narconethree
Victory or Death
So I have been in a battle with myself over doing a "build" thread or not for quite awhile. Obviously we know which decision won out. Please dont expect a ground up pull her all apart resto. I'm just not into it, never have been. I appreciate the time, love, blood , heart and soul that go into projects like that. I love to look at them and take in what ideas and inginuity everyone comes up with but I like riding my bike to damn much for her to be apart that long. To me the age, rust and road rash make things beautiful. Each little scratch is a part of her history where she has been, what she has done and the miles of asphalt that I might forget but she never will. Ive been building cars for along time. Before I started my current career I did restoration and built hot rods. I was into "rat rods" before rat rods existed. So if a regular guy redoing his bike for the love of riding her is any interest read on good sirs, read on.
This first post will be a long one as I have over a year to get through just to bring you all up to current.
This is my first motorcycle. It took months and months of scouring CL to find the right bike. When I look at a car or bike or anything else I build I can look at it and know exactly what I will have in the end. I never really see the current state (which tends to cause me headache more often than not) always the finished product. So one fine day I come across this 1973 CB350F and it's love at first sight. Ive never seen one before, shes rare, I see 750's, 350 twins, 500 twins out the ass. But never a 350 Four. Im hooked. I emailed the guy as quick as my fingers could go only to find out I am second in line. What a damn disappointment. I wait patiently for any word on if "number one" was actually coming to buy it. Turns out he did. Fine. Back to the drawing board. The next morning i'm back on CL looking again. To my amazement there she is again, same price different location. Again my fingers fly through an illiterate email frenzy of I am interested call me etc. The owner calls me within minutes to say he bought it the day before only to find out the 750 he was eyeing up became available. Apparently it was meant to be. I was overjoyed we hopped in my buddies truck and rushed down to see her. Since this was my first bike I bought my buddy Chris along to give her a look over and a quick spin up the street. (he has alot of bike experience I will show you some of his handy work later) He says he would buy it, running a little rough but she started up on the second kick. The starter button was missing F that mess anyway. If she didnt have it it was because she wanted to be kicked. So to this day i refuse to put one in. After a quick exchange of funds and title we had her loaded up and on her way to my garage. Here she is the day I got her.
So now I have some work to do. First thing first get my M class License. Signed right up for the safety course and went to work on pulling her apart. My first goal was to get her stripped of all the ugly bits and ready to ride. By ugly bits I mean the headlight ears, the Huffy style handle bars, ridiculous mirrors and the like. I ordered the "cafe necessities" like the clubman bars and bar end mirrors. Then went to town on cleaning the carbs.
My next project was to be able to hear her run with my helmet on. I spent the next 2 days wrestling the baffles out of the exhaust. I literally had the baffle chained to a rafter hanging from it just to pull it out. That was fun. Put her back together and fired her up. holy shit. What a noise. Needles to say I built some new baffles much less restrictive than the first. Next project was cleaning and retuning the carbs. Let me just say I hate carbs, let me clarify I hate when there are 4 carbs. What a pain in the ass. The area where they are located in the frame makes adjustment a nightmare. I do believe I got my first grey hair dealing with getting those stupid things synched right. Well at this point she was running good and I was days away from getting my license. So time for a quickie spray bomb paint job. Not perfect but I just wanted to ride.
I thought White would look pretty with rust.
All of these changes happened in roughly 2 weeks. After putting her back together and receiving my papery new m class I was happy as a pig in shit. I rode the balls out of her everyday there wasn't a drop of rain. Even when there was risk of rain I still rode her. Cold? Meh! It didnt matter I was free.
We skip ahead now One crappy fall week it was supposed to not stop raining for days so I had a plan. I was sick of the white and wanted to wrap my exhaust anyway so it was time for a week long "overhaul".
I stripped her down again to give her a fresh coat and darken up her attitude factor a bit. Which brings us pretty close to our current state.
I blacked out the wheels and the exhaust where it showed and gave her a dip in some battleship grey.
Ride Ride Ride.
Then the fateful day.
While out for a little mid summer spin with my good friend Pete a little bit of gravel changed everything.
We were making a relatively slow right turn off a main street and I was following Pete. I took the same path as him and that was a mistake. He rides a 06 CBR 600rr with a really fat wide tire. It appears that a wide tire has no issue with gravel. My rubberband on the rear on the other hand does. Pete watched the whole thing in his mirror. He said it looked amazing, like I had been flat tracking for years. So what actually happened was the back end hit the gravel and came out on me. Ok, don't panic hang i tout and bring it back in line. (side note i've been racing cars for years and have a damn good grasp on getting out of sticky situations) I dipped pretty good and was very close to being ok when to my surprise my peg hit the ground. not good. The jolt made me smack the throttle down harder. Hey look here comes a large embankment and a telephone pole. She flipped back up just in time to hit the embankment. 5 more feet of road and I would have been fine. 5 more damn feet. She hit the dirt and I went flying. I hit the bars then the pole with my face. I love helmets! So the damage report Bent wheel, check. Cracked Triple tree, check. No more bar end mirrors, check. Locked kick start, check. Son of a bitch! I was heart broken. (at this point I had an opportunity to buy a 2005 CBR 600RR on the cheap. And I did. I hated it, every mile on it sucked. It wasnt my baby. It was a great bike for that kind of person but not me. I am now officially anti sport bike purchase.) I have now begun the process of redoing her to get her on the road again.
more soon....I am tired of typing right now but Ill go down to the shop and snap a few pictures and update later tonight or tomorrow.
