Hope's 1975 Honda CB550K

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The making of Cassandra

There she sits gleaming in the sun ready to ride down twisty, winding country roads, patiently waiting for me to hop on and crank her. Her name is Cassandra, Sassy for short. She is called by her nickname, Sassy, when she hesitates, or needs her battery charged, or leaves me stranded for some mechanical reason that I had not anticipated. BUT when she purrs on the open roads and I reminisce of the days that my father rode this same 1975 Honda CB550 and I rode along side of him on my 1981 Kawasaki 440LTD, she is Cassandra. When she lets me down, she is Sassy. When I'm satisfied, she is Cassandra.



She was Sassy for about six months straight when I drug her back home. She was in pieces. After my father passed away, my uncle took her apart and never put her back together. She sat for nearly four years. She was stored outside, naked to the elements - rain, sun, and tons of pine straw. I knocked off the dust, cleaned her up, and began to re-assemble her. This is what she needed to get back on the road:

* Rebuild carburetors
* New points
* Front and rear sprocket
* New chain
* New tires
* New battery
* New mufflers
* Brake lines
* Push Pull throttle cables
* Rebuild brake caliper & master cylinder

She would need a lot of persistence and tender loving care. Not all shops stock parts for her. Not all junk yards charge reasonable prices for her parts. I had to figure out what the source was for her quircky charging problem. The solution ended up being getting some more bolts in that case that holds the battery. Apparently only one bolt was holding the case and the battery was not always making a connection like it should, which made it appear that I had a charging problem.



Pitting was a real problem for Sassy. I busted my knuckles polishing for entire weekends trying to get that ^&#%$(#^&% pitting off her. I never removed the spokes from the wheels when I started polishing the wheels, so I really busted my knuckles on those wheels. Most of her chrome was pitted. With a lot of patience and much persistence I knocked off the rust.

I brought her seat to the prison and the inmates re-covered her seat. They scooped out the driver seat and added cushion to the back of the seat. Her seat appears to be a low profile king/queen seat. I put some chrome hand grips on her.

I lowered her, put a kit on her to pull those handlebars closer to me and to raise them up, and put some more exhaust on her. Now, she sits nice and low, she sounds good, and she looks good. My patience and persistence paid off. I feel like I made Dad proud, and I always think of him when I ride. Oh he would be so proud!



Since Dad wasn't around to work on her, I *REALLY* appreciate all the help all the guys at the www.sohc4.us gave me. They gave me great technical advice and told me where I could get some parts. They really appreciate old bikes, and I really appreciate them.




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