Honda CB500 K1 1972

Back in the nineties I used to own a couple of SOHC Honda bikes from the seventies. All sold but still in my mind I started looking for a nice CB project to help me through the dark winter evenings. Browsing internet for a Honda CB I came across a 1972 Honda CB500 K1.

Honda CB500 Four advertisement

Honda CB500K1 1972

Honda CB500 K1 1972

Honda CB500 Four

The bike had been sitting in a shed for well over ten years and the engine was stuck from doing nothing for all those years. It came with a 4in1 exhaust and a poor quality custom brushed on paintjob but besides that it was almost a 100% stock original bike.

I've always liked the early CB500 bikes and as I was looking for a winter project I decided to pick up the bike as it was only a 1200 km drive (one way). It was a fun roadtrip with my bestie Batty over long flat roads across the middle of nowhere. No signs of life except for kangaroos, emus and speeding roadtrains.

The bike was as advertised and came with some original spare parts. Another nice surprise was the original owners manual still sitting in the seat and the stock airbox filter and toolkit tray were still there.

Honda CB500K1 owners manual

Honda CB500K1 owners manual

Pick up Honda CB500K1 with my Mitsubishi van

Back home I started cleaning the bike, there was a thick layer of greasy dust all over the bike.

Honda CB500 waiting for some TLC

Honda CB500K1

After changing the oil, oilfilter and adjusting the tappets and ignition timing I tried to start the bike. It made some pops but would only run for a sec after spraying starter fluid in the original airfilter box. When I inspected the leaky fueltap I found out it was almost completely blocked with dirt and tiny rust particles.

So I quickly made an external fueltank from a big syringe :)

 

Syringe fuel tank :)

Auxillary seringe tank

After some more kickstarting (the way too small battery in the bike was almost flat) the old Honda CB500 came back to life.  

                                                                   Honda CB500 K1 running

 

It probably needs a good carb clean and synchronising and some new sparkplugs but I was really stoked with the fairly easy but big progress.

Honda CB500K1 1972

 

Now I know everything is working it's time for some resto :)