krafty
Dyslexics of the World - Untie!
Now that this bike is officially mine (long story, but let's just say that it's no longer super-easy to get a title for a motorcycle in Michigan when the previous owner lost it and doesn't want the hassle of finding it) it is time to start a build thread. Sorry in advance for the length of this first post.
I have been looking into motorcycles for a while now - probably the past 10 years or so - on an infrequent basis. When a co-worker rescued an '83 750 from a relative and started working on it I finally decided to bite the bullet and look for something myself. I have plenty of experience with vintage British cars (MG, Jaguar, Triumph, TVR, Healey, etc.) but most of the cool British stuff was out of my price range, at least around here. After spending some time reading I settled on wanting a Honda twin from the late '60s through the '70s, with leanings towards the 350 or 400. I've always wanted a vehicle as old as I am and came close with my '73 MGB/GT.
This bike had been popping up on the mid-Michigan CL off-and-on for a while now, so on a whim I drove the 2hrs on a Saturday morning last month and ended up bringing it home. It's a '71 Honda CB350 with (for whatever reason) a '71 CL350 engine installed. It wouldn't start but spun over and had great compression and was fairly complete. It's got some goofy home-made ape-hangars on it and is missing a side cover and the speedo cable, but otherwise it is complete.
I plan on building a cafe' bike of sorts, while retaining the fenders in some form. The gold paint will be going away (just the sight of it makes me a little queasy, to be honest) and it's likely going to be mostly black with some antique white and orange accents. I'm going to have the frame powder-coated after tweaking it a bit, although I don't plan on any huge frame modifications at this time. My initial thoughts were to keep the seat pan and make a new seat using it, but as you'll see, that's really not an option at this point.
Arrival at our shop (where it will be worked on during Thursday-night shop nights and over the weekends)
Beginning the teardown and discovering all the rusty bits
These carbs look a lot like the Zenith-Strombergs I deal with on later MGBs and Triumphs
No, these handlebars will NOT be re-used. Yuck.
Working on British cars has made me collect a ton of SAE and Whitworth tools, but it looks like I'm going to be buying some metric stuff pretty soon...
Ape-hangars gone... much better
As I mentioned, the seat pan can't be re-used. I was hopeful when I first pulled the seat off that it would somehow survive, but the seat foam had collected too much moisture (and mouse pee) and by the time I sand-blasted it the whole thing turned into Swiss cheese.
No wonder this thing turned so hard... there were only 4 intact bearing balls on the lower steering bearing. The rest were rust/dust.
Someone had tried removing the battery box with a prybar before realizing it was screwed in. After sandblasting it I used a piece of 1/8" steel as a dolly and quickly repaired the bent areas. (You can see the right side has already been fixed, getting ready to work on the left side)
I also cut off the air tube from the bottom of the box. Eventually I'll remove the regulator bracket as well, but at this point I wasn't sure what I was doing with the wiring, so I left it intact. Because of all the rust in the battery box I ended up with 1 pinhole (where one of the spot welds was, go figure) which will need to be repaired yet before powdercoating.
I have been looking into motorcycles for a while now - probably the past 10 years or so - on an infrequent basis. When a co-worker rescued an '83 750 from a relative and started working on it I finally decided to bite the bullet and look for something myself. I have plenty of experience with vintage British cars (MG, Jaguar, Triumph, TVR, Healey, etc.) but most of the cool British stuff was out of my price range, at least around here. After spending some time reading I settled on wanting a Honda twin from the late '60s through the '70s, with leanings towards the 350 or 400. I've always wanted a vehicle as old as I am and came close with my '73 MGB/GT.
This bike had been popping up on the mid-Michigan CL off-and-on for a while now, so on a whim I drove the 2hrs on a Saturday morning last month and ended up bringing it home. It's a '71 Honda CB350 with (for whatever reason) a '71 CL350 engine installed. It wouldn't start but spun over and had great compression and was fairly complete. It's got some goofy home-made ape-hangars on it and is missing a side cover and the speedo cable, but otherwise it is complete.
I plan on building a cafe' bike of sorts, while retaining the fenders in some form. The gold paint will be going away (just the sight of it makes me a little queasy, to be honest) and it's likely going to be mostly black with some antique white and orange accents. I'm going to have the frame powder-coated after tweaking it a bit, although I don't plan on any huge frame modifications at this time. My initial thoughts were to keep the seat pan and make a new seat using it, but as you'll see, that's really not an option at this point.
Arrival at our shop (where it will be worked on during Thursday-night shop nights and over the weekends)
Beginning the teardown and discovering all the rusty bits
These carbs look a lot like the Zenith-Strombergs I deal with on later MGBs and Triumphs
No, these handlebars will NOT be re-used. Yuck.
Working on British cars has made me collect a ton of SAE and Whitworth tools, but it looks like I'm going to be buying some metric stuff pretty soon...
Ape-hangars gone... much better
As I mentioned, the seat pan can't be re-used. I was hopeful when I first pulled the seat off that it would somehow survive, but the seat foam had collected too much moisture (and mouse pee) and by the time I sand-blasted it the whole thing turned into Swiss cheese.
No wonder this thing turned so hard... there were only 4 intact bearing balls on the lower steering bearing. The rest were rust/dust.
Someone had tried removing the battery box with a prybar before realizing it was screwed in. After sandblasting it I used a piece of 1/8" steel as a dolly and quickly repaired the bent areas. (You can see the right side has already been fixed, getting ready to work on the left side)
I also cut off the air tube from the bottom of the box. Eventually I'll remove the regulator bracket as well, but at this point I wasn't sure what I was doing with the wiring, so I left it intact. Because of all the rust in the battery box I ended up with 1 pinhole (where one of the spot welds was, go figure) which will need to be repaired yet before powdercoating.