Rusty.  The shocks were shocked and the seat had more sponge on the outside than the inside. It was a bit of a disappointment and a real anti-climax considering how I'd doted on these things for around 10 years! I got shut of it to avoid further disillusion.
 
Next one to come my way was a Suzuki GT750 water cooled triple. Yes, the kettle! I remember picking this up from somewhere near Accrington. I'd never ridden anything this big before and I was more than a little nervous. And rightly so! After setting off, I soon came to realise that big, hefty things travelling at high speed, don't like to stop! This beast had twin disc-brakes on the front wheel but they just didn't do anything!! Within a few miles though, I was comfortable with the kettle and started to enjoy the power which was on tap. As long as I allowed safe braking distances, it was fun! I knew straight away that I would be keeping this one for a while.

I stripped the bike down and sent the tank and panels off to the bodyshop to be painted in a Porsche red. The frame was in good order and just needed touching up around some of the weld points. The engine shone like a new pin after a bit of Solvol-Autosol treatment and so too did the rest of the chrome. When the tank and panels came back, I fitted new decals, a single-seat and stood back to enjoy the great looks of this new toy.
 
When I eventually sold the GT750, I was in a position to buy something else. I spotted what was claimed to be a "mint" 400/4 in a magazine. It was quite cheap and so I rang the guy and arranged to meet him. When I got there, I found that the bike really was mint and he was also quite receptive to further negotiation. I can't remember how much I paid, but it really wasn't a lot and I drove home on my dream machine - at last!
 
I used to go to Rivington every Sunday on this bike to proudly display it. To be honest, it never really prompted a great deal of interest at the time - it just wasn't special enough for most riders. Everyone seemed to have lost interest in 70's style bikes, preferring instead to cover their rides in fibreglass fairings, racing decals and huge tyres and silencers.  I didn't care though. This was a beautiful bike and I was the proud owner of it. If it didn't please many other people, it certainly pleased me!

Next up was a Kawasaki. I was working in Chorley at the time and I had to take a used car to the local MOT station. While I was waiting for the test to be completed, I mooched around their workshop and noticed a Kawasaki rear lamp sticking out from under a tarpaulin. I asked someone who's the bike was and he said it was his. He walked over and dragged the tarp off the bike to reveal the most dreadful looking thing you've seen in your life!! It was the dirtiest, blackest, most minging thing I'd ever laid eyes on. I asked him how many miles it had done and I thought he said 18 thousand. He told me it was 100% original and was for sale. He only wanted £100 so when I got back to work I started to think that it had to be worth a ton even if it was only to break up and sell for parts. I returned to the testing station and gave him his money. He said he'd get the bike dropped off later that day.

Sure enough, a couple of hours later, the bike arrived on a small trailer and I pushed it over to the wash-bay. I pulled out the steam-cleaner from the workshop and started to blast the ugly  beast! WOW!!!! Hold on a minute! This wasn't an ugly duckling - it was a beautiful green KH250 swan!  It turns out that all this black horrible stuff was a sort of protective grease. Underneath it was probably the finest condition used bike I'd ever seen. It was truly immaculate! And those 18 thousand miles were, in fact, 8 thousand!

I put the battery on charge and just before the day ended, I gave the kick-start a prod. Rack-a tang-tang-tang-tang! It bloody started!! It ran fine! It was sweet as a 2-stroke nut! Wahoo!! Two-strokes aren't my thing, but I must admit that I had a lot of fun on this bike. It was great to ride and mighty fine to look at. Classic Japanese styling.
 
After my fun with the Kwak ended, my work kept me away from bikes for quite some time and although I always hankered for another, the wife always put up barriers. Recently though, I tested the waters and got hardly any resistance, so I decided to look for something cheap and cheerful. Initially I thought that another 400/4 would be good, but in my search I came across a CB550/4 and thought "Hmmmm".  Not long after, the bike was sat in my garage and this is where this story really starts.

 
Website in memory of my Dad and my Son, both named Michael McQuiggan.


 
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Honda Literature showing the F1 model.