---NEW/NOOB Build, ILLINOIS, 1975 CB200t Cafe Build---

Well I just introduced myself. New guy just joined. Been a member of many other bikes sites for years and avid rider and car builder. Was a 500.00 buy for a running (not great running) rideable 200t. So decided on doing a café setup on it as ive always wanted to build one from the ground up. So as I go along in this build I will be asking a lot of "newbish" questions that yes I already have looked on other forums for, google, and elsewhere. But seems the 200t can be a pain to find info on at times. Needless to say if you guys have advice or links or tips anything and everything is appreciated. I'm going to be moving somewhat quickly through this build. But time and parts is the only thing going to be holding me up as I go along.

Things to be done:
1. Sand blast parts (not engine of course)
2. Decide on a color scheme
-red frame, black tank, red pinstripe with gold lettering
-black frame, gunmetal tank with HONDA white emblem
-black frame, Vintage colors Possible Copper and brow and white combo.
3. Order parts such as tail + seat (not gonna fiberglass this time around), foot pegs or rear sets, handlebar choice (clip ons or drag style bar), Cables, and other misc parts.
4. Rebuild Engine and replace gaskets that were leaking oil.
5. Rebuild carbs (possible reject for pods) if I can figure out what all is needed as I go, such as jets and syncing. From what I read and talked to everyone they say to keep stock boxes.
6. Figure out the ride height / stance of the overall bike when things come in.
8. Replace many other things as I go, as all projects happen to have come up.
9. Keep updating and changing my mind as things happen or come up.....as any good builder/artist does ><
10. ASK TONS AND TONS OF ANNOYING QUESTIONS

Questions that I already have:
1. currently I have KEIHIN Carbs (unsure of the MM) but wanting to run pop filters on it. From what I gather this can be a PITA. but from what I gather KEIHIN 22 or 24 carbs are the easiest to tune accordingly to exhaust and new filters. Id love to keep the stock airboxes however I'm not a fan of the look. And when it comes to dealing with carbs/syncing/tuning/air/fuel etc I get the jist of it and have seen several howto's as well as read on the matter but its something ive never personally done. So does anyone have exp with this and what setup or should I go with or what jets to buy etc......?

2. When it comes rim size id like to beefen up the stock front tire a bit to make it look a little "meatier" to pair up better with the rear in terms of size. any suggestions? or should I js find a larger front rim (width wise) to begin with?

3. Other than Dimecity cycles is there any other good places to find parts for café builds? I'm having difficulty finding cables and such for this bike, as I only see Honda 360, 500s, 750s etc to buy things like that for. unless those parts would fit this bike.

4. DOES ANYONE HAVE THE CLYMER SERVICE MANUAL ON PDF?

So now that ive ranted and raved like a 15yr old school girl about her first crush. here is the bike. Please feel free to comment or if you want to say I'm just a douche' that's fine as well. And if anyone has any advice or knows of people who can answer these questions please point them in my direction as I would gladly accept any help offered. So thanks for reading and I hope to keep this as up to date as possible as I go.

Yes I'm already on http://www.hondatwins.net/forums/forum.php
Yes ive been reading and watching the "LUCKY 200t" build here on dotheton, and read on some other builds as well.

This is how the bike looks since buying I on 4/17/2016.

Good luck bud. I love the sub-350 size bikes. They're just so gosh darn cute! As for clymer manuals I believe there is a sticky in blood sweat tears and grease. Other than that, check sohc4. Most of the noob questions are answered in stickies. That's why I love these sites.

Welcome to DTT bud. Looks like a nice little scoot you had there. Seeing as you already took it apart, its too late for some of the warnings I would normally give ;D

First things first. Don't waste your time with the Clymer's manual. Many of the values for important specs have been known to be just plain wrong in the aftermarket manuals. Do some googling, and you will be able to find a FSM (Factory Service Manual) from Honda.

You can 'blast' the engine, just not with sand. And I would recommend doing it when its together, rather than apart. Makes it less work. Just be sure to put some crap plugs in, and seal up the intake/exhaust ports. I made a homemade soda blaster which helped get all the grease and grime off the motor. You'll still have to do a bit of scuffing and cleaning to get it ready for paint.

Regarding your ride height/stance/rearsets, make sure to mock everything up (especially rearsets) with the chain, rear tire and swingarm installed correctly to make sure there are no clearance issues. Remember that if you change the 'stance' at all, you are going to screw with the intended geometry of the bike and you make unintentionally make it unrideable. I would personally not change the 'stance' too much, as this is how a lot of people ruin bikes.

Same goes with the front tire size. This is a small disp bike, and a big beefy tire is going to look really goofy on there, not to mention negatively impact the handling. If anything only go up 1 size MAX, but just remember that you're technically making the bike 'worse' by doing so. I went up a size (from a 100 to a 110 IIRC) on my 360 and its not terrible, but definitely bulkier and noticeable going into turns. Putting a wider front rim on there is counterproductive IMO.

I can't help too much with jetting, there's other guys here who are the pros at that. Generally speaking with pods you'll have to go up a bit on the secondary main, but I'll let others chime in on that.

That all being said, welcome and good luck with the build. Plan everything out accordingly. I would highly recommend putting the frame back together to do your fab work before you get everything all pretty, go to reassemble and find out shit doesn't work. Read through some builds here to see what mistakes people have made (including myself) and don't make the same ones. Learn to weld or have a friend who welds.

