Firstly the parts needed, cover gasket, clutch spring (dished washer), and clutch plates

Next, remove your engine oil and change your filter. Put all your drain plugs back and tighten them up

Unscrew the 9 Allen-head screws and gently remove the cover. Note the word gently, this is aluminium. Resist the urge to prise or chisel them apart. A 5mm hex bit and a long Tommy bar make life easier.

Remove the old gasket by using a blade and carefully scraping the two surfaces. Take your time and get the surfaces nice and flat.

All gone! Now apply a thin smear of gasket jointing compound to the cover face and align the new gasket to the holes.

Gasket fitted to cover

Pull your clutch lever in and tie it to the handlebars.

Remove the circlip and remove the lifter plate and lifter rod & bearing. Next, put the bike in gear on the side stand and undo the centre nut using a 27mm socket

Remove the clutch spring (the domed disc) and flat washers. The Honda manual gets horribly confusing just here, so keep these parts in the right order. The clutch spring has a white blob of paint on the outwards face

Remove the clutch centre and one-way clutch. Check its one-way operation

Carefully remove the Clutch outer and inner bearing. Note the spacer washer. Check the clutch outer for groves where the clutch plates sit and dress them with a flat, fine file. Needless to say, wash it all off with diesel or petrol and dry off. This will ensure that your clutch has a nice smooth feel to it and each plate does an equal job.

The wear limit of the clutch plates is 3.1mm, but if the plates look smooth & burnt then change them anyway. The new plates (being measured here were just over 3.8mm and on six plates that all adds up.

Fit your clutch outer (shown here from the rear), this needs to engage with 4 spigots on the gear (shown in the middle). This is difficult to do, so slide the gear off the shaft and fit it to the back of the clutch outer. Fit the clutch outer complete with the gear in position and slide the central bearing into position.

When the clutch outer is fitted correctly the outermost edge of the clutch outer will be below the gasket face.

Add the clutch centre and one way clutch into position.

Fit the 6 new plates and 5 discs. (A plate at either end), oiling each one as you assemble them.

Fit the cover plate complete with lifter rod and bearing.

Apply Threadlock to the nut and thread and torque the nut down to 75-85Nm (54-61ft/lb).

Release the tie from the clutch lever and apply a force to the pushrod with a piece of wood (such as the stale of a hammer). This will reset the position and return any fluid to the reservoir.

Fit clutch lifter plate, pushrod and circlip. Try out the clutch from the lever. It should operate smoothly all the way and you should see the clutch spring moving as you pull on the lever. If your clutch lever only gets half way before coming to a dead stop, you have fitted the spring the wrong way round. (The spring should dome-out not dish-inward).

Apply a light smear of jointing compound to the casing and fit the cover back in position. Refill with 2.8L of oil and start it up for 23 minutes. Stop the bike and wait 2-3 minutes and re-check the oil level again, topping up as necessary.

After getting the bike, I had to sort out the front suspension and fork seals, which were leaking. I also thought it would be a good idea to replace the original rubber brake lines and I contacted HEL performance. http://www.helperformance.ca/. They are UK headquartered and Kris in Calgary, Alberta, Canada holds the North American license to HEL and has all of the HEL fittings and tooling to fabricate the hose assemblies. He had the CBX750F in the system so he had the line length and fitting types in his database and in stock. I ordered a full set of front and back lines and they are fantastic. Kris said that I could order a front set that would use the built in crossover Tee (a three-line set) or I could go with a two-line set that bypassed the crossover Tee. I went with the three-line front set. I found the master cylinder to Tee line about 4 inches too long but all of the others were perfect. I elected to send the long one back to Kris so that it would match the OEM length. I did not want it chaffing under the fairing. I would suggest that if you order a set from HEL, you send then the master cylinder to Tee hose as a sample or at least confirm the total length. HEL claims that their hose kits are DOT approved and that was an important factor for me in my selection of the hoses for replacement.

When I got to the rear wheel brake, I noticed that the rotor had received a lot more wear than I expected. I figured that the last owner either had a heavy right foot or that the pistons were sticking. It was the pistons.

