Re: '81 CB750F trying to get it road ready.

Posted by Chicago Ted on
URL: http://vintage-and-classic-hondas.81.s1.nabble.com/81-CB750F-trying-to-get-it-road-ready-tp4042282p4045149.html

I hope I did not let all you fine people down, but I did end up taking my bike to the shop. The poor girl died on me while I was out at the movies, pouring fuel all over the parking garage. I was sorta flustered and just gave up. After waiting about 2 months, they finally told me that the bike was ready to go, and I went to pick it up. It runs far better now. It starts and idles just fine. I also installed a new rear master cylinder, petcock, and choke cable.

However, all is not well in paradise. I took my bike out for a ride this weekend. I was following some friends. When we pulled off to rest for a minute, we went over a very dramatic speed bump. I heard something knock, but I figured it was my suspension. After that though, the bike started to run with difficulty. It starts and idles just fine, but when I get it above 3k rpm, it starts to lose out on much of its power. It accelerates very slowly, but sometimes I will get a popping, gurgling sound out of the exhaust and I will feel a short burst of power. My friends behind me also told me that there was a lot of smoke coming out of my right exhaust.

Cut to today, I went to investigate it further. I thought it kinda sounded like a spark plug issue, so I pulled each of them, inspected and cleaned them, then put them back. There was no difference. A lot of white smoke was coming out of the right exhaust, and I could see some leaking out around the #4 cylinder, where the exhaust meets it. From some brief research, this sounds like it could be the result of a blown head gasket. What do you all think? I have always thought of a bad head gasket as one of those repairs that make you want to seriously consider scrapping the vehicle, but I just got this thing out of the shop, so I would really like to avoid doing that. How hard is it to replace a head gasket, if this is the case? Note, I don't have access to a shop, nor special tools like a torque wrench or compression gauges. I am willing to take it into the shop again if necessary, but if this repair is going to cost $1000+, I would consider putting it off for a while.

I appreciate your help to get me rolling gang.