1973 CB350G Canadian Noob Build (Gotta start somewhere!)

xulf13 said:
Ouch man. That really stinks. Been following your build for a while now. Set backs are part of the journey. Take them as an opportunity to make things better and learn. I can relate to a few of your setbacks. Keep at it man.


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Cheers bud.. well said! Thanks for the encouragement.
 
[size=12pt]Here is the latest on the build:[/size]
- the battery has been repaired! After sitting in store mode for a few days I hooked it up and everything works perfectly. It seems as though it just needed to be balanced and recharged. I have since disconnected the battery until I am ready to fire the bike to avoid over discharging it again and risking complete breakdown
- Gas tank has been fully sealed and repaired! The Caswell Epoxy Gas Tank sealer worked really really well! It was relatively easy to work with. The tank is currently sitting at the paint shop. He repainted the chipped areas and rebuffed the entire thing, I will be picking that up on Friday night!
- Mr Busche of Busche's Garage picked up the bike last Sunday.. I swear it was like watching a child leave on the first day of school hahaha.. I have a problem.. As stated in a previous post, Busche is currently working on repairing the spark plug thread on the #2 cylinder and some other various things like installing the front tire around to face the proper direction. Most importantly, he is really going to thoroughly check every single nut and bolt on the entire bike to make sure I didn't massively screw anything up. This is a good move for my life expectancy as I plan on enjoying this little machine for years and years to come.

I'm finally free this weekend to meet up with Busche to get things going! We are planning on installing the gas tank, fuel lines, clutch cable, rear set linkage, chain and exhaust! I am really looking for positive vibes from the community as I am planning on finally firing the motor this wknd!! Jeff's going to take me through the tuning process as well, which I am excited to learn.

I'll update back next wk but probably won't have a video for another week after that. Looking forward to sharing her sound with you guys.. I'm actually really excited just writing this out! Can't wait to ride the beautiful Norther Ontario Autumn countryside in the coming weeks before it gets too damn cold... The timing sucks but I have some major plans over the winter for the build that I'm excited to share with you guys. Looking forward to sculpting my very own custom seat cowl, fabing up one of those fancy foot break levers so I can run the rear brake linkage properly and possible installing the tachometer into the headlight among other little details on the bike.

Stay tuned! Hopefully all goes well this weekend.. Positive vibes:grin:
 
All sounds positive mate, these things always crop up, at least your getting sorted before your miles from home with a rain storm coming and no juice in ya cell phone ha ( sounds like I know that feeling ) , always here if you need to bend an ear keep going mate the sound of her ticking over will easy push you to the finish looking forward too .
 
Saturdays Wrench said:
They come with the Motogadget wiring kit.. You can find them at various electronic supply stores online though. I found them on www.digiket.ca
Thanks!
 
yorkie350 said:
All sounds positive mate, these things always crop up, at least your getting sorted before your miles from home with a rain storm coming and no juice in ya cell phone ha ( sounds like I know that feeling ) , always here if you need to bend an ear keep going mate the sound of her ticking over will easy push you to the finish looking forward too .

haha ahhh yes.. been there before. 12am.. almost out of gas.. no cell.. dark country road. Fun times! Thanks for the support bud. Looking forward to posting a start up vid.
 
I almost forgot to share something cool that I accidentally discovered while trying to re-paint my tank badges. I wanted to clean them up nicely for the freshly painted tank so I decided that I would try to repaint them. Everyone has their methods and being that I have never done anything like this I figured I would just try to carefully repaint the white lettering and the black outline. If anyone on here has ever attempted this you would know that this method is quite complicated and very tedious!

Well I got a fancy little paintbrush and some outdoor acrylic model paint from the art store and began painting the white lettering. I kept screwing up big time and smudging the paint all over the place. Maybe I didn't have the correct brush or a very steady hand... I don't know. Either way I wanted to clean it off and start over so I reached for this paint thinner my dad had lying around called "Number 7 Thinner". I dabbed some on a rag and started cleaning off the fresh paint I had applied and started to notice that it was also removing a layer of filth. Beneath the filth was this brilliant white paint! It was magical. You can see that in the 1st pic below.

