What the hell is Speed Buggy?  My son's naming convention at work again.  There's a guy on the SOHC4 list who moved to Florida from South Lyon, MI.  He had to get rid of some bikes.  Sold 2 to another SOHC4 member in Ann Arbor.  He had one left-a CB500 four.  I picked it up for $150.  It's not roadworthy, but it's close.  God bless my wife.  John and I went to pick it up, and on the way back he named it Speed Buggy.  He's been watching some old cartoons on Boomerang.  I'm glad he didn't want to name it Scooby Doo.

Speed Buggy's not stock.  He's got longer front forks, one tube is bent.  He has a big king/queen seat that looks in decent shape.  He has chopped exhaust pipes that should be pretty loud.  He's missing a few things though, like an operating front brake.  All the parts are there, they just don't work.  I have some experience in this area, thanks to Bergie. 

Speed Buggy's also missing a key.  Brock, his previous owner, had him for about 6 months.  Before Brock, Speed Buggy sat in a barn for 20 years.  The owner lost the key.  Brock had him running by picking the lock to the seat to get at the battery terminals, and picking the ignition lock to get it into the Run position.  While he had the seat open, Brock replaced the gas tank and fuel lines.  He thinks that he routed the new fuel lines wrong, because now the throttle slides are stuck.  I ordered new keys from hondakeys.com.  Once they come I'll pull the tank, reroute the lines, hook up a battery, and fire up Speed Buggy.  Maybe take him for a quick ride down the street, depending on how bad the fork problem is. 

I have a lead on new fork tubes from yet another SOHC4 member.  I'm expecting to buy them from him in the next week.  I can take the front brake apart without any more parts, so that's what I'll start on first.

Early September.  Got the brake torn apart, waiting for a rebuild kit.  It looks like everything in the master cylinder is the same size as the 750 kit.  Keys came, and they work.  I opened up the seat, pulled the air filter.  I'm looking for a replacement, but in the mean time I'll clean this one up.  Pulled the tank, but didn't get a good look at the throttle problem yet.  Forks are on order, should be here in a week or so.

I can't see what's binding the slides, so I took the carbs off.  Pulled the airbox, seat, tank, and throttle cables.  Karl came over & helped me work them off the bike.  Once I got them off, the moved.  I jokingly said I should put them back on right now.  Karl says that since I have them off I should at least clean them up.  He's right.  I take them all apart.  All apart.  Except for the needle jet assembly, they are dismantled.  I broke one of the linkage arms on the carb rail, but an SOHC4 member sent me a replacement free of charge.  It's mid-September, and except for that carb rail I think I have everything I need to put Speed Buggy back on the road.  The throttle cables are soaking in oil.  The carbs are dismantled, ready for cleaning.  Only found one mouse nest, with just a few turds in carb #2.  I'm going to use pod air filters instead of the stick airbox.  Got those, and 120 main jets.  New forks are in a box in the garage.  The lowers don't look the same as what's on the bike, so I think I'll take Speed Buggy's lowers off, put them on the new forks, then reinstall.  The new fork seals look good, so I dont' think I'll have to change them.  What I need to do next here is jack him up and take those forks off.  Once I do that, though, he's frozen in position until I get them reassembled.  Scary!

Today's October 30.  One day before Halloween.  Scary is right!  I did jack him up & park him on jack stands.  Took off the brake, wheel, and fender.  The new fork lowers definitely don't match the existing fork lowers.  Between the last paragraph and now I took the old forks off of the bike.  I couldn't grasp them tight enough to get all of the allen bolts and screws on top out, so I had to fabricate a wooden clamping system.  It's a piece of plywood with a 2x4 at one end, then two pieces of plywood coming off the 2x4 like diving boards.  I put the fork lower under one piece, the fork upper under another, and use C clamps to squeeze each one.  This worked good for half of my bolts.  The new forks came apart pretty easily.  The old ones were a problem.  On top of that, the new forks have an indented 17mm allen head bolt.  I tried to use a 17mm nut & bold combination to get the bold out, bu that didn't fly.  Fortunately, Harbor Freight had a set of allen sockets that included a 17mm size for $10 less than I found just the one on the Internet.  HARBOR FREIGHT IS AMAZING.  I still had one lower allen head and one upper 22 mm head that were stuck.  To get these out, I mounted them both back in Speed Buggy's triple tree and hosed them down with Liquid Wrench.  The 22 mm upper came loose.  The 17mm lower did not, so I broke out the drill and an EZ Out.  Just like on TV, it came apart.  So now I have the uppers and lowers from both sets of forks apart.  I should be able to get them together and mounted on the bike in a couple of hours.  Then I can roll him out of the way!

The same day I wrote the previous paragraph, I came home and reassembled the forks.  New uppers, old lowers.  They went together great.  Mounted them on the triple tree, remounted the handlebars, then put the wheel on.  I did it!  Swapped out the forks!  He's still on jack stands, but he'll roll.

Halloween Day, October 31.  I came home from work early.  Beautiful day.  Raked leaves out of the back yard.  Jacked him up, kicked the stands out, and lowered him back down.  He still sits funny on the kickstand, but he rolls straight and true.