ZenMoto
New Member
Hey guys,
I'm new to the forum, but have been riding and wrenching on bikes since I was 7 ...and I'm 45 now ...so DAMN, that's a long time.
I recently acquired a pretty clean 1976 Honda CJ360 and fell in love with the idea of doing something custom with it. I'm a designer by trade, so I have some fun ideas for a clean build. I thought I would start a thread here to keep track of my progress.
Anyway, here's the bike as it was when I picked it up.
It looked decent, but had been lightly crashed, had a head gasket leak, and frozen carbs from sitting for several years ...the tank was ruined from rust as well.
First things first, I bought a rebuild kit for the carbs and tore into them. I was fortunate that the diaphragms were both in excellent shape, so it was just a matter of cleaning everything out and replacing O-rings, etc. ...almost as good as new.
Next I started tearing the thing down, making note of all missing, bent, or broken pieces I would later need.
I was able to find a decent CB360 tank that had the logo mounts bondo'd over, so I'm in the midst of cleaning it out and prepping it for paint, but right off the bat, what a difference it makes in the lines of this bike ....I like it!
My plan for the bike involves painting the engine rather than polishing the covers, and I'm shooting for HRC gold, but getting the color right can be a trick. ...until I removed the stator cover and found that the upper half of the crank-case is, for some inexplicable reason, factory painted that color inside ...and it looks AMAZING in person. Now I KNOW I'm going to paint the engine this color!
I have no idea why it's painted that color, I've seen several of these torn down and never seen one that wasn't just silver (bare aluminum) ...has anyone else? Seeing it in person, it's clear this isn't some old rattle-can job that wore off on the outside, it's really stunning.
Anyway, that's all I've got at the moment. Between my boy's Scouts, my girl's gymnastics, and my pesky job, there's little time to work on it, but I'm doing my best. ...I haven't even had a chance to fire up my new welder yet! lol
Cheers.
I'm new to the forum, but have been riding and wrenching on bikes since I was 7 ...and I'm 45 now ...so DAMN, that's a long time.
I recently acquired a pretty clean 1976 Honda CJ360 and fell in love with the idea of doing something custom with it. I'm a designer by trade, so I have some fun ideas for a clean build. I thought I would start a thread here to keep track of my progress.
Anyway, here's the bike as it was when I picked it up.
It looked decent, but had been lightly crashed, had a head gasket leak, and frozen carbs from sitting for several years ...the tank was ruined from rust as well.
First things first, I bought a rebuild kit for the carbs and tore into them. I was fortunate that the diaphragms were both in excellent shape, so it was just a matter of cleaning everything out and replacing O-rings, etc. ...almost as good as new.
Next I started tearing the thing down, making note of all missing, bent, or broken pieces I would later need.
I was able to find a decent CB360 tank that had the logo mounts bondo'd over, so I'm in the midst of cleaning it out and prepping it for paint, but right off the bat, what a difference it makes in the lines of this bike ....I like it!
My plan for the bike involves painting the engine rather than polishing the covers, and I'm shooting for HRC gold, but getting the color right can be a trick. ...until I removed the stator cover and found that the upper half of the crank-case is, for some inexplicable reason, factory painted that color inside ...and it looks AMAZING in person. Now I KNOW I'm going to paint the engine this color!
I have no idea why it's painted that color, I've seen several of these torn down and never seen one that wasn't just silver (bare aluminum) ...has anyone else? Seeing it in person, it's clear this isn't some old rattle-can job that wore off on the outside, it's really stunning.
Anyway, that's all I've got at the moment. Between my boy's Scouts, my girl's gymnastics, and my pesky job, there's little time to work on it, but I'm doing my best. ...I haven't even had a chance to fire up my new welder yet! lol
Cheers.