1973 cb450 – Part 1

So… my brother-in-law bought a cb450 the summer of 2008. It didn’t have a title, but it ran decent.

To make a long story short, after several months, the engine started having some issues. He got frustrated with not being able to ride it, combined with not being able to get a title, so he said fuck-it, and gave it to me, and then went out and bought a newer Ducati monster.

So, now I have 2 cycles:
– 1979 cb650
– 1973 cb450

I ended up being able to get the title for it!!! (long story), so now my friends and I decided to open up the engine and figure out what’s wrong with it.

After doing some riding tests, we found that the bike ran pretty fuckin good, but it smoked super bad out of the left side. So… we did some compression tests and found that each side was well within spec. I naturally assumed that if oil was getting in the combustion chamber, but the compression tests were good, that a valve seal was leaking oil.

So took the engine out of the frame and opened the engine up…