The thinner didn't damage the original white paint for whatever reason but I began rubbing it into the other letters and before you know it I had what looked like a brand new badge on my hands! I repainted the black area (because that was a lot easier!) and they cleaned up really really well! I am thinking of spraying them with a nice clear coat to really just preserve the fresh finish and add a bit of glimmer to the tank.

I'm curious to know if this No.7 Thinner was the cause or if any regular thinner will work (varsol?). Either way, before you kill 17 hours trying to repaint those fine white letters while preserving the silver edge, try this thinner cleaning method. It may just save you a day or 2...
 

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Coming out of another frustrating weekend of wrenching. We spent 2 full days over the wknd trying to get the bike finished. Sad to report, still no 'fire event'!

Jeff Busche, the mechanic who helped with my engine rebuild started on the bike early Saturday and got a good amount finished. He swapped the front tire back to it's proper position, repaired the 2 left cover striped threads and the right cylinder spark plug thread. We installed the chain easily enough and started to get ready to add oil to the motor.

We left the stator cover off because we knew we would have to check timing once we started the motor. We added the break-in oil and removed the small 10mm bolt from the left top side of the motor to make sure we could look in and see that the top end was getting oil and removed the spark plugs for easy turn over. After pumping the kick starter for what seemed like an eternity we could not see any oil running to the top of the motor. We double checked the oil routing diagram, drained the oil, removed the right cover and made sure 100% the pump was operating correctly. It was pumping oil. We made sure the small oil slinger cover was operational by pumping oil through the galleries, all functioned well. We shot some air into the small gallery hole just above the oil slinger that pumps oil to the top of the crank and also up the cylinder studs. I placed my finger over the small opening at the top left side of the motor and could feel the air and actually saw some oil spit out. After seeing that it was not blocked we patched everything back up, filled her belly with oil and tried again... nothing! We even hooked a battery up to the starter and turned the motor over 5 or 6 times with the starter at very short 2-3 second intervals thinking that it just needed some quicker pressure. I made extra extra sure that we caked everything up at the top of the motor with RED LINE assembly lube. Is this concerning??

Laying in bed last night I had the thought that since the left stator cover wasn't on the motor couldn't build up any pressure to send oil to the top of the motor... Is that a valid concern?

We decided to move on to see how the electronics and spark plugs were working. They did not fire a spark. For those that don't know, I am using suppressor core wire with NGK resistor caps. Perhaps an overkill? The suppressor core wire was recommended due to the Motogadget m-Button wire being that it sends a digital signal and normal spark plug wire has been known to mess with that signal due to EMI. For the resistor caps, according to my Probe Ignition manual, they are "absolutely mandatory!".

We tested the wires for continuity and found that the spark plug wires were dead wires. I re-assembled the resistor caps (on the advice from Stefan of Revival Cycles) in the spark plug wire so that the spiral screw on the caps goes in just to the SIDE of the inner core wire, being that the conductive part of that particular wire is on the outside of that spiral wound core. We re-tested and found that we were getting continuity. We re-assembled and still were not getting a spark! We tested all wires for continuity and found no problems.

Any suggestions? Any other members here using a Probe Ignition?

We are going to try the system with regular spark plug wire and see how we net out next weekend. The frustrating part is that I have to wait a week to work on the bike again since it's 1.5hrs away from where I live.

Any light you could shed on the situation would be appreciated.

Thanks as always!
 

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The oil isn't a huge concern (yet).

Four stroke crank cases aren't pressurized, so no worries about running things with the stator cover off. You need that cover off to check dynamic timing. Ideally the bike is on the center stand when it's running, however.

The lack of oil is probably due to the pump that was used in the early Honda twins. It cam sometimes take almost a full minute for oil to get from the sump up into the head. It's not a very high pressure system like you get in modern vehicles.

For spark, there are a number of places to check.

First, verify that you're getting 12V out of the AUX port on the m-unit. Next check for voltage on the power wires for the Probe unit as well as each coil.

If you have power in all of those places, the problem is likely to be an issue with the ignition unit. Possibly the unit itself or possibly the way it's been hooked up.

It's also possible the coils are no good, but that is less likely (especially if they're new) because it would take something catastrophic to kill both of them.
 
Sonreir said:
The oil isn't a huge concern (yet).

Four stroke crank cases aren't pressurized, so no worries about running things with the stator cover off. You need that cover off to check dynamic timing. Ideally the bike is on the center stand when it's running, however.

