CL350 Build Started!

I have finally started taking my new toy apart. I dont have any final design ideas yet, but Im thinking a lot of matte black rattle can and brown leather... we will see how that goes.

This is my first attempt at restoring anything, so I am taking my time, having fun and disecting things to see how they work. I have taken my Ducati apart and wrenched on that, but not to the extent that this build will cover. The two things I am intrigued by most in this project are the carbs and drum brakes. I am not familiar with either, so I will probably be asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of reading. I do have a spare set of forks that came with the bike that have what looks like a caliper mount on the left fork, but I think I will keep it old school and polish up my drums.

My next thoughts on how to upgrade the bike was the carb. My left side carb leaked all of the gas out of the tank... I should try to rebuild it! I figured I could learn about carbs and rebuild mine at the same time. My right carb says Keihin on it, and the left doesnt say anything, are these two different carbs and are they stock?

more to come soon, along with questions and updates on the design, here are some pictures...

another thing that I was playing around with tonight were the front forks. The bike acctually came with 3 sets of forks, kawasaki dirtbike forks that are on the bike in the first pic, forks that can accomodate a brake caliper (no idea what kind), and another set that came with these springs and had no oil in them. I thought it would look cool to mount the springs on the outside of the tubes under the lower triple, kind of a play on a springer front end. let me know what you think...

The exposed springs look good. Thats how I have them on my ice bike (71 CB350).

Interested in unloading that pizza of a rear sprocket?

Could be a nice addition to my 350. Gotta be breaking the rear end loose.....

As would the dirt bike front end if its up for grabs too......

looks like it's gonna be a cool bike....I been looking for a CL myself.....where could a guy source some of those external fork springs anyway??

I couldnt tell you where to get the springs... I got three sets of forks with the bike.

Zixxer- I deffinetly plan on unloading some of the parts to help me with the rebuild. I want to strip the bike first and tank inventory, then get rid of anything I dont want. The forks and rear sprocket will most deffinetly be up for grabs, so I guess you are first in line.

Got any pics of the ice bike that you speak of ? All I find myself doing is looking at pictures of cafe racers and trying to get inspiration. I also dont want to do something that is a cookie cutter of what someone else has done.

I think I will post this in the rearset section also, but does anyone have any experiance with these rearsets : http://www.guzzino.com/norapa.html

I know they are fancy and italian, and probably over priced, but I want a set!

Wow, that is some trick stuff on that site! Looks like I'll have something to keep my mind busy at work today...


Steve

Hey, nice project. I'm a newb to bikes (both riding and wrenching) and not too long ago picked up a free '68 CL350 to wrench on. I've got the entire thing disassembled...now comes the hard part.

I actually was thinking about doing a satin black paint, but I think I'm going with a cheap Rustoleum gloss black and the occassional BBQ paint where necessary. Will probably look pretty mean when done. Monotonous, but mean.

Looking forward to see where you're going with this. Maybe you can inspire me to get back into the shed and get mine back together!

"My left side carb leaked all the gas out of the tank", pull the float bowl and examine the brass over flow tube! they are notorious for splitting !! fill the bowl with fuel and check to see if it's leaking out the drain hole, if it is,chuck it!!!!!!

buzz286 said:

"My left side carb leaked all the gas out of the tank", pull the float bowl and examine the brass over flow tube! they are notorious for splitting !! fill the bowl with fuel and check to see if it's leaking out the drain hole, if it is,chuck it!!!!!!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, I will check that out tonight!

Vindingo said:

another thing that I was playing around with tonight were the front forks. The bike acctually came with 3 sets of forks, kawasaki dirtbike forks that are on the bike in the first pic, forks that can accomodate a brake caliper (no idea what kind), and another set that came with these springs and had no oil in them. I thought it would look cool to mount the springs on the outside of the tubes under the lower triple, kind of a play on a springer front end. let me know what you think...

Click to expand...

I did this on my build. Check out my website for pics.

--Chris

Really cool base.

I'd be tempted to keep it enduro if it wasn't for all these pretty cafe racers around ;D ;D