This was after a significant clean up. The hard chrome finish had failed.
So, my next challenge was to replace the pistons. I was able to source caliper seals and dust boots from Honda at a reasonable price but the pistons were expensive. I also knew that they would eventually corrode and bind again. I had replaced a Norton Commando set of caliper pistons in stainless so I was wondering if I could find Honda pistons in Stainless. The Internet came to the rescue. I fairly quickly found Rainer Proebstl. He manufactures a number of piston sizes that fit many standard Honda calipers. His Type 4 pistons were attractively priced and when received, proved to be of excellent quality in terms of size, fit and finish.
The reveal….

They are exact replicas of the original but in stainless. Even the recess in the face of the piston has been reproduced.

The pistons are installed after a little wipe of some clean fluid and ready for final re-assembly and connection with the new rear stainless brake lines.

I am installing new pads and also a new rear rotor. I found a new condition rotor at a wreckers yard that was identical but out of a different model, a VFR 950 I think.

Brian Holmes,

I can be reached at
brian(at)rocketperformance.ca

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Here is part of the conversation about it. (See the June, 2002 mailing list archive for the full details.)

Mr.T.wrote:

> Ah, I see now why mine had no speedo problem, I must have the
> 15mm one.
> Since you had the bigger spindle, did you have to machine the ends
> where they are clamped on the end of the forks?

Andy then replied:

No,I didn’t. I think some further explaining might be required to save anyone else having the worries/headscratching/ages playing with a digital vernier and notepad,then that heartstopping moment when you go to put the front wheel in and hope you did your sums right!

Here goes. With hindsight (looking at bearing charts for Honda in the M&P catalogue), I think I’ve got VF750FG wheels, whereas Mr.T has FD or FE wheels. The bearings for the FD/FE wheels are identical to the RC17. The bearings for the FG aren’t.

When I removed the bearings from the VF wheel,they were 42 o/d,20 i/d and 12 m.m. wide. The RC17 uses 42 o/d,15 i/d and 13 m.m wide. This is where panic set in!

After measuring both wheels, I worked out that the RC24s bearing recess is the same distance apart as the RC17, so I could use the RC17 spacer, and by fitting RC17 bearings, I could still use the RC17 spindle, so the extra 2 m.m. created by the RC17 bearings comes in handy, as you dont need any modifications or spacers on the spindle.

By using the RC17 spindle and bearings, you can use your original speedo drive gearbox, but the RC24 drive dog doesn’t fit the RC17 gearbox. Bugger! Also the RC24 dust seal won’t reach the edges of the gearbox, but the RC17 seal is 5 m.m. too small to fit the RC24 wheel!

So I did some measuring and sketching and came up with what’s on the drawing. Off to work on a Saturday afternoon, turn up the converter, mill out the slot and go home to see if it all fits.

What you have now done is pull all the diameters of the RC24 wheel in by 5 m.m., so you can still get the bearing out (through the 42.2 m.m.hole), use the RC17 drive dog (the slots in the converter provide the drive, but be sure to file out the corners of the slots after milling, as shown in the ‘plan’ view, or you either won’t be able to push the speedo drive dog in to touch the bearing, where it’s meant to be, or if you drop it in and then fit the converter, you make it captive, so you can’t get the bearing out without whacking the converter and drive dog out first).

The 50 m.m. bore you have holds the dust seal, and by making this bore 7.25 m.m. deep, but the 55 m.m. dimension 8.25 m.m. deep, you regain the 1 m.m. you need to put the dust seal in its correct position (remember the RC24 12 m.m. bearing and the RC17 13 m.m. bearing, and there is the ‘lost’ 1 m.m. you’ve just got back with the converter!).

The 47.8 m.m. dimension is a clearance fit into a 48 m.m. bore, so you don’t have to worry too much about the concentricity when you turn it around to machine the second side on the lathe. Get it to run true to 0.1 m.m. and it’ll be fine.

Then I just smeared it with Loctite bush retainer, and gently tapped it into place, before having the wheels painted.

> You have the collars and spacers, did you have to machine down the
> original disc bolts to use the collars, like on my bike?

Yes, see the note in the top right-hand corner. Initially, I wasn’t too happy about the potential for ‘free-play’ (if you remember, I was going to mill up 6 different spacers, to make use of the lugs that help align the disc) but once I fitted the discs I realised I was panicking over nothing, as they run true anyway, so I’ve shelved that idea. I also didn’t want any bare ally showing to the sides of 3 spacers on each side of the wheel, so I also Loctited the collars to the wheel, then the spacers to the collars and wheels before painting. Now, you’d never know they weren’t meant to be!

As for the rear wheel, just roll it in (if only everything in life were that simple!).