Oh and don't put drag bars on a 'cafe,' they look awful and you won't be able to ride it.

Hey, that bike looks kinda familiar...

Been working on a 200t for the last 6 months on and off. I have the Honda Shop Manual in a binder, I'm sure I still have the PDF somewhere. I found it online, a bit of googling would probably bring it up.

She's pretty nice and clean! Running is always a plus too. I'm by no means a pro, but if you have any questions feel free to message me.
To answer a couple of your questions;
-If you do blast the engine, do a soda blast, definitely not glass/sand
-With the front stock, you won't be able to squeeze much bigger a tire in there. I'm planning on running the same size back and front for the same reason (3.00-18)
-For parts, check ebay. 2digit-2t linked a great page for parts there: http://stores.ebay.com/Mr-Cs-Motorcycles

Good luck with your build, interested to see what direction you go with it!

AWESOME! thanks for replying to the post guys. And and to clear a few things up, yes I am aware of soda blasting or other types of media blasting for the engine. That was a route I think I may go with as to "scuff/clean" the surface. As well as good old fashion elbow grease.

As far as changing the stance of the bike. I'm not intending of lowering or raising it in anyway. May go with a different appearance or riding style to it. However the rear sets are gonna be up in air until I get my seat. I really didn't mind the foot positioning of it before hand. once my seat comes in ill have a better idea if I'm going to go clip ons or another bar setup. As far as the Rims/Tire is concerned i think I am going to keep stock tires on it, but just get a newer tire on it, even though the tires look brand new. I don't want to change the geometry of the bike in anyway and I know a little here a little there will do it but hat was something I had forgot about in the increase of tire size. But the main focus currently is engine service.

The engine does need gaskets as I'm unsure of where its leaking at exactly on the head. So that was one of the main reasons for tearing into the way I did. figured its gotta come out so while I'm at it, lets tear it down and refresh the turd. However on hondatwins he guys recommended doing the OILING MOD? Where you get the journal casing from a cb175 and drill a hole and such js to make sure the top end gets more oil to it. Is anyone familiar with this?

Good starting point:
http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=43921.0

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=12552.0

Here is a good start for info!

Don't want to Jack the thread but if there's a repository of info like that on cb550s, that would be awesome to see.

snmavridis said:

Don't want to Jack the thread but if there's a repository of info like that on cb550s, that would be awesome to see.

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http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=14018.0

So its been a few months since I posted last and I don't have many followers but quite a few views. Family life as become quite hectic however I do find myself making progress as I go. unfortunately not as many pictures or writing about whats going on as I would like to do. But what I have done so far I will gladly share with all of you.

So the last picture I had posted was cleaning up the engine. But it didn't stop there I decided to tear further down into it and ordered my gasket set. Next to replacing gaskets and checking over components. timing chain, valves, pistons, rings and other various odds and ends that all need to be addressed.

now fast forward sometime and other parts being ordered and other work being done as progress came about I continued to work on the engine, piece it back together. Past that it was time to start do some polishing. So I had to use a drill gun since I don't have an actual benchtop polisher. So drill + buffing wheel + c clamp = good fun.








Now by no means am I an expert polisher nor was I going for the OMG looks how fkn shiny it is look. I just wanted to do some clean up on the parts. and all in all I think they didn't turn out half bad.

Now that the polishing got done it was time to move back to the engine. so parts in place and taped shes ready for take off. Before any of that ever gets laid down (paint I mean) scrub scrub scrub and scrub more. Prepping goes along way in terms of a nice base for painting. Combine that with some shiny parts + some new stainless bolts and I think shes looking reallllllllll good now.

Btw a 20 Ton hydraulic press works wonders for holding your engine in the air. plus gives you a base that can slide up and down while your strapping and unstrapping the engine from the bars on top.

time for the removal of the tape. Now the engine still isn't done I will need to do more dress up on it. clean up the fins/polish them. Add a few more stainless bolts ontop of the valve cover. But shes looking mighty mighty purty.

Figured since I was on a painting kick I might as well clean up a few other items that were needing some attention too.

So for tonight that's a few more posts up and on here to show how progress has gone. naturally there is much more that I have finished up on. I will be posting up tomorrow on other things such as the wiring, bars, parts, gas tank, and things like that. so thanks for still reading up or following the progress of the cb200t.

Nice. Keep it up.

Good stuff ! What's your current plan on silencers? (Mufflers)

Sometime Later said:

Nice. Keep it up.

Click to expand...

Thanks man. Im trying.

Erskine said:

Good stuff ! What's your current plan on silencers? (Mufflers)

Click to expand...

As far as mufflers/silencers go ive thought about a few different setups. One being pipes with no mufflers. Another with cocktail style pipes. And than another with reverse cone setups. Personally i like the reverse cone setup myself. But given the fact im gonna be running unifilter cleaners on it and also changing mufflers not 100% sure how easy this thing will be to tune and sync. Ive never had to sync carbs. I can do small engine carbs all day. But unsure of what size jets and such to get. so i debated even running stock mufflers on it. For now. Since mufflers js bolt on. Than i can tweak the air/fuel from there. But in the meantime i meed to find new carbs since i have stripped threads on top where the slider needle goes into.