Not only my first etc etc! - Exhaust Fabrication Done! Pics!

Now that its been consistently below freezing (my propane heater in the detached garage cant keep up with these temps) Ive had a chance to finally throw together a big arse project thread. So here we go:

A friend and I had tossed around the idea of building a bike a few months back, and for whatever reason it struck a cord with me. I really got into the idea and started researching what kind of bike would be doable for a first timer, and also what was affordable. Me and my friend settled on the cb350. We lucked out and found a package deal for 3 non running cb350's about 200 miles away for 600$. We drove down there, checked them out, and rented a uhaul to bring them home.


just incase youre wondering, this is not an ideal, much less safe, way to transport motorcycles.



We are using my moms garage as a shop. She OK'd it as long as we were willing to clean it out. I forgot to get pics from its worst state, but believe me, it was filled to the rafters with junk. Also my brothers project civic drag car is in there which he hasnt touched in 5+ years. Sadly I have to work around the car, so a lot of room is lost to it.


After about 20 hours of both of us cleaning and starting to lay some insulation



The ladies make it safe and sound to their home for the winter



Even with the car taking up a lot of room, theres plenty of space for the project. You can see the parts bike in the foreground. Someone was turning it into a hardtail chopper and cut the frame in half. *sigh* The one in the middle has some nifty apehanger handle bars compliments of the 1970's. *sigh*



Friends neighbors were throwing out this logitech 2.1 system. I resoldered the stereo jack and viola, weve got a 200$ sound system. Next to it is the portable propane heater I picked up from home depot. I drilled a hole and ran the line outside so I dont have a 20lbs propane bomb sitting next to me while I use my angle grinder...



The shop drill. Previosly my granddads. Must be 40+ years old. Works like new.



This is what tipped the scales in my decision of which bike I wanted to build.

Dont see it? Check out the trip odometer


Tear down has begun. I really dont know what Im doing, but Im learning a ton as I go. Ive got a Clymers cb350 repair manual, so between it and the forum I should be fine..



never done any engine work before. I have a sound understanding of how the thing works and Ill just be taking apart the top end. So the rebuild shouldnt be too hard.


So thats about all the pictures I have loaded to my computer at the moment. I think my friend is going to go more traditional cafe style, and my plans have a bit more of a modern twist.


Well, thats it for now. Ill be posting updates as I make progress.

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Any plans for the hardtail?

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

The plan for both projects will probably change quite a bit as you get into it. Look forward to seeing the progress.

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Awesome to see another CB350 project started up. Seems you have all the WILL and parts to get it done, anyone that will clean up moms garage in order to get some building space has my vote for most likely to make a kick ass ride. Dont dump that hartail it looks like a good job. My hardtail doesn't look that straight.

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

I wrote most of this up a few weeks back and just got around to finishing it up and posting it here, and already a few things have changed.

Ive realized that the hardtail could be cool, and therefore it prob will get built down the line. Also Ive realized that I was very ambitious with my original plans, and Ive toned them down a bit. For example, I dont think Ill be molding my own fiberglass seat on this build. Also Ill farm out some of the work, like blasting and painting as I cant afford the equipment for either at this time. That being said, I still plan to take my time and pull off a kick ass build. Just need to take it one step at a time.

Oh and Ill probably throw an update with the progress Ive made in the past few weeks up here by friday.. there are some interesting twists to the story already

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Depending on your budget and experience, I would consider buying a running motor (if none of the parts bikes have one amongst them). Out here the local chop shops sell the engines at around a buck per c.c.. I bought an engine with excellent compression and in overall good shape and probably saved myself a ton of head ache as, like you, had no idea with engine rebuilds.

Good start to keeping a blog. You'll probably get a kick out of going to the first post a year down the road and seeing where it all started.

Cheers

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

666 eh!

I hope you're prepared for 'troubles'!! ;D

It looks like you've got things well in hand! Have fun with it! ;D

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

killer man! looks great man!!!

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Great... we can be in the same boat with asking questions. Im working on a cb200, virgin builder also. Good luck.

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Hey another TRIPLE 6 My triple 6 is the Vin # 8)

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

so... what did you get done this weekend!?

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

IMOALE said:

Hey another TRIPLE 6 My triple 6 is the Vin # 8)

Click to expand...

My kz650's trip odometer was sitting on 666 when I picked it up too. Two electrical fires, a blown motor, and a complete tear down/rebuild later I seem to have exercised the demons!!!

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

JRK5892 said:

so... what did you get done this weekend!?

Click to expand...

nada! My heater is nice, but even with the insulation its not gonna pump out enough btus to make the garage anywhere near comfortable when weve got temps like this. I do have some updates on stuff done beyond the point that the first post leaves off. Ive been kinda busy but Ill try and put together an update before I hit the sack and if not than tomorrow.

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

dude on days like this i will grab as many things as i can do inside, small part polishing, small wiring, do all the little things... makes it alot easier... 4 months and counting!

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

side note about the engine removal: My clymers says that you can remove the valve cover BEFORE removing the engine from the frame. I found this to definitely NOT be true. As you know this is my first time doing all of this so I tried to stick as close to the manual as possible. So needless to say this caused a bit of undue frustration. But now I know the clymers isnt a bible, lesson learned.

