My first build, Honda 350F

S

strangedaze39

Active Member
I figured I'd start documenting my bike overhaul here. Hopefully this will help others and help me. Here's what I know about the bike. It's a Honda CB350F the title says 71? but I'm pretty sure it's a 72' with a title mishap somewhere down the line. It ran two years ago and was parked because the previous owner couldn't pull the stiff clutch back anymore. He still rides though.

I bought the bike about a month ago for $350 and couldn't have been happier. This is my first "real" motorcycle. I've had street/dirt bikes in the past including a Honda 74 XL70 which I used to ride around town. So I really don't know a whole lot about rebuilding bikes, but I would like to think I catch on fast.

Things I've repaired so far:
New clutch & throttle cable
Swapped in NOS breaker plate/points
New fuel line
Just ordered some oem side covers and bars (should be here soon)
New spark plugs
New battery/fuse
Repaired ignitions switch

Things I still need to fix (probably going to expand ;) ):
Leaky petcock
Carb rebuild
Set timing (need to get it started first)
And then of-coarse many cometic things.

For now my first priority is getting it running. I have good spark, but pretty crappy fuel flow. I think I need to rebuild my carbs. Another problem I have is I can only get a couple of the spark plugs wet. I don't know if this is something simple. Or just some clogged carbs. My tank was really clean inside. And overall the bike is pretty clean, but I think the carbs had gas sitting in them for a couple years. I wouldn't be surprised if thats my problem. What do you think?

I'll try to describe how I fixed what problems I've had so far. I'm far better with electronics then engine work. So if someone is having an electrical problem I'll try my best to help.

And now everybody's favorite part :p PICTURES. It looks just how I bought it still. FYI the bars are going soon.
2i7b9z5.jpg

357jyjc.jpg

ic0f1x.jpg

11w8y8m.jpg


Thanks for reading, I know that was probably a drawn out. I'll be keeping this updated, and I'm still not sure what kind of look I want to give this bike. So any suggestions are welcome.

-SD
 
Update:

So today my side covers and OEM bars came today. FYI member "captusa" from sohc forums is an awesome seller, fast shipping and cheap prices. First I installed the side covers those were a breeze obviously. Next I put together my OEM bars, this was a little more difficult. This was my process:
1) Un-Bolt bars from clasp, remove clutch cable.
2) Carefully tracing the wires from each handle switch harness to the terminal inside the headlight bucket and only unplugging what I needed to.
3) Take handle bars off with switches still on and took them into my work shop
4) I used a dremel with a cutting disc, and cut those old bars in half... yep right down the middle *good riddens* After I cut them in half I cut them again in the middle of each Z shape to help slide the switch harnesses off easier.
5) I first tried just sliding the cables through the new handle bars. This didn't work to well, they were to still to go past the second bend and find there way to the hole. So I used electrical tape to make a sort of tape tail that was flexible but still sturdy. This allowed me to grab the electrical tape and pull the rest of the harness through.
6) Bolt it all back together
7) Hook up the corresponding cable colors in the headlight bucket again, and check if everything works fine (if you do this make sure to leave the bucket open while you test, I got off without a hitch but it would be easy to mess up with those faded cables)

I also was tinkering with my carbs today. My 4th carb wasn't getting an gas at all. I previously opened carb one and it was REALLY clean so I figured they all where fine. Boy was I wrong, when I took the float bowl off carb 4 it looked like crap caked on everything, and the "drip" hole for the gas was clogged. So I was able to clean the bowl out and spay the hell out of the carb and float with carb clean. After a bit of work it started filling really nice. NOTE: Make SURE you remove the gasket before using cleaner I didn't and it totally expanded I had to boil the crap out and put it in the freezer I got lucky it held nicely I could easily see these breaking.

PICS:




Things I still need to do and research:
1) Clean carbs
2) Fix petcock
3) and a million other things

Thanks for looking hope you enjoy, if anyone has any advice on the things I need to do list or just about the bike in general, I'd love to hear um.

SD
 
I got a killer deal, $50 shipped for both side covers with embelems and OEM bars. Did you see the ones I had on there before? You can see in the first post. Why wouldn't I want to buy stock bars? I think they look great, I might get some drag bars later on, but IMO drag bars or clubman bars are pretty ridiculous looking while riding without rear-sets.

Glad you like the green ;D take my word though it looks worse in real life. I'm going to paint it though, most likely a sexy orange, or a good looking dark green again.

-SD

Speed2XS said:
Why did you buy OEM bars?
Click to expand...
 
strangedaze39 said:
I got a killer deal, $50 shipped for both side covers with embelems and OEM bars. Did you see the ones I had on there before? You can see in the first post. Why wouldn't I want to buy stock bars? I think they look great, I might get some drag bars later on, but IMO drag bars or clubman bars are pretty ridiculous looking while riding without rear-sets.

-SD
Click to expand...

Thats a very reasonable answer. The stocker is a huge improvement on the "easy rider" bar that came with the bike. I just couldnt for the life of me, see why someone frequenting a caff site would buy a stocker, but the deal you got was great and you're right in not doing dropped bars until you get rearsets to work with them. Im excited to see how you progress as I have a 71 500/4 myself. Keep us posted.
 
Hey Speed, I love cafe's and stockers. Thats why my build is going to be a bolt on bolt off approach. It's going to take some more imagination and work, but it will definitely be worth it for me. I'll definitly keep you all posted, I should be doing a carb rebuild tomorrow, and possibly start my seat today.

Thanks for staying tuned.

SD
 
SD - I'm not buying your bar/rearset rational. I put flatbars on my cb750F and then swapped them for drop bars (not clubmans which are flat in the horizontal but bars that drop the grips about 3") Even without rearsets this was great improvement. Before 80mph had you hanging on big time but bent over more with the grips lower got me much less wind resistance and I could go all day at 90mph.

I also installed flat bars (drag bars?) on my KZ650 - again no rearsets and still a great improvement for the same reason.

The bar swap can be a bit of a pain - switch gear hits tank - MC res hits speedo - etc but still worth it.
 
When you're in the carbs, make sure that both jets in each carb are clean -- you should see a pinhole of light when you look at the center of the end where the flathead screwdriver bit goes in.
 
zixxer it's only my opinion, if you enjoy it more power to you. It will vary from bike to bike, but it's a pet peeve of mine when you need to ride a bike like this (back) o < o (front) (the 2 o's are the wheels and the top part of the < are the arms and bottom the legs hope that explains things better.) I REALLY hate my bars hitting my tank as well, even if it's a prime job it just sucks having to repaint tanks. This is all opinions I'm throwing around. No hard feeling I hope.

Quick update, I'm in the process of cleaning the engine and I have the carbs and petcock in the shop. I was able to clean them partially on my own but really wanted to have them done well. So I went with my relatives shop.

Thanks for the help everyone, I'll try and get some pics and do a proper write up real soon.

SD
 
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