el barto
Been Around the Block
Greetings. I haven’t posted here for a while - good to be back. As usual, life got in the way: I spent some time in hospital and subsequently recovering; I had a kid; I moved house, all in the space of a few months. With that now behind me (except the kid obvs) it’s time to once more take up the wrench and finish this bike. I suppose it fits into the scrambler category, but it’s kind of a mix of lots of things.
This is my first build and thus my first build thread, and also I suppose a proper introduction (hi). I thought about starting a thread a while back and posting updates as the work progressed, but I couldn’t get the motivation. So I decided to complete the bike, or at least get it close to completion, and then start a thread that outlined what I did and how I got to that point.
So here is my story; what I learned, what I wish I hadn’t done and what I’d do again. The main thing I took away is simply how rewarding a project like this can be, in every sense of the word. From the feeling of breaking something and figuring out how to fix it (probably the most common occurrence in this entire exercise), to having ideas and seeing them become a real thing that I made myself, however crude or sketchy, let alone having a bike I’m really proud of and can actually ride.
When I started I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, I didn’t know there were trackers or scramblers or any of the million other names given to bikes and builds. Don’t get me wrong, I knew there were different types of bike, I just had no idea that you could take a regular old twin and turn it in to whatever you want. I also don’t know why I got a CB360, there was no definitive reason to choose it over anything else, I just liked it. What I did know is that I wanted a bike that could get dirty. I grew up on a farm in north Hampshire (that’s central southern England btw), in an area where roads and tracks frequently become the same thing. Now I live in North Devon (that’s the south west of England), similar to Hampshire but more dramatic: more tracks and gravel roads; more hills; (much) worse weather; it’s like the countryside but MORE. These two places and the countryside and coastline of southern England are where this bike will get ridden most, so I wanted something befitting to these environments. Could it be used as a daily rider? Yes. Will it? Probably not. The weather is too bad here. It would be miserable. Above all though, the bike had to be fun. It’s never going to be a show piece or be a feat of engineering or industrial design. I just want something to ride that’s mine.
I found a CB360 on MCN in may 2015 a couple of hours from me. It was listed for £1800 with 3000 miles on the clock, a lot of money compared to what folks in the US are paying but I suppose the UK is another story and the mileage was good. I was sceptical but secretly knew of course that I’d buy it. My brother and I took the truck to a trailer park in the middle of nowhere and there sat the bike. It’d been imported from America at some point and came over in a 250T frame. The PO got rid of the 250 frame and put it back in a 360 frame. He offered me the 250 frame too which I now wish I’d taken. The bike fired up straight away and green as I was, that was enough for me. What the fuck do I know? It ran and I didn’t know what I’d be looking for if there were any problems anyway so that was that. Below are a couple of pics of it as it sat when I bought it, and then on to the teardown (I can already hear some of you wincing) .
Naturally, being a kook I wanted to chop off the rear end and install a hoop, as well as add pods. This I did, and devised a cunning plan with PJ that enabled him to modify my carbs and get them back to me here in the UK (thanks PJ). But there were also further underlying issues that weren't purely cosmetic, mainly the wiring and electrics. They were a shambles, years of crudely splicing and cutting - this is probably what slowed me down the most.
Other stuff done to the bike:
- Pamco electric ignition
- New wiring harness and connectors throughout
- Swapped out glass fuses for blades
- Hagon shocks
- CL360 Scrambler pipes
- New gauges
- New levers and controls
- Sparck R/R
- Stainless brake hose
- Boring task of removing rust from tank
The list goes on. So much has gone into this bike but it still feels like it’s a little way off. Today I'm working on some final de-tabbing, some control wiring and bleeding the front brake. I’ll try and keep this thread updated with photos and other shit. Thanks to all the DTT members who’ve helped me to get this far (especially PJ, Sonreir and Mydlyfkryzis).
This is my first build and thus my first build thread, and also I suppose a proper introduction (hi). I thought about starting a thread a while back and posting updates as the work progressed, but I couldn’t get the motivation. So I decided to complete the bike, or at least get it close to completion, and then start a thread that outlined what I did and how I got to that point.
So here is my story; what I learned, what I wish I hadn’t done and what I’d do again. The main thing I took away is simply how rewarding a project like this can be, in every sense of the word. From the feeling of breaking something and figuring out how to fix it (probably the most common occurrence in this entire exercise), to having ideas and seeing them become a real thing that I made myself, however crude or sketchy, let alone having a bike I’m really proud of and can actually ride.
When I started I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, I didn’t know there were trackers or scramblers or any of the million other names given to bikes and builds. Don’t get me wrong, I knew there were different types of bike, I just had no idea that you could take a regular old twin and turn it in to whatever you want. I also don’t know why I got a CB360, there was no definitive reason to choose it over anything else, I just liked it. What I did know is that I wanted a bike that could get dirty. I grew up on a farm in north Hampshire (that’s central southern England btw), in an area where roads and tracks frequently become the same thing. Now I live in North Devon (that’s the south west of England), similar to Hampshire but more dramatic: more tracks and gravel roads; more hills; (much) worse weather; it’s like the countryside but MORE. These two places and the countryside and coastline of southern England are where this bike will get ridden most, so I wanted something befitting to these environments. Could it be used as a daily rider? Yes. Will it? Probably not. The weather is too bad here. It would be miserable. Above all though, the bike had to be fun. It’s never going to be a show piece or be a feat of engineering or industrial design. I just want something to ride that’s mine.
I found a CB360 on MCN in may 2015 a couple of hours from me. It was listed for £1800 with 3000 miles on the clock, a lot of money compared to what folks in the US are paying but I suppose the UK is another story and the mileage was good. I was sceptical but secretly knew of course that I’d buy it. My brother and I took the truck to a trailer park in the middle of nowhere and there sat the bike. It’d been imported from America at some point and came over in a 250T frame. The PO got rid of the 250 frame and put it back in a 360 frame. He offered me the 250 frame too which I now wish I’d taken. The bike fired up straight away and green as I was, that was enough for me. What the fuck do I know? It ran and I didn’t know what I’d be looking for if there were any problems anyway so that was that. Below are a couple of pics of it as it sat when I bought it, and then on to the teardown (I can already hear some of you wincing) .
Naturally, being a kook I wanted to chop off the rear end and install a hoop, as well as add pods. This I did, and devised a cunning plan with PJ that enabled him to modify my carbs and get them back to me here in the UK (thanks PJ). But there were also further underlying issues that weren't purely cosmetic, mainly the wiring and electrics. They were a shambles, years of crudely splicing and cutting - this is probably what slowed me down the most.
Other stuff done to the bike:
- Pamco electric ignition
- New wiring harness and connectors throughout
- Swapped out glass fuses for blades
- Hagon shocks
- CL360 Scrambler pipes
- New gauges
- New levers and controls
- Sparck R/R
- Stainless brake hose
- Boring task of removing rust from tank
The list goes on. So much has gone into this bike but it still feels like it’s a little way off. Today I'm working on some final de-tabbing, some control wiring and bleeding the front brake. I’ll try and keep this thread updated with photos and other shit. Thanks to all the DTT members who’ve helped me to get this far (especially PJ, Sonreir and Mydlyfkryzis).