I opened up the case via the side covers (after further stripping several screws with a socket wrench with a philips head attachment, I went out and bought a impact driver; it is now my best friend) and found a lot of ground up metal and rubber. This worried me a bit, but I heard it could just be from the cam chain tensioners being worn down, so I continued on.




oops, be careful when dropping metal objects while working with the alternator exposed...


After completely tearing down the top end, a few days went by and with fresh eyes I spotted a problem I somehow completely missed during teardown:



Ya, so theres a huge chunk missing out of the bottom of one of the cylinders, clearly its lost somewhere in the block and might explain the excessive level of metal shavings. What didnt get grinded up into little specs is probably fused to something in the case. Also the motor had a missing header bolt which was replaced with an oversized single threaded bolt, ruining the threads. So, as far as Im concerned this is a cool looking oversized paper weight. On to the next engine.

I decided to take the motor from the hardtail since it already had everything stripped off of it and simply needed to be unbolted and lifted out. I was slightly worried because this bike was making a sort of gurgling sound when you kicked it over. I figured rain water might have gotten into the cylinders. However after tearing down the top end the motor looked to be in really good condition, so this wasnt the case. I was a bit perplexed, but I finally figured that the compression was just so bad that pressure was going into the case which caused the oil to make a gurgling noise. The oil came out black as night, but had no trace of metal in it.

the donor in the foreground


I little too much elbow grease behind that rubber mallet... Thankfully I have two more of these from the other bikes..


Heres a bit of a trick I used to get the cam sprocket bolts out. On the first motor I simply wrapped the end of the cam with a towel and then clamped on my vicegrips. It worked like a charm. This time around I just couldnt get a good grip on them, they kept slipping. So I stuffed rags, as tight as I could, to sort of lock the cam in place. I would def suggest trying the vicegrips and towel first, but if that doesnt work, this will do the job.




When I did get the top end tore down, I took the wire wheel to the cylinder head where the valves seat and also I used it to scrub off all the carbon on the pistons.

before/after of pistons


It turns out I did the pistons in vain; I measured the diameter of the cylinders with my new micrometer and they are way out of spec. So Ill be ordering oversized pistons and rings when I get some cash together. I do have a question for you guys concerning this though. What size is the original bore? I see what the increments of oversized pistons are, but I dont see what the original size is. I just want to know so I know what to tell the machine shop to bore it out to(I was quoted at 90$ for a rebore+hone of both cyls.) Also what size should I go with?

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

I got lucky with my engine it had real good compression and only had to have it honed and ringed. Dr J probably will give you the answer. Which I will note down. one of my engines looked just like yours. Remember dont dump any of the tensioning brackets or wheels off your engines. I hate cold weather (born in Denver) but have lived in the desert my whole life cold is like 70s for me and anything below that is freezing LOL. Keep up the work boom I'm keeping close tabs on your build for tips with mine. Man I dig that hard tail. 8)

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

soooo I titled all three bikes about a month ago. I was a bit worried because the titles were not notorized and they also were not in the sellers name as he never started work on them so never saw a reason to title them. Everything went fine though and I got the titles in the mail today. Only problem is that on two of the three my last name is misspelled. How this happens when I submitted all three at the same time is beyond me, but whatever. I think I can get a corrected title for something like 10$ Stupid DMV..

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Good to see the progress and glad you were able to get them all titled. Hard to imagine how they could make an error like that, but those clerks don't make that much so . . .

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

its 60° in chicago right now and almost all of the snow (like two feet of it) has melted away. So pulled my car out of the garage to give me a bit of room. I was looking through some boxes and rediscovered a slightly bent up set of ducati 900ss rear sets. They are a bit bulky for the 350, but I think there should be some way to get them to work. I better be able to, because 300$ rear sets just arent in the budget..

I tried to search on google for pics of the rear sets as I didnt bring my camera to the garage, but this is best I came up with..

Re: Not only my first project bike, but my first bike period!

Im sick and have been wasting away in my bed. I got antsy so I went out to the garage to poke around. I took another look at the 900ss rear sets. I think I can utilize them, however it will take some fabrication. The peg and levers arent on the same shaft, so Ill have to either cut up the mounting bracket, or use it whole.

Previously I had measured the jugs from the donor motor. They were out of spec and so I got a quote for 90$ to bore and hone them. Im pretty short on funds so I was budgeting my build and realized I cant afford the bore+oversized pistons+rings and all the other stuff I need. While I was out in the garage I got the idea to measure the juggs from the motor with the broaken piston. I guess I just figured they were messed up since the piston was wrecked. I grabbed my micrometer and the juggs and took them inside out of the cold. SCORE! they are nearly perfect! That saves me like 250-300$!

To get the bike running:

Order carb rebuild kits
Order rings
Order tensioner
Order cam chain guide
Pay Imoale for a teflon cam chain wheel
Finish removing old gasket from mating surfaces (I hate this)
Already have full gasket kit
Already have 92 piece allen head engine bolt kit from MG innovations

And that should get her running...