When I replaced the handlebars I broke the throttle sleeve. Makes for some interesting deceleration.

But now I’ve got a new one!

Of course it doesn’t match the other one, but we’re on our way.

Aluminum foil.

That’s all it takes.

Ball some up and scrub your chrome.

It won’t get rid off the pits – if you have any. But it will really pull off the rust.

I did my pipes and fenders.  They look significantly better.

How did I spend my vacation?

By cutting off a handlebar.

I decided that I would put the bars on the CB yesterday. It was then that I discovered the little treat Honda had hidden for me.

The cables are inside the handlebars.

Not only that. Something small, with a penchant for grass, has been living inside them for the last 33 years.

It took me two hours on Sunday to get the left side cables out, but by God, with a lot of sweat, pulling, cursing and WD40, I did it. Afterwards I put everything back together so that I could tackle the throttle today, Monday, the first day of my vacation.

Here’s how it went

8:00 AM – Pour coffee. Stroll over to CB200.

8:30 – Label all wires inside the headlight. Smile at forethought. Sip coffee.

8:45- Begin unplugging wires in headlight. Pause. Sip Coffee.

8:46 – Break first bullet connector. Curse. Go get more coffee.

8:55 – Decide it’s fixable and move on.

9:00 – Unhook throttle and starter.

9:05 – Begin pulling

9:15 – Pause. Drink Coffee. Resume Pulling.

9:30 – Spray in WD40. Curse. Continue Pulling.

11:00 – Still pulling. Cursing Honda and everything built in 1974.

11:30 – Throw down coffee. Get Hacksaw.

11:32 – Begin cutting.

And so it went, until I got this result.

11:32-1:59- Cut, curse, break starter, go to store, fix starter, rewire bullet connector, and then finally!

2:00pm – Take picture of new bars on bike.

The CB is getting more of a nice euro look now.

I think the eurobars work – a little more aggressive and they still fit nicely with the original fenders and seat.

If I go cafe later, all that stuff’s getting stripped off.

I found this little trick from Chris Speakman on the Honda Twins group

Actuall Fuel height can be seen , screw a plastic pipe into
the float bowl drain plug hole , around 1/4 inch below the float bowl
gasket should be ah right , see the carb pictures on my bike web page
http://www.geocitie s.com/teleman218 / make sure idle jets are clear , not partially blocked .

The pic is about halfway down the page.

Ah, me.

What do you do with acceleration hesitation?

When I got my 1974 Honda CB200, it would totally bog down with the
throttle wide open, but would accelerate nicely in a sweet spot about a quarter open.

After 5000 rpm it would start hesitating and stumbling. I could never get it through
the power band.

I cleaned the carbs, set the floats to 21mm and turned the airscrew 1.25 turns out. The bike runs a little stronger with better response, but I still get serious hesitation and stumbling:
1) under heavy acceleration, when the throttle is wide open
2) after about 7000 rpm

It seems that it’s getting too much fuel, but with the carbs set to their spec, what else can I do?

I’d appreciate your thoughts!

CM/CB200

Float Setting: 21mm (0.82″)

Air Screw Setting: 1.25 (turns out)

Spark Plug: D8HS (NGK)/X24FS

Spark Plug Gap:   0.6-0.7mm (0.024″-0.028″)

Point Gap: 0.3-0.4mm (0.012″-0.016″)

Intake Valve Clearance: 0.05mm (0.002″)

Exhaust Valve Clearance: 0.05mm (0.002″)

What’s the one thing that you must not do when you clean up a 1974 Honda CB200?

Don’t forget your camera!

I forgot my camera and totally missed out on documenting the cleanup job we did on the cb200 last night.

Duh!

I’ll do my best to recount the event.

The little CB200 has a two main problems that we set out to work on last night.

1) loss of power under heavy acceleration. At about 6000 rpm the bike sputters, coughs and pretty much just says “no, thanks.” Move the throttle to about .25 open and you get a nice sweet spot. My guess is that we’re getting way too rich a mixture.

2) no braking power on the front disc brakes

This is what we’re doing to give the CB200 a once over -

1) remove the rust from the tank. The bike sat for at least a year before I got it and, from what I hear, sat quite a bit for 3 owners over the last 5 years. Who knows what happened before then. The end result? Lot’s of rust in the tank. I spoke to the person who owned it in 1991 and she said that rust in the tank always clogged up the carbs. We’ll fix that.

2) change the petcock. The current petcock is shot and the copper tubes that sit inside the tank are nearly pinched shut. There’s no longer a filter in the fuel filter and the valve keeps getting clogged with junk.

3) clean those carbs

4) eliminate the airbox and replace with something that will let the cb200 breathe!

So first things first.

Coby and I pulled off the tank and dumped the fuel into some gallon jugs for later
Next we plugged the petcock hole with the old petcock and some bicycle inner tubing to keep the seal tight. Since I’m replacing the petcock I’m not so worried about the acid from the tank cleaner.

After filling the tank up with hot water, soap and some bolts we got our exercise in for the day by agitating the tank for about 15 minutes.

We flushed the soapy water out and applied Step A of the Kreem I bought over at TJ’s Cycles.

Nasty stuff – Pure acid designed to eat the rust off the inside of the tank.

But it works.

After an hour we could see that the rust was being eaten away.

You have to let Kreem sit over night so we got cracking on the those carbs.

And I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow!