1972 CL350 rookie budget build

How is it going everyone. My name is Paco and i live in Chicago. I purchased a 1972 CL350 back in October of last year. It was in an good condition for a 40 year old bike. At least to my knowledge it is. I am new to motorcycles but I just fell in love with all the different modifications people have been doing with these bike. The bike was running but it would idle high and then die out. So I decided to tear it down, build it up and do some minor customization to the bike on a budget. I would like to get it done and running buy this summer. So i hope I can get the help i need from you guys here.

The plan is going to be
• Drag bars
• Firestone Deluxe tires
• Powder coating the frame, wheels, and spoke a satin black, leaving the original paint and chrome.
• Removing the front fender or maybe chopping it
• Bobbed back fender.
• Modifying the gauges
• Possibly an new head light
• Definitely new turn signals
• Modifying the stock seat


I'm sure there a couple of things I'm missing but ill get to them eventually. I also forgot to mention that I'm trying to do this on a $3500 budget including the bike, tools, and powder coating.

Here are the pic of my new ride

ahhhhhhhh thats a beautiful stock bike! find a beater and chop it up!

I wont be doing anything to major to the bike. It actually looks a lot nicer in the picture than what it was. The triple tree was cracked so i had to buy a new one. One of the forks didn't have any oil so the parts on the inside where rusted. Also the tubes were rusted. The fenders are rusted on the under side. I'm thinking of chroming them again. The chrome looks good in the pictures but the back of the exhaust and the wheels were rusted. Ill post some pics. Either way with the minor customizing Ill be doing I should be able to bring it back to a stock looking bike if I needed or wanted too.

Yep, pictures always look better.

First thing you should do is remove the exhaust and drop it off at my house, I'm in Joliet. No, I'm serious...
LOL... Nice looking bike, Paco. I hope you have her up and running by summer... Actually summer came early in Chicago, I'm sure that's killing you. Keep us updated on your build
~chris

Yeah I wish it was up and running this week. 80 degree weather all week was nice. Fingers cross that nothing goes bad with the build and i can get it ready by the summer.

ahhh!!!! I'm from sandwich about 35 minutes from joliet!

So I have a small update today. I received my parts from powder coating. I'm still waiting on my purchased parts to come in. So I laced up my wheels today. Now I have to true them. that should be fun.

Hey guys. Sorry I've been away for awhile. Ran into a bit of a financial situation these past couple of weeks and I also haven't been able to work on the bike. My dog got sick and I had to drop some serious dough and getting her healthy again. Then I got into a car accident last week so now I have to pay my deductible. This build isn't as cheap and easy as I thought it would be. So hopefully starting this weekend I can get up and running again and show some progress on this build.