So..what to say. I’d owned a few motorcycles before this, all of which never needed anything more than an oil change and a carb cleaning. “Luna” is my first go at a custom rebuild from a non-running bike. We all know the 360 as the cliché “café racer,” so naturally when I happened upon this one it just made sense - easily available parts and plenty of guys on here who know all sorts of awesome shit about the 360 (you guys know who you are). I have somewhat of a mechanical background, but I had never fabricated any working parts, especially for use on a street legal vehicle. With not much more than a service manual, some wrenches, and a 10’ x 12’ shed (built solely to build this motorcycle in, ha!), I dove in way over my head, threw away parts before I knew what I needed and started to make mistakes.
Before I dug in:
The 10' x 12' box got pretty crowded:
Over 800 hours later, I’d learned to weld, built custom pipes, tore down/rebuilt the engine without losing too many parts, managed to fabricate a seat and fenders from scratch with foam and fiberglass, and reconfigure just about all of the necessary parts for a functional motorbike. I won't get in to the nitty gritty, but its all floating around in the thread here. Whew.
The motor was rebuilt for learning purposes and to check general health, and after a little of crazyPJs voodoo she came alive again, just in time for winter. The beginning of this season has been dedicated to finally figuring out how the hell to get this thing setup after a rebuild, breaking in the tires and
finally hitting some twisties. I will admit, I'm no motorcycle builder or mechanic by any means, and I'm definitely still working out a couple kinks...but there's not much better feeling than rolling something you've built yourself out of the shed and riding around town. With a little bit of time and a lot of help from the DTT community, this build has been possible and I couldn't be happier with it.
So thank you guys, and now I won't waste any more of your time with words...