honda305.com Forum

I've reassembled the bike, photo attached. Repainted the fenders and side covers with Dupli-color spray bomb paint and a few coats of clear top coat. I think it looks pretty good, certainly better than before.

Started up and ran fine, no different than before I tore it down which is a great relief. It shifts through all the gears nicely. I GREATLY enjoy the new gearing afforded by X-ing the gears. Second gear is much better, and I can now cruise along in third gear on city streets which before had me lugging a bit in third or revving higher than comfortable in second.

The only problem I have now is I'm having clutch troubles. I adjusted the clutch in accordance with accepted procedures before firing it up, and when I dropped it into first gear there was immediate grab as if I didn't have enough play. So I took out the small amount of slack at the adjusting bolt and it seemed to give a little play, but still a little grab is present. Going for a test run to see if getting everything up to heat would cause a change, I found that the clutch would slip a little under heavy acceleration. So I have a perplexing combination of too much slack and not enough slack in the clutch cable at the same time...? Perhaps I've installed something wrong, I may pop off both covers and reassemble the clutch components on each side and see if that improves things.

Anyone have advice about something I should look for?

Call me. .........lm

Loudo wrote:I've reassembled the bike, photo attached. Repainted the fenders and side covers with Dupli-color spray bomb paint and a few coats of clear top coat. I think it looks pretty good, certainly better than before.

Started up and ran fine, no different than before I tore it down which is a great relief. It shifts through all the gears nicely. I GREATLY enjoy the new gearing afforded by X-ing the gears. Second gear is much better, and I can now cruise along in third gear on city streets which before had me lugging a bit in third or revving higher than comfortable in second.

The only problem I have now is I'm having clutch troubles. I adjusted the clutch in accordance with accepted procedures before firing it up, and when I dropped it into first gear there was immediate grab as if I didn't have enough play. So I took out the small amount of slack at the adjusting bolt and it seemed to give a little play, but still a little grab is present. Going for a test run to see if getting everything up to heat would cause a change, I found that the clutch would slip a little under heavy acceleration. So I have a perplexing combination of too much slack and not enough slack in the clutch cable at the same time...? Perhaps I've installed something wrong, I may pop off both covers and reassemble the clutch components on each side and see if that improves things.

Anyone have advice about something I should look for?

Well, with Loud Mouse's kind offer to talk me through my clutch issue in my hip pocket I decided to spend a little more time on it before I decided it was something I couldn't fix. I know it's not the clutch itself...I bought it from LM and it's been working great! So I pulled off both side cases and removed the clutch plates. I didn't see anything amiss....ball bearing was in the clutch lifter thread, clutch rod was in correctly (I had started fantasizing about things I may have installed incorrectly as sometimes happens when it's not right) but I noted that my clutch plates were fairly sticky as if I had coated them with corn syrup before reinstalling. So I carefully cleaned them all and spread fresh 30w on them and reinstalled. Buttoned the engine back up, adjusted the clutch and it worked better. Went on a 50 mile ride Sunday, everything was working great. I figure that shortcomings observed on a short driveway cruise are perhaps not indicative of a problem, one needs to get everything up to heat real good and then see what's going on.

I continue to really enjoy the modified gearing that X-ing the gears created. I would highly recommend it to anyone who's into their transmission for gear work or otherwise. I also note that it seems second gear wears out soonest on these bikes, X-ing the gears is a way to rotate the gears around a little and perhaps get more life out of a transmission before new gears need to be purchased.

I bought a new speedo cable from Retrobikes but couldn't get it to thread onto the box at the hub correctly. If I screwed it on a couple of threads, something was binding and the mechanism wouldn't turn. I ended up putting the new outer cable aside, pulled the inner cable out and ran it up the original housing to the speedo. Seems to work fine. All I really needed was the inner cable anyway.

Loudo wrote:I continue to really enjoy the modified gearing that X-ing the gears created. I would highly recommend it to anyone who's into their transmission for gear work or otherwise.

That's good news and music to my ears, Neil. It's my intention to do the operation once I drop my powertrain; I have the same 'traffic speed' problem, except mine seems to be more a case of lugging in second or uncomfortably revving in first! I'm looking forward to getting in there with my new FASTFRED cotters too! And re-bearinging to shut the grinding noise up..... It's not that bad, just bloody irritating.

I'm going to have my transmission all apart here with in the week. maybe I should give this a go.