76 CB360T Cafe

[ToddGrice]

Hey everyone, been lurking around here for quite some time getting inspiration and reading up on what I'll need to know once I start to get my hands dirty. Well that time has come! My brother Nick and I both race professionally with the AMA in the supersport class and after seeing a running 360 on craigslist for $300 figured that the off season was the perfect time to throw our hats in the cafe racer ring. Here is some copy past from the original thread on another forum to get you up to speed on where we are at!

After watching the new show on Discovery HD Theatre 'Cafe Racer' and seeing how much fun the Bostrom's had riding those cafe race bikes around (aside from the one that had the front wheel bearings fail and send him to the pavement) we knew we needed to snag this.

Here is it the day we got her. In all of her California central coast salt watery aired beauty.

Seeing some others built into amazing machines I figured the money I saved on getting a running bike would be a good headstart and everything that is staying on the bike, minus the spokes & rims is really not in all that bad of shape.

This is the one we liked the most when googling 'CB360 cafe racer' and are planning something along these lines

 

[ToddGrice]

Hollister Hills & Dirt bikes kinda consumed the weekend!!!

I did do something:thumbup I "won" a new front and rear wheel/tire and a new starter motor on ebay all 3 items were 9.99 each, although the shipping was in the $20's for the wheels. It is still in the state of the pics before so no update there but once disassembly starts I will update with cool things.

 

[ToddGrice]

Dang a whole year before we got around to any form of visible progress!!! Between racing and life we didn't have much time to do more than look at what we knew we needed to replace and order it up...

Now have

• New Wheels front and rear, in case the cuurent ones arent salvageable
• Carb Kit
• All new gaskets
• Starter Block off plug (Kick start only:teeth:thumbup)
• Misc odds ands ends to cleanup / improve whats on there

and now some pictures!


First look under the seat

All major stuff removed

Wiring harness looks to have been messed with by previous owner
Lots of labeling and going through thoroughly will be done to get it into shape.

And finally our pomeranian Sprinkles ready to go for a ride

 

[ToddGrice]

Made a little more progress today. Nick is up at the Cabin in Tahoe with our neighbors enjoying the limited amount of snow on the slopes so I was getting bored with my broken shoulder down here and put some work in.

going through the wiring harness and labeling everything is a bit of a tedious process but it will save us headaches down the road as we are going to be removing some circuits along the way.

Working from the back of the bike to the front has been the system for no other reason than that's the way it started and its seeming to go from simple to complicated along the way. Especially since much of the harness has been rerouted and messed with.

Also removed the batterybox and tool kit holder (previous owner welded the battery box to the frame and the toolkit holder to the battery box). I had to get the hacksaw out and remove the battery box and let me tell you using a hacksaw with one arm in a sling in a confined space on the frame was frustrating in the very least. The red airfilters will be heading to the classifieds sections for a better looking pod filter as the battery box area will be exposed and visible.

Battery Box (notice the NOT factory welds.)

Frame without battery box in there and a bit of the craziness that is the wiring harness labeling. It looks rusty but that's speed rust it's supposed to look like that.

 

[ToddGrice]

Was able to get some more work done now that Nick is back from the snow and I can have him pick up all the heavy stuff I can't do with a sling on. My dad picked up some blasting media so we can start stripping the really rusty stuff; Frame, swingarm, exhaust, gas tank triple clamps and anything else rusted enough to warrant it. We also have a mini blaster for the smaller things like the top of the carbs they are super rusted. The headlight bucket is also cracked and I'll probably end up making one that fits the theme a bit better and might house the gauges still unsure. I pulled the points cover off and the points are pretty rusted as well so those will be replaced along with the coils and sparkplug wires unless I can find a readily available electronic ignition.

This was a lot of fun to go through and re-organize. A lot of the wires are stiff and the connections corroded so I am think I am going to just make a wiring harness since a lot of stuff will be removed.

Full Harness off the bike (finally)

There are some weird connections that just end and I am thinking I am just going to fully reassemble the harness and secure it on a table top and then go through it that way to save headaches and confusion down the road.

Got the carbs & rear wheel off and things started to look like where we want them too.

And just the frame with a bunch of tabs that will become obsolete and thus ground off by the time this is done. The right side engine mounts (bottom front, Top rear) are removable and make pulling the engine relatively simple.

After seeing a few pictures of "things organized neatly" and felt a bit inspired once we had everything apart and decided to snag a picture along those lines.

 

[ToddGrice]

Didn't get a whole lot done the last few days, we did get our media blaster up and going and tested it out on the frame. It works well, but was readily apparent that we need to make a cabinet. Blasting outside was just too messy and if we blast things like rotors on the race bike frequently it will just make life easier.

We're going to pick up a scooter (Yamaha chappy) project from a today, but won't start that until we are further along on the CB. Tomorrow we will go though all the parts to be blasted and write out a better idea of the overall goal for the CB to keep from having to go back and forth on a lot of the parts and frame etc. We are also in the market for a welder to weld up the backbone of the frame and fab up a tail section to mount the cafe seat among other uses.

The blasted frame.

 

[MotorbikeBruno]

Wow, looks like a bit of work ahead of ya I'm interested in seeing where this goes! I'll be creepin on your build.

 

[ToddGrice]

Wow, looks like a bit of work ahead of ya I'm interested in seeing where this goes! I'll be creepin on your build.

We haven't completely decided on what to do, but since we race Yamahas in the AMA and this is the only Honda in our stable we were thinking of doing a Marco Simoncelli Tribute/replica along the lines of his MotoGP Teams theme.

 

[ToddGrice]

A little more progress done today. Went through the entire harness just to be sure and unwrapped it to check for unnecessary ware. After seeing the battery box and evidence of attempted rewiring in spots I didn't want to let anything slide and some of the original wrap was torn up in some areas.

Probably going to wrap the harness in this stuff and put it up on ebay if we end up making a simplified version it's definitely getting the red!

unwrapped wire harness ready to either be simplified or cleaned up and sold. We taped it down to the table to be able to follow all of the wires and see the circuits easier. Looking at it like this makes much more sense now...sort of...

 

[ToddGrice]

No motorcycle related news on the build, BUT we did head down to the lumber yard and despite wanting to re-enact the scene from RAD kept our composure and got a sheet of plywood and some 2x4's and built some radness.

Man stuff 8)

All the blasting cabinets we saw for sale both new and used, were not large enough, nor cheap enough to justify purchasing...SOOO we made one to our specs that will fit frames and big parts! :'(

This is as far as we got, need to figure out gloves and glass and clean up some of the edges a bit.

Total cost $19 for a 4'x3'x3' cabinet. We used 1/4" plywood to keep the weight down, and will place some scrap sheet metal on the back and bottom to prevent the sand from tearing it up. ;D

 

[MotorbikeBruno]

Clever. I hope to hear how well it works. As I've got a blasting cabinet that does most, but it would be nice to have one that fit some "larger" objects.