'74 CB360 - Queen of the Tundra

OJ

Been Around the Block
Not sure where to put this as I'm not sure of the game plan yet. I am thinking tracker, but she may turn out to be a cafe racer or some mildly modified beauty. I am just at square one and first goal is to get this baby on the road. The plan is to really work on this over the winter, and see what kind of bike I have in May 2013.

I was really optimistic about being close to getting her registered, but I changed the spark plugs yesterday and she started idling crazy high at 3500-4000 rpm. She will calm down when twisting the throttle forward, but once I let go of the grip, it goes back to high rpm. I am fairly certain I didn't touch anything to cause this, but I'm a newbie so who knows. She also back fires quite a bit when trying to lower the idle rpm. This, and my online searches, make me think that it's ignition and carb sync. Oh and of course the left cylinder is not running properly or is dead. There's a spark, but it appears that there's no fuel going in there. The exhaust does warm up a bit, but it's definitely not running.

I did clean almost all the rust out the fuel tank and re-built the leaking petcock and just today mounted new Dunlop D404's on. I also had to replace some fuel lines. The clear fuel lines allow me to see that there's fuel coming from the petcock. I was told that mounting new tires on a motorcycle is really difficult, but it was more difficult to find tire irons than it was to actually swap the tires. No idea how these tires will work, but price steered me away from Avon's and Bridgestones. I asked the Honda dealer to mount the tires, but they would have charged $200 for this work...that's nuts in my opinion.

Tips and recommendations etc. ate welcome.

Here are some photos with new tires. I suppose these could be the before photos.
 

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As was pointed out by one observant forum member, the front tire thread looks like the tire is mounted wrong way. The direction arrow however points the correct way. Others, please feel free to let me know if something doesn't look right as it's pretty much 50/50 chance that it isn't.

I do like the color of the tank, but it is badly faded on the top, so I will be painting it/getting it painted next winter. Right now I'm thinking about olive green frame, so bright red would go better with that, but the plan might change. I like how olive green and red go together.
 
I have a '75 360. I also had the same idle issue. Get it running, and then turn off the fuel. If the idle settles down, even just a little bit, it's time to rebuild the carbs. Basically the high idle is the carb dumping too much fuel into the cylinder. New float valves should clear this up.

On that note, get yourself some K&L rebuild kits and boil the carbs out with lime juice. Simple part for part replacement after you totally disassemble the carbs. Afterwards your idle adjust screw should do it's job correctly.

I'm no expert, but with a simple search on this forum, it's totally do-able by yourself, and some basic hand tools.

Oh, also make sure your exhausts are solid, no rust holes or parts rattling around inside. Factory setups with factory air filters need back pressure to tune it correctly.
 
You mean K&L 18-2418 kit right?

I was thinking about trying to go through all the adjustments first and then buying parts. Or is a rebuild kit a good idea regardless? Would a rebuild kit now be re-usable after I get my modifications done over the winter?

I'm a newbie with these things...
 
Any modifications around the engine/exhaust, like open exhaust or velocity stacks, higher compression, would require much more custom tuning on the carbs. Rebuild your carbs to get a good baseline to start from. If it doesn't run correctly now, power adding parts aren't going to help it out any.
 
I see carb cleaner shopping in my near future after taking a peek into the carbs today. I don't think they're too bad, but definitely need a good cleaning and rebuild them before starting to sync them. I also tooled around with the ignition and I think I got it bit better and idle dropped to under 3000 rpm. K&L 18-2418 re-build kits on order and I'll clean the carbs while I wait. Once everything's cleaned, I'll borrow vacuum gauges to sync the carbs.

Need to replace the point screws to make adjusting bit easier.

Not much action here as I try to get the bike on the road whenever other house chores allow, but I'll pick up speed eventually...I think.
 
Slow going here. Ordered K&L carb re-build kits from J&P Cycles sale, but they're still in transit.

Got the tappets adjusted and ignition as well as I can by static adjusting. Friend will lend his manometer once I get the carbs built.

Also checked the compression and it shows 150 psi left and 180 psi right. I believe thats pretty good. I finally drained the oil and there wad definitely some fuel mixed in there. There was a little bit of metal and some sand like stuff in the oil, but just a tiny bit. I'm flushing the system with clean oil and see what comes out. Really liking the wrenching.

Sorry about all the newbie stuff here. I'm learning and any advise is welcome.
 
This is turning more into "expose all the issues there may be". Basically I'm fixing/replacing lots of small parts. Latest one was the frayed throttle pull cable that I found out about on Friday when I was lubing the cable. Shouldn't be too difficult to just make my own.

She did start first kick on Friday night though, but the idle shot sky high without throttle cables hooked up. The left side carb float wasn't closing properly, so had to tweak that and maybe start her up today if I have a chance. Re-checked the valve tappets and ignition timing with new points, so hopefully that will help and at least I get practice in this. Need to find better feeler gauges for tappets though.

I have a July 25th set as my own deadline to get her registered and on the road. With all the other projects, this might go down to the wire.

And bit off topic. I had never really paid much attention to this motorcycle store near my house, but knew that it's been around forever. It's more of a barrack with no windows. Went there a week ago to check it out for the first time and man....that place is like a treasure chest. They have been in business for 80 years and it's a real old school shop with shelves and shelves of parts and tons of used parts too. No snobby attitudes what a noob such as myself may encounter at "better" shops. Not really a cafe racer shop, but a landmark in our local scene for sure. Guess who will get my business. Too bad they're hours are short.
 
Finally got her to a point that I can take her for safety. Not too exciting and nothing special. I need to start a real build thread once I get that project going this fall. Thank you for all the help so far.
 
Post a picture if you can, we'd all like to see what you started with.

Glad to hear you are making progress.
 
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