Tonight I was finally forced to clear the memory of this camera I borrowed (finally found mine buried on my desk) and when sifting through the photos I came across a few I thought you guys (and gals) might like. These are of some "light maintenance" that I preformed a month or two ago on my 450. If you were ever curious what the inside of a 450 motor looks like wonder no more!
http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/5b1214f349a43f72966998dcc2a769a46g.jpg Looks so empty doesn't it? I decided to preform this procedure because I had noticed I'd been loosing oil at an increased rate. I had lost a full quart (or whatever the full length of the dipstick marking means) in about 300 miles. What's worse is the leak was coming from the edge between the lower and upper crankcase and dumping oil right onto my back tire. Though I hadn't felt anything squirrley I really didn't feel comfortable riding it this way and I had the next two days off so seeing little choice I dug in. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/095d5a9ba47eec92f53ba916905173166g.jpg The problem became redily apparent as soon as I got the motor out. The two halves are sealed by Honda's version of RTV and the years had given it more in common with rock than rubber. Heh it's still got the factory grease pencil numbers on the cases, I didn't notice that when I took this picture. The extraction itself was surprisingly easy and the motor started flying apart as well. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/d1151a6045434e0f9c010d051737b87b6g.jpg A slight snag was removing the clutch basket which requires a single use tool from the dealer for God knows how much. I just ground an old wrench til it fit then turned it with a crescent wrench and a piece of pipe. Someone else in the group has ground a better tool out of black iron pipe. The big problem I ran into is that to separate the two case halves nearly every component under the side covers must be removed. This includes the stator which resides under the flywheel and since I didn't have a puller I called it a night and stopped here. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/c253a47a2b60de4ceaa02c0c9f5fdcbf6g.jpg Next morning I called around and found a little hole in the wall bike shop that carried the required tool. In the photo you can see my meticulous and well documented parts layout carefully designed so that nothing is misplaced during reassembly :) Yeah I'm not sure how it still runs either. You can also see another tool I made (angle iron with a sprocket bolted to it) to hold the transmission shaft in place to remove the clutch basket. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/64772ea1ac46090c416e3ffdd40f55396g.jpg A quick turn of the wrench, three screws and a little prying later and POP! Not bad, little gunk on the pickup screen but nothing serious. Those two orings are the oil passages two the oil filter cradle in the lower case. The aluminum casting just south of that is where the oil pump bolts up. It's a little hard to see but where as there is still RTV on the side closest to the camera it's been mostly blown away back by the counter-shaft. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/9304d48f6bada601cefa5e875b2860d26g.jpg http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/a82ffcf10704a6e638a26deae1a606076g.jpg After spending an hour playing with the transmission (those things are so cool) I cleaned everything off and applied a thin layer of RTV to every machined surface along the rim. It's important to make the layer as thin as possible otherwise small beads or RTV can end up clogging the pickup screen or worse... I was also careful to reapply RTV to the transmission out and flywheel seals into the cases. http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/fa94c8eb371f34e5b445ce28f6f767ae6g.jpg Reassembly went smoothly and this picture was taken about 8pm. About 10 minutes later I go to pop it into neutral to reinstall the chain and it won't get out of first. With a heavy heart I took the motor back out and called it a night. After work the next day it came ALL back apart and I tried to figure out what I'd missed. Playing with the transmission yielded that the gear indicator was causing it to bind as it went over the neutral lobe. A quick check of the manual revealed a washer had been forgotten under the gear indicator causing it to sit just low enough to bind. Remind me why I did this again? About midnight it was back in the bike and I had primed the oiling system. I had it buttoned the rest of the way up 3 hours after work the next day and low and behold no more leak! So about 30 hours of work to fix an oil leak.... Perhaps I'm not all there and the fact that I still had fun doing all of that is probably a bad sign. Oh well :) Ride safe and wrench hard, Matt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en.
