1974 CB360

I decided to start a build thread for my bike. The bike was given to me for free. The previous owner said that the timing chain needed to be replaced. He was going to fix it but decided he wanted more room in his garage and gave it to me for scrap. I took it along with the title and plan to make a cafe racer out of it. I haven't had it running yet but I should be able to get it to run.

I plan on taking the engine apart to clean and rebuild it. Strip it down to the frame and rebuild it.

The project will be slow, I'm currently unemployed and attending college full time. Time is limited and funds are more so.

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

Since my space is limited in my workshop I figured I should make a rolling table to hold the bike. Its much easier to push it into a corner with casters then maneuvering it by pushing and pulling.

I had all the material on hand so it didn't cost anything. That's my favorite price.

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

You know there's no such thing as a "free" bike, right??...

Judging by the fist sized dent on the top of the tank, I think the PO might have had a few running problems with the bike as well.... :

Good luck with it - they're a popular choice for a cafe

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer



And so it begins, started stripping the bike today. Hopefully I can keep my motivation and keep working on it.

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

Nice find. With less than 10,000 miles I doubt the timing chain is "bad". Try adjusting it first (see factory service manual) and you be able to get it running. The DPO (dumb previous owner) may not adjusted the timing chain correctly, gave up and parked the bike.

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

I know its been a long while since I started this project, but life has put my bike build on the back burners. But recently while doing a scrap pickup I came across something that got me thinking about my bike again.

This is a street light housing, and I think it could make a cool tail for my bike. Its made of aluminum and it should clean up well. Guess we will see. The weather is getting colder, so my work will start slowing down and I hope to beable to work on my bike this winter so I can run it in the spring. Fingers crossed.

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

WOW, its been over a year and a half since I last posted and about that long since I touched my bike. It was sitting in a corner in my workshop all this time, just collecting dust. I recently pulled it out when I was cleaning the workshop and rolled it outside with the intentions of scrapping it, but the more I saw it in my driveway the more it called to me. So I decided to strip it the rest of the way down. The plan now is to open the motor up to have a look, I want to make sure that there is no rust or anything nasty inside, since there is evidence that the top of the engine was removed. I also want to make sure none of that orange goop got into anything that can cause a problem. If the engine looks good I will buy a gasket set and put the engine back together, if it looks to bad to repair then its going to get parted out.

1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

Looks like fun man keep up the motivation. I want to see this girl turn in to a beauty. I've got a bunch of liquid gasket goo on my engine from the PO too.

Re: 1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

Well, it seams as if the PO did some hack work on this poor thing. I had a few minutes tonight and decided to go out to the shop and tinker with the motor a little. I was confused when I grabbed my socket set, I figured that all the fasteners on the motor would be metric, but it seams that some are metric and some are fractional. Not sure if it comes from the factor that way or if the PO damaged the heads so bad that he had to replace them and grabbed what he had available at the time. Anyway, got the cam cover off and I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the cam and journals seams to be in great condition, the bad news is that the orange gunk that was used is all over inside that motor, I will have to tear it all the way down to clean it out. I even found some on the cam chain. Uggg.


Here are some pictures.


Cleaned up my workbench so I can tear down the engine.





Here is a broken bolt. Not by me, but by PO. Not a good start.





View of the cam, there is orange goo all over.





Cam cover, journals are smooth and not a single scratch on them. Very encouraging.





Another picture of the cam, you can see the goo on it. Yuck.





I'm hoping to work on it some more this weekend, lets hope the cylinders are in good shape.

1974 CB360 Cafe Racer

The condition of the internals is reassuring. That goo is going to be tough to remove. Almost all of the casing bolts should be 6mm diameter 1.0 pitch with a 10mm head (minus the stupid Phillips head screws which are the same size and pitch). There aren't any fractional bolts that I can report having found on mine.

I got the rest of the engine tore down a couple nights ago and everything looks really good in there. The cylinder walls are smooth with no rust of any kind, the pistons and valves look good, the gears and crank look good with no signs of damage. So now its a matter of cleaning up the cases, removing all the gasket material and putting her back together. I do have a question though, is there a gasket for the bottom case? It doesn't look like there was one on it when I cracked it open.