Hello TON UP WORLD. I've been lurking in the shadows for ages, watching, reading, researching, and only sometimes drooling over your builds. A few years ago I rebuilt a CB350, my intro to both riding and wrenching, and soon after that two CL350s fell into my lap. I gave one to a buddy and the other has been sitting in various garages around New England, but now it's time! Time to resurrect this bucket and make it something beautiful and only a little dangerous. I shall call it: Baby Genius.
I don't exactly have a unified vision for this project yet, so please feel free to pipe up with your most outrageous suggestions. I don't have much experience with custom builds, but I hope to make this bike as unique as I can. I'm thinking lots of brass and polished aluminum, as little steel, chrome and paint as possible. Let the build thread commence!
Here's what I got two or three years ago. The (mostly) complete bike in the background went to a friend in Philly, who is getting it running (his first bike). The red one in the foreground (you might cruelly call it a basket case) is my victim.
Since then it has traveled all around New England with me, losing parts to friends and fate along the way. Now it sits in a garage in NJ, along with my commuter (CB350) and another project (CB350F).
The last couple days I've been cleaning up around the shop to get started (love the long weekend), and before I left today I mocked up the rolling chassis, just to get a really basic idea for the geometry and what needs to get ground off the frame. I'm not looking to completely deplete my bank account, but I really want to do this right, so I'm toying with a few 'unnecessary' projects, like rebuilding the wheels with alloy rims and stainless spokes (I hate chrome, and I'm not a huge fan of the 19" front wheel), and the big maybe is having a high compression job done on the top end big bore pistons, hard faced rockers and camshaft, new valve guides, etc. Waiting to find out what that would cost.
Not sure yet about tank and seat and all that. I've still never seen one that I loved enough to spend 800 bones on, but we'll see. For now, the stock one sits there. One thing I do want to find is a battery that is either small enough to hide in the tail section of the seat or that can be turned on it's side (AGM) to be hidden. I really want to keep that triangle under the front of the seat empty. Suggestions? Also, has anyone used rigid fuel line, like copper, on these bikes? I'm going to be putting 30mm mikunis on. Is it stupid to try and use copper fuel lines? I really like that look.
That's it for today. Got to build myself a little workbench for engine rebuilding tomorrow, but I should also be able to make some progress mocking up patterns for seat, tank, battery box, exhaust, etc. I want to get everything planned as much as possible before I go grinding, powdercoating, fabricating, and so on. Makes sense, no?
The Work side of the shop (rest is mostly storage):
Thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to hearing all your comments and suggestions!
