Hi everybody!

First time poster, long time reader.

I've got a 1992/93 Honda CB400 SF NC31 which has been a great ride for the last year and I'm wondering if anybody can help me with my rear cowl.

I purchased it in good mechanical condition, but the rear cowl was damanged and is held together with cable ties. It is secure, but it ocassioanlly rattles when I go over rough roads. I want to fix it up before I sell it on.

I've searched the internet for these NC31 rear cowls for a while, and this is the best match I can find so far:
http://japan.webike.net/products/20899744.html

(There were a few I found on eBay, some of which were damaged, most of which have already been sold).

Now I'm not entirely sure this is everything I need. I've compared the photos of this part to my bike, and they are the same as far as I can see, but I'm a little confused about how it would fit onto my bike exactly.

I've got the photos of my current cowl here:
http://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p64 ... kujvrp.jpg

http://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p64 ... vkhxkl.jpg

If you look at photo 1, there appear to be 6 different mounting points (the rear two are harder to see in this photo).

The centre two look straight forward - I think the plastic has just snapped off my current cowl, and the replacement should have the plastic tabs to screw onto the metalwork, so no worries there.

The front two ones, closest to the battery compartment, don't make any sense to me. You can see there are 2 screwholes (where I've currently got the cable ties wrapping around the steel frame). There are no screw points on the frame to actually screw this in to. Am I missing something here? I started to imagine there might be some kind of "U" shaped piece of plastic, which goes underneath the cowl and wraps around the steel bars, and you screw the cowl into. But then when I looked at the CB400 NC31 spare parts booklet (http://www.detalist.pro/fishe/cb400-partnumbers.pdf), on page 75 it shows the seat/cowl along with screws for the front mounitng points, but doesn't show what they screw into... There's definitely nowhere on my frame I could screw those bits into.

Finally, the rear two mounting points (best seen in photo 2) have me a little confused as well. These aren't connected in any way to the cowl at the moment - they're just suspending the fibreglass mudguard (or whatever it's called) in place. However, I'm not sure if these mountings are kosher either - are they supposed to be connected to the cowl as well?

I've dug around the internet looking for photos of what a (properly!) assembled NC31 CB400SF rear cowl *should* look like, but no luck. The closest I could find that looked any good were from a restoration project on this forum, but the angle of the photo didn't show anything [edit - The link was truncated, and I can't find it again now that I'm looking - but it's 1:30am]

Does anybody have any suggestions? If someone has any photos, experience or advice, can you please share?

I'd really like to see what the finished thing should look like before I go out and start buying bits I might not even need, so any help would be awesome.

Thanks!

[Edit - fixed links... I think!]

Cant see the photo's

Hi SuperJack,

Thanks for that - I think the forum cut some of the URL off. I've re-fixed them now.

Cheers!

These are from my 93 cb400 and the two screws at the front attach to a plastic part that also attaches to the bolt in the photo. Sorry about the poor quality as it's on my phone, if there an area you want to see closer I will see what I can do.

bit

i have a spare cowl (i would call it seat or tail plastic) that you can have for the cost of the postage should you want it, although your profile doesn't seem to indicate where you are in the world. it has been attacked with paint stripper and a heat gun so is somewhat rough and would require significant work to make ready for paint i.e. filling, sanding then a few coats of hi-build primer before colour. alternatively and probably favourite however would be to cut the mounting lugs off and plastic weld them to your existing plastic, cheap and easy.

if memory serves the front mounting points attach to the mudguard/undertray plastic rather than directly to the bike frame, so maybe your undertray mounts broke off at the same time your rear 'cowl' mounting points broke.

these are listed right now:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tail-Cowling- ... SwhcJWP7Dn

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HONDA-CB400-R ... SwcF9UXhKI

Howdy Devon462 and Bludclot, thanks for responding and your help.

Devon462- Those pictures are clear and really helpful, gracias!

I can see that I'm missing that plastic bolt, the middle tabs on the fairing... And not just that, I'm looking at your mudguard, and it's quite different. Mine is made of textured fibreglass, while yours looks like a smoother plastic. Some of the other pictures I've seen of CB400SF battery changes show a smooth plastic finish, so I think my mudguard must've come from another bike, or perhaps was fabricated after a crash, which would explain why the front mounting bits are missing... I think the mudguard is stable enough at the moment and interestingly, the front of the rear fairing is really secure with these cable ties, it's only the middle of the fairing which rattles, so your pictures fill me with hope that a new/replacement fairing/cowl/thingomagig might be the way forward....

Bludclot- I'm in Oxfordshire, UK, I'm more than happy to take you up on your offer, please see my PM for details.

I *knew* I was calling it the wrong thing, cowl... Thanks for the correction. Interestingly, I looked up "cb400 rear" and "cb400 fairing" and similar quite a bit on Google and eBay, and only came across this one - which looks exactly like mine! Perhaps he had the same issues I did?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HONDA-CB-400- ... 20f0b7d78a

Nice find on those two eBay bits... Your Google-Fu is strong. Though I'd rather give you my money than those guys (since they probably won't give you a finder's fee!).

Thanks again guys,
Gundo-

Gundophren, if you are near Witney in Oxfordshire and you need a closer look at how it all fits then I might be able to swing by and show you how mine is fitted on.

Hiya Devon462,

Thanks for the offer, champ. Yeah, I'm just down the road in Didcot... It's a nice ride up to Witney, too. Bludclot has kindly offered to provide me with his spare fairing, which I'll be salvaging for bits to put on mine. Once I've got her all finished and ready to go on, I might have to take you up on that-

I think I can get the middle mount points sorted with some screws and rubber washers to compensate for any odd fittings.

It's the front mounting points that I might have some issues with. I might have to fashion something to wrap around the steel frame that I can screw the front mounting points into. Or maybe the cable ties will still do the job... If I can't get it fitted properly, I'd be grateful to see what it should look like.

Plus, it'd be nice to see a fellow CB400SFer

Cheerio,
Gundo

Gundophren just and only for academic reasons,i have to mention that your bike is an 1992-93 progect big one FIIN model.Your gray black tail is from an 1997 version S FIIIV model(different shape). That means that if you want to mount this kind of tail that you must purchase also these brackets that shown in these photo.I must say that these brackets are rare and difficult to find as new spare part.I belive that you will have no problem to mount one of the tails that bludclot post.

I have forgot to mention that if someone want to replace the pb1 (1992-1996)tail then he must purchase also version s FIIIV seat or to rebuilt pb1seat otherwise your seat maybe look like this:

This is hyper vtec spec I tail.But the bad result will be the same with version s FIIIV tail.