The lack of oil is probably due to the pump that was used in the early Honda twins. It cam sometimes take almost a full minute for oil to get from the sump up into the head. It's not a very high pressure system like you get in modern vehicles.

For spark, there are a number of places to check.

First, verify that you're getting 12V out of the AUX port on the m-unit. Next check for voltage on the power wires for the Probe unit as well as each coil.

If you have power in all of those places, the problem is likely to be an issue with the ignition unit. Possibly the unit itself or possibly the way it's been hooked up.

It's also possible the coils are no good, but that is less likely (especially if they're new) because it would take something catastrophic to kill both of them.

I have followed your checklist and everything checks out fine. All very good tips. Thanks for the advice, really appreciate it!

It's about time for a little update.

So it's taken some time to get back into Busche's Garage, due to the fact that he was either busy, away for the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend or just simply burnt out from work. Busche lives 1.5hrs from me so the only time frame to meet is on weekends. Since my last update I had to wait until this past Saturday to get back working on the old girl again.

We spent hours and hours trying to get to the route of this 'no spark' problem I am currently having. Busche switched out my suppressor core wire with regular spark plug wire and kept the resistor caps but we are still not getting a spark during engine rotation. The bike is ready to roll otherwise and it's been really really hard to look at her sitting all pretty and not being able to start up! We tested pretty much everything in my electronics. We made sure there was continuity through all the wires, proper ground, proper connections and made sure power was routing to places it was suppose to.. All is checking out. While sitting around scratching our heads we decided just to double check that the static timing on the Probe Ignition was set up correctly. In the manual they provide a specific procedure for adjusting this and even provide a small harness that you hook up to a 9v battery so that the module is independent from your electronic system. When you connect the 9v battery through the harness a small red LED light illuminates. As per instructions you are to rotate the engine slowly and wait for the light to go out. I had already done this myself and set the static timing perfectly but Busche just wanted to make sure.. covering all the bases. When I had done it originally the light went out as it said it would and you rotate the pick up plate to a specific location so that the light goes out at or between the 'LT' and 'LF' marks on the alternator rotor. Well... it wasn't going out for some reason this time and that was a red flag. Busche came to the conclusion there must be a problem with ignition modulator because we checked all the wires coming from the pickup plate and they are all sending voltage to the modulator when we rotated the engine. The modulator is just not sending a signal to the coils for whatever reason or blocking it.. we don't know. What was also odd to me is that when we would turn the electronic system on with the fob the spark plugs would fire once and do the same when the system was turned off. Busche explained that it does this to collapse the fields inside the coils at start up and shut down. Why were the plugs operating normally at these times but not when the engine was rotating?? Perplexed the heck out of me but I'm glad I have a guy like Busche on my side helping me out because I would literally be smashing my face on the bench over and over and over! lol..

We THINK we have found the problem, but it could be other things. It's very tricky! All these parts from various manufactures trying to get to know each other and work seamlessly together.. It's tough. It could be that my reg/rec is not a good fit for the ignition box? We don't know at this point. All we know is that the ignition modulator is not functioning as it should be and there's a very good chance that there might be something wrong with it... We'll see!

In the meantime we've installed the chain & clutch cover/cable. Engine has break in oil ready to go and everything else is ready to install. My riding days are numbered up here in the Great White North though. Either way, I would rather have the bike working perfectly than half ass the whole project. As always, I've been told this comes with the territory. So patience.. learning a lot of that this year. Next year I will live on that darn bike!!! Obviously I will report back once we get her fired. For now the wait continues.

Hope all your projects are going well. I have some catching up to do with the build threads.
 
Glad to hear ya still wrenching mate, sucks you ain't up n runnin yet but your doing it the right way , no point rushing and spoiling your project just to get a quick ride out before the white stuff lands .Still enjoying ya thread mate always here if ya need a cheer cross the finish line .
 
yorkie350 said:
Glad to hear ya still wrenching mate, sucks you ain't up n runnin yet but your doing it the right way , no point rushing and spoiling your project just to get a quick ride out before the white stuff lands .Still enjoying ya thread mate always here if ya need a cheer cross the finish line .

You're the man Yorkie! Thanks for the kinds words and encouragement as always bud!
 
Ladies & Gentlemen...

WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!!!

