Bought a Bros 400 last week for my school. They are a pretty good bike for a school, as they are reasonably easy to ride and don't do too great a damage when they fall over. However they seem to be tarred with the same brush as all the other Hondas I've had the joy (not!) of working on. The list is short but they have all given me the shits one way or another.
I need to fit new fork seals so tonight I tried in vain to diassemble the forks. Got one apart (miracle) but the other is a complete mo-fo. (by design.) Most or all of the bikes I have worked on in the past have a bolt-head shaped recess on the inner top recess of the damping rod. The Honda is smooth so there is nothing to grip on should the rod turn when you try and get the allen bolt out of the lower fork leg. I tried with the springs and spacers and extra spacers installed to hold the rod, and by miracle I was able to get one out. I also applied liberal amounts of INOX to loosen up things a bit- the allen bolts wouldn't budge an inch. Maybe they have been in there 20 years though. I have a couple of rods with bolts welded on either end to hold damping rods and by miracle the weld of one jammed into the damping rod of one leg held it enough to disassemble. That trick doesn't work with the other leg. I've left INOX in overnight and I'm buggered if I know how otherwise to disassemble them. Maybe an rattle gun on the allen bolt wouyld work. i don't have any suitable attachments.
Anyway other problems I have had working on Hondas in the past include my Spada- radiator has to come out to fit front spark plug, CB400- radiator has to come out to remove valve cover (so does Spada) and the thing must have been assembled by child labour- everything is so small it is a bitch to work on. The Bros battery won't come out easily because some excess thread of the bolt that holds on the rear master cylinder is in the way. The CB400 has a neat battery holder but you cannot get at the battery terminals. I fitted a Powercommander to a mates VFR800- took over an hour to get the side fairing off to plug it in! Pip pins broke because they were brittle and hard to remove. What is wrong with a few screws instead? I'd hate to service the thing too- very complex.
All my Kwakas are a dream to work on comparitively. Even the ZZR is a piece of piss.
2 X ZRX1200R 4 X ER6N, GT550, 1988 ZX-10, 4 X GPZ250R, 4 X GPZ900R and GPZ750R Yeah I like Kawasakis.
Mate, you've obviously not had the pleasure of working on a VF500F. Dead simple, until you get the tank and airbox off.
Without a specific length 18mm socket (or the radiator out), the front spark plugs are inaccessible. Even then, cursing and skinned knuckles are the minimum result.
The carbs are easy to get off if you're not averse to using a bit of leverage. There's even a neat little nub on each head for you to put the head of a large screwdriver on. And a nice little frame brace right where the carbs need to go if you're using the aforementioned thoughtfully provided lever points. Clever people, these Honda engineers.
Now that we've managed to get the carbs off, it's time to have a look at the valve clearances, which don't like staying put for more than about 5000km. Small problem - how does one remove the valve covers? The front one's easy, because the radiator's been taken out to get to the spark plugs, and there's no carbs in the way any more. The rear? 2 options :-
1. Take the battery and tray out, disconnect the mass of wiring that lives in that particular (small) space and wiggle the cover around until it JUST squeezes through, taking some paint off the frame as it passes. It's doable with a bit (!) of patience.
2. Just remove the engine. 8 bolts and the thing's out. It's a bit of a pig to put back in, though.
If we decided on option 2, the next bit's easy - check clearances and adjust as necessary. Plenty of room with the donk on the floor, and the screw and locknut adjusters make things reasonably simple. Well, if you can manage to get the feeler gauges under the rockers. They're just a little lower than the top of the head, and about 5mm away from solid alloy. Option 1, on the other hand ...
There's no problem with the front bank because, as noted before, there's nothing left in the front of the bike to get in the way. Well, not much. OK, that stupid frame brace is in exactly the wrong spot for checking #4 intake clearance. But other than that it's not bad. The rear - if you've got fingers bigger than a 2 year old, you're gonna lose some blood.
