"The Parts Pile" A CL350 Cafe from a heap of junk...

madmatt1

Been Around the Block
I have been on this site for a while now. Mostly to milk it of the nutritious and wholesome knowledge that abounds. 8) I have been working on putting together a little café racer, on and off, for a while too. I am finally making some (good?) progress on it, and figured I'd try to reciprocate some of the things I've learned along the way to others who are giving it a go.

My goal here is to create a dark, industrial-themed café bike. The Wrenchmonkees bikes have always really "done it for me", so their builds
definitely have a heavy influence on what I'm going for here. Very minimalist, with a very low amount of "bling", but very clean and functional.
Reliability is of the utmost importance, so I will be going over EVERYTHING. No stones left unturned!
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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I bought this 1971 CL350 a couple years ago. It had no title, and hadn't run since who knows when. It was $150 bucks, and gave me a clapped out engine to work with, and not much else. This picture makes the bike look less turdy than it actually is. Everything that could be toast was toast on this bike. Everything that could be half-assed, was catered to by the previous owner in a futile attempt to make the bike run. For the money, it was still very much worth it to have a free-turning engine to work with, plus all the little obsolete odds and ends that could be salvaged.
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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Speedo was showing about 21,000 miles. The oil that still remained inside the engine was pretty clean looking, and it kicked over fine.
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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Plop! For those who are new to the CB350, there is no such thing as tearing apart the motor while it is in the frame. Fear not! You pull it out in a jiff. A few disconnections of wiring, a handful of bolts, and a few beers, and it's ready to drop. An able-bodied man without back problems can hoist this oily sucker out of the frame by himself pretty easily.
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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Okay! So now that the engine is divorced from the frame, it's time for the fun part. After removing the cylinder head nuts, things start happening fast. (Unless your engine is seized up!) Mine was not. It took little time to disassemble the engine to this point. The bores were pretty rough looking, and will definitely need the attention of a machine shop. I like to use an old Rubbermaid container to set the engine in while I do the disassembly. There will be grease, and oil, and grime. It's just nice to keep it off of your floor. ;) Things like this may seem obvious, but when you are excited to tear these things apart, sometimes you forget about how messy it's gonna get...
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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I did a lot of research before deciding to tackle the engine rebuild. The big thing I kept finding everyone say is that the OEM cam chain tensioners are not the best in terms of durability. The rubber wheel on mine was brittle and had chunks missing from it. Granted it is was over 40 years old, but when given the chance to increase reliability, I prefer to take it. The KA Slipper is probably the most common upgrade part on these engines. I ordered mine from Boretech, http://bore-tech.com along with a new cam chain and gasket kit. I don't have any experience with these Athena gasket kits, just kinda have my fingers crossed on this one. Slightly visible to the right, is a new set of bronze swingarm bushings. Bronze bushings or needle bearings are always a good upgrade over the stock junk. ESPECIALLY after 40 some odd years!
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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The cam and rocker arms looked...pretty good! The worst spot was some pitting on this cam lobe. I brought it to my local engine shop and had them polish it up for me. We both agreed that it's good enough to run. I brought my cylinders and cylinder head to them as well. The bores could not be saved via a simple hone job. I went .25 over on the bore (the first overbore size) Not looking to build a ground-breaking race engine here (although I'd like to!) Just aiming for tight and reliable without going overboard on the spending!
 
Re: Parts Pile CL350

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The head doesn't look bad! Definitely will be gone through, though. The only real bummer so far
is that one spark plug hole is stripped out. No big deal. The engine shop I use fixes these with these
neat little inserts, instead of using a helicoil. It's cheap and they work wonderfully. Otherwise, it should
just need a valve job and resurface...
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

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Snotty old carbs, but they are ALMOST all there, and not froze up. The rubber diaphragms on the other hand, will not do. Too deteriorated.
I have a box of junk CB350 carbs I'll have to rummage through....should supply all the needs. If worse comes to worse, I have a new set of
VM30's that I could use. I wanted to save those for my KZ400, but we'll see what happens!
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

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Cylinders have been bored out, and the cases glass-bead blasted. I ordered new pistons from Sirius Consolidated,
as well as a new set of valves. Turns out, a couple of the valves were bent. I found that valves for these bikes
are not really easy to find, and aren't cheap, either. Sirius has them pretty reasonable. They have quite a few
other hard to find parts too, glad I stumbled across them! http://www.siriusconinc.com/
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

nice work so far! i used one of those athena gasket sets on my rebuild and i also used those 1st over sirius pistons and they worked great! you always wonder when the stuff is inexpensive if it's gonna be ok, but no problems here with either of those choices.
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

Thank you! Well, that is good to hear. They seem like nice quality parts. I can't wait to fire this thing up for the first time. It's a ways off, though!
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

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Crank and trans reinstalled, along with kickstart mechanism... and a shot of my beloved mess.
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

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Starter block off plug, that I am pretty sure I bought from CrazyPJ. Looks good!
 
Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

I was messing around with ideas for instrumentation. I like the idea of having a centrally mounted tachometer, and maybe a mini speedo mounted off to the side somewhere. For now, I took apart the tachometer and gave the housing a refinishing that seems "just right" for the aesthetic I am going for. Zero bling, kinda worn and industrial-looking. I like it.

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Re: The Parts Pile CL350 Cafe

Thanks! Lots more has been / is being done. Lots more to come!
 
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