This first post will be a long one as I have over a year to get through just to bring you all up to current.
This is my first motorcycle. It took months and months of scouring CL to find the right bike. When I look at a car or bike or anything else I build I can look at it and know exactly what I will have in the end. I never really see the current state (which tends to cause me headache more often than not) always the finished product. So one fine day I come across this 1973 CB350F and it's love at first sight. Ive never seen one before, shes rare, I see 750's, 350 twins, 500 twins out the ass. But never a 350 Four. Im hooked. I emailed the guy as quick as my fingers could go only to find out I am second in line. What a damn disappointment. I wait patiently for any word on if "number one" was actually coming to buy it. Turns out he did. Fine. Back to the drawing board. The next morning i'm back on CL looking again. To my amazement there she is again, same price different location. Again my fingers fly through an illiterate email frenzy of I am interested call me etc. The owner calls me within minutes to say he bought it the day before only to find out the 750 he was eyeing up became available. Apparently it was meant to be. I was overjoyed we hopped in my buddies truck and rushed down to see her. Since this was my first bike I bought my buddy Chris along to give her a look over and a quick spin up the street. (he has alot of bike experience I will show you some of his handy work later) He says he would buy it, running a little rough but she started up on the second kick. The starter button was missing F that mess anyway. If she didnt have it it was because she wanted to be kicked. So to this day i refuse to put one in. After a quick exchange of funds and title we had her loaded up and on her way to my garage. Here she is the day I got her.
So now I have some work to do. First thing first get my M class License. Signed right up for the safety course and went to work on pulling her apart. My first goal was to get her stripped of all the ugly bits and ready to ride. By ugly bits I mean the headlight ears, the Huffy style handle bars, ridiculous mirrors and the like. I ordered the "cafe necessities" like the clubman bars and bar end mirrors. Then went to town on cleaning the carbs.
My next project was to be able to hear her run with my helmet on. I spent the next 2 days wrestling the baffles out of the exhaust. I literally had the baffle chained to a rafter hanging from it just to pull it out. That was fun. Put her back together and fired her up. holy shit. What a noise. Needles to say I built some new baffles much less restrictive than the first. Next project was cleaning and retuning the carbs. Let me just say I hate carbs, let me clarify I hate when there are 4 carbs. What a pain in the ass. The area where they are located in the frame makes adjustment a nightmare. I do believe I got my first grey hair dealing with getting those stupid things synched right. Well at this point she was running good and I was days away from getting my license. So time for a quickie spray bomb paint job. Not perfect but I just wanted to ride.
I thought White would look pretty with rust.
All of these changes happened in roughly 2 weeks. After putting her back together and receiving my papery new m class I was happy as a pig in shit. I rode the balls out of her everyday there wasn't a drop of rain. Even when there was risk of rain I still rode her. Cold? Meh! It didnt matter I was free.
We skip ahead now One crappy fall week it was supposed to not stop raining for days so I had a plan. I was sick of the white and wanted to wrap my exhaust anyway so it was time for a week long "overhaul".
I stripped her down again to give her a fresh coat and darken up her attitude factor a bit. Which brings us pretty close to our current state.
I blacked out the wheels and the exhaust where it showed and gave her a dip in some battleship grey.
Ride Ride Ride.
Then the fateful day.
While out for a little mid summer spin with my good friend Pete a little bit of gravel changed everything.
We were making a relatively slow right turn off a main street and I was following Pete. I took the same path as him and that was a mistake. He rides a 06 CBR 600rr with a really fat wide tire. It appears that a wide tire has no issue with gravel. My rubberband on the rear on the other hand does. Pete watched the whole thing in his mirror. He said it looked amazing, like I had been flat tracking for years. So what actually happened was the back end hit the gravel and came out on me. Ok, don't panic hang i tout and bring it back in line. (side note i've been racing cars for years and have a damn good grasp on getting out of sticky situations) I dipped pretty good and was very close to being ok when to my surprise my peg hit the ground. not good. The jolt made me smack the throttle down harder. Hey look here comes a large embankment and a telephone pole. She flipped back up just in time to hit the embankment. 5 more feet of road and I would have been fine. 5 more damn feet. She hit the dirt and I went flying. I hit the bars then the pole with my face. I love helmets! So the damage report Bent wheel, check. Cracked Triple tree, check. No more bar end mirrors, check. Locked kick start, check. Son of a bitch! I was heart broken. (at this point I had an opportunity to buy a 2005 CBR 600RR on the cheap. And I did. I hated it, every mile on it sucked. It wasnt my baby. It was a great bike for that kind of person but not me. I am now officially anti sport bike purchase.) I have now begun the process of redoing her to get her on the road again.
more soon....I am tired of typing right now but Ill go down to the shop and snap a few pictures and update later tonight or tomorrow.