Hmm. Cam chain's a bit sloppy. The spring on the tensioner's the prime suspect - typical Honda. There's a rubber boot over the spring that literally gets bathed in oil. Which makes it go hard over time. Which stops the tensioner working. Very clever. This is an engine out job, by the way. It's just possible to do the front one in the bike, but it's a LOT easier out. To get the tensioner out, we remove:-
1. Top cam chain guide and oil pipes (4 10mm bolts)
2. Cam chain tensioner bolts (4 12mm bolts - waaay down inside the head). Don't lose them or their washers into the engine, or you'll be pulling the whole engine down.
3. Easy, right? All done? Think again. Both cams need to come out next (8 10mm bolts along with 4 of the 8 HEAD BOLTS). Bear in mind that the tensioner is still under tension, as there's no way of releasing it until it's out of the head. Solution? Remove the camshaft sprockets. The rockers come out somewhere around here, too, but they're the only easy part of the job.
4. Now that the head's pretty much stripped and the cam chain is not under tension, the tensioner can be removed. Yes, that HUGE bit that comes out of the bowels of the motor is the tensioner. It's relatively easy from there to get rid of the sheathing off the spring. 9 times out of 10 the tensioner will actually work now. If not, just replace the spring.
Cool. That's one bank half way done. Now we've just got to put it back together. First, there are holes in the tensioner body and arm that one must line up and pin. Lovely, except that you have to remember that this is going waaaay down inside the engine and the pin needs to be removed to provide cam chain tension. Oh, and there's precious little room.
Anyway, we merrily assemble away until we get to the cam sprockets (ensuring that the cam chain guides are still sitting there. No, they're not held in by anything substantial. Yes, they move if you're not REALLY careful). Yes, they're different and yes, they're supposed to go a particular way. Only there are timing marks on both sides. We did remember to mark them with a dot of paint or something as they came off, didn't we?
OK, so the cam sprockets are on correctly. We hope. Time to tighten down the cams and time it. Err ... those timing marks look a bit off. Cam chain's within spec (yes, we DID check it for stretch when everything was apart). They're the same sprockets. Timing's 1/2 a tooth out on the intake cam, perfect on the exhaust. It was running pretty well except for the chain rattle. What to do? Answer - fudge it. Advanced is better than retarded, so shove it back together and pray. Miracles do happen, you know.
If the oil pipes aren't in place before the tensioner's released, they don't go in. Period. So they're put in next, which makes releasing the tensioner REALLY hard. They take up almost every last remaining bit of space. There's JUST enough room for a miniature pair of needle nose pliers. Hope you've got strong fingers, 'cos I skinned all mine getting the thing apart. The tensioner releases with a fair old BANG, hopefully not making one jump. You see, you REALLY don't want to lose that pin that's juuuust being held by the flimsy little pliers which in turn are juuuuuuust being held by your fingertips.
The rest of it's relatively easy until you remember that you're only half way through the job. i'll leave putting the engine back in for another time - I'm sick of the thing just talking about it!
you using a pneumatic rattlegun? seems the only effectiove way to do it as far as im aware.
Yup got it out this morning doind just that. Didn't have a 6mm allen socket. Cut an allen key then jammed it into a 6mm socket on a rattle gun.
I've heard that the sparkplugs on a Blackbird are hidden by a frame member. Hmmmmmmf
2 X ZRX1200R 4 X ER6N, GT550, 1988 ZX-10, 4 X GPZ250R, 4 X GPZ900R and GPZ750R Yeah I like Kawasakis.
My Hornet makes it mandatory to pour oil over the headers when you are changing the filter by fortuitous placement of the pipes. Unless of course you are Mr Origami with a length of aluminium foil (you pick up good tips on user forums) .
Also, unlike Kawasaki they HAVE to put the downpipes directly over the filter so you need a new filter socket to remove it. At least Kawasaki route the middle two pipes sideways so you can pull the filter straight off, and not drop the bugger and pour oil all over the headers...again .
I've left INOX in overnight and I'm buggered if I know how otherwise to disassemble them. Maybe an rattle gun on the allen bolt wouyld work. i don't have any suitable attachments.
Yeah I like Kawasakis.
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