New ride arrives at the stable 1977 HONDA CB550F SUPER SPORT
Well, a fun weekend and today being Sunday, I have plenty to do back in the workshop as we acquired another two wheeled machine that is a real classic find and glad that I was able to snag it from the buyer.
It does pay off to go through a few listings from time to time on the social media pages and Facebook was no exception- I was just periodically scrolling through the bikes for sale page and all of a sudden, this Burgundy Honda 550 came into my View.
To be honest I was surprised to see it in the condition it was in, so I messaged the owner and wondered what he would take for it, as I had just spend a few quid on presents for my girlfriends birthday and a few bills had come up lately, so wasn’t really in the market for a ride at this moment in time. But I thought I would see what the person could tell me about the little inline four and maybe I could go and look at it.
The owner was a young fella that acquired the bike from his grandfather recently, it is a one owner from new 1977 Super Sport, so I made plans to come down on Saturday and take a peek and this classic Honda Four Motorcycle.
I drove down with my Girlfriend Jennifer to Los Angeles , its only about 35 minutes drive, so in the Big White Transit we went and before I knew it we were there, with no where to park, so parked up down a side street and left my Girlfriend with the van, as LA is notorious for parking finds or being towed etc. And then walked about a Block to the underground parking where the bike was located, I got there and I was pleasantly surprised how nice the machine was.
It ran OK but didn’t idle and the chap said its only got 11,000 Genuine miles on it, he used to ride it on the weekends as it was his granddads, and he purchased it from him in Minnesota and then had to move to LA to work, and didn’t want to take it on the freeways, and needed a bigger motorcycle, he said his granddad bought it from the dealer brand new in 77 and had never dropped it and looked after the bike. I knew that the problem was probably just the slow jets were blocked and a rebuild isn’t too much of a deal to get that purring right again.
The bike Sissy Bar on the back with the chrome rack and a big Chromed Crash bar at the front to protect the engine etc, both purchased back in the day in 1977 from the dealer, not the lovelies of choices but that was the thing to have back then, but that wouldn’t take too long to remove from the machine to look cool ones again. The deal was struck and gave the guy the cash, he was happy and so was I, I happily pushed the bike around the corner and up the sidewalk for a block, feeling happy that I just acquired a true classic machine.
As soon as I turned the corner, I could see Jennifer by the van, rear doors open and the ramp already laid out, but what I then notices was a Huge smile on Jennifer’s face, she said ” I love it!”
I knew I was in trouble then, as she asked if she could have it, and of course, being the big hearted guy that I am, I melted to her and now we have a CB550F in our driveway.
The first thing I did, was remove the old sissy bar and rear luggage rack, we shall keep it in storage in case Jennifer goes out and needs to load the bike up or go camping etc, but I removed the Sissy bar and the front Chromed Crash bar with the cruise pegs on, the bike looks like it did when it was on the showroom now.
Will clean her up a little over the weekend and during the week, it does need the slow jets cleaned but will get into that another day, but its super clean for the year and wanted to share the bike with you on my Blog, to see what you think, this is a keeper and will get used for sure. Nice to know there are still a few about like this and glad I took the time to follow up on this inline four.
Thanks for reading my Blog today and see what we sometimes get up to on the weekend, Motorcycling is a great hobby that turned into a Career for me and never tire of it.
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