A successful fire! Bike sounds realllll mean. Lots of power and the throttle response is insane in the membrane. A small gust of wind would blow this throttle wide open! It feels amazing to hear this beast run for the first time!!

So as mentioned earlier, after hours and hours of troubleshooting we decided to run the stock points. After some tinkering and set up we were able to confirm spark and we got the bike to fire up 1st try! I heard back from Mark Whitebook about the Probe Ignition I sent back to him. He confirmed that it was damaged.. I do not have the slightest clue as to how it got damaged, but it did. I must've read that manual 10 times at least! I followed every step with the utmost care and consideration. Yet, somehow the unit was damaged. He's quite a character, let me tell you. He told me that he does not have time nor any interest whatsoever to troubleshoot my problem and refused to send me back a replacement. He did agree however to refund my money, which was not necessarily required and really generous of him. I got lucky with that but still I feel disappointed that I can't run that sweet sweet ignition. I asked him if he could possibly send me a new one anyway and he didn't respond.. haha He wiped his hands clean of me... Cheers Mark.

I ordered a Charlie's Place Ignition in the meantime. It showed up and I didn't even realize it doesn't have an electronic advance system yet it's more expensive than Pamco. The Charlie's Place Ignition uses the stock mechanical advancer which I find a little concerning. I'm in the market for replacing mechanical parts, not having to maintain them.. That was the POINT about replacing the ignition system. I've heard tons and tons of reviews for both Charlie's Place & Pamco, both negative and positive. I guess we'll see.. I plan on doing a full test and may pick up a Pamco unit down the road to compare the 2 for research purposes and make a little video about it.

Either way, I have a running motorcycle now! Just in time for winter up here in Canada lol! While at Busche's Garage we got the chain and clutch cover/cable installed and began the tuning process but ran out of time in the end. I will be taking over the tuning process from here on out and after receiving a bag full of Mikuni jets, slides and needles from the fine folks at Niche Cycles, I am planning on diving into the tuning process this weekend. I'll be making a full video on my process with that, so stay tuned! I've been reading through the carb sticky here on the forum and the Mikuni 5th edition Tuning Manual and learned a lot! I can't wait to get into it this Friday/Saturday and report back.

Check out the latest video here of us starting up the bike for the first time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J0v7acjmZs

I know a lot of you guys are dying to see the tank and seat combo and I'm sorry for holding out on that. I wanted to have the bike actually running and complete before I showed everyone. I just think the bike is a complete package and what's the point of showing a picture of the tank or a seat when you have nothing to reference it to. I am planning on shooting a little video this weekend of the bike completely together and will report back after it's complete.

Here are some other pics of the process at Busche's Garage.
 

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Hurrah. Congrats on getting it running. Got a chuckle out of the dude who sold you the ignition washing his hands of you. What a douche.

I'm running a Pamco on my CB360 and can vouch for it being very good, for what it's worth. After enquiring about the Charlie's Place ignition I started a thread that might be of some use deciding between the two, but probably not. Makes for interesting reading anyway: http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=67987.0

As you said, there's so much positive and negative stuff out there about both units and so many opinions. In the end I settled on the Pamco because of the electronic advance and generally there seemed to be more help out there with it, more people using it.
 
Luugo86 said:
Looks pretty damn good so far. I really like that exhaust, what make is it?

It's a custom made exhaust. I found a guy who's a Yoshimura technician to make it.. He does them for the race guys out in California. Got his contact from a fellow 350 racer over on the Hondatwins forum.

el barto said:
Hurrah. Congrats on getting it running. Got a chuckle out of the dude who sold you the ignition washing his hands of you. What a douche.

I'm running a Pamco on my CB360 and can vouch for it being very good, for what it's worth. After enquiring about the Charlie's Place ignition I started a thread that might be of some use deciding between the two, but probably not. Makes for interesting reading anyway: http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=67987.0

As you said, there's so much positive and negative stuff out there about both units and so many opinions. In the end I settled on the Pamco because of the electronic advance and generally there seemed to be more help out there with it, more people using it.

haha yep... anyway thanks! I just read through the thread and there's some pretty good opinions/points made. I guess at the end of the day we all have our troubles with all the parts we use. Either way I doubt I will have any troubles at all on start up with the bike so I should be good with Charlie's ignition for now.
 
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