74 cb350F-budget build

[kickinwing]

Ok, so a little background on this build real quick. I bought this bike at the end of October with the intention of getting it running right and then be done and satisfied. I had paid a little more than I wanted to to, but it was the bike I had been looking for, so I was ok with it.

I had intentions of rebuilding the leaky carbs and throwing some lower bars on and boom, I would have a cool little rider. Well, as we all know after the carbs and bars I could not stop there.

Here she is the day I picked it up.

 

[kickinwing]

It actually ran ok the when I bought it beside a pretty rough idle. The throttle was extremely sticky and like to stick wide open sometimes which was pretty sweet. So I knew I was going to need some throttle cables and a carb rebuild kit at the very least. I ordered up a set of bike master super bike bars and got those fitted up too.

Here she is with the bars on. The carb kits took a while to come in so all I had done at that point was an inspection of the carbs.

 

[kickinwing]

I mistakenly thought that swapping bars would be a pretty simple task. What I didn't realize was that because the wiring was routed through the bars, that over time the wire coating would basically glue itself to the bars. So that was a job all in itself because I didn't want to destroy the stockers either, so I had to be gentle. I also had an extra bar end mirror laying around from another bike. I love how much just swapping bars can alter the look of the bike.

 

[kickinwing]

The carb kit finally came in and that was nice because it didn't require a complete overhaul. All the hardware was in very good shape just really clogged up, so I was able to get away with just replacing the all the o-rings and gaskets. At this point I was not very deep into it money-wise, mostly labor. You can see below the carbs were not in too bad of shape.

 

[kickinwing]

I took it out one chilly night night to fill it with fresh gas so I could tune it properly. Be fore this the paint seemed solid, but i knew it was not original. I wasn't going to mess with it because it seemed ok. It turns out it was a crapy paint job because I dripped some fuel on it and the paint immediately got gummy and pulled up. So this is when I decided I was going to go a little deeper into this project.

So I started to tear it down back to front just cleaning and wire wheeling everything that had rust. After I hit it on the wheel I would shoot the parts with clear coat to avoid further rusting.

 

[ekb20b]

The modding never ends once you start !!

 

[kickinwing]

Oh god don't I know it! I'm actually pretty much done with this build, but didn't have all the photos compiled. I know it is not how you do a build thread, but I did not get around to making it until the bike was pretty much done.

 

[coalnation]

What bars did you go with? Were they already drilled?

 

[kickinwing]

They are just bikemaster super bike bars. They did not come notched I did that with a dremel. It did not turn out perfect but the holes worked and they are hidden so I am cool with how it turned out.

 

[kickinwing]

While I had it up on the lift I decided to knock out some little stuff before I got to the front end. One day while I was running it up on the lift for a little bit it sprung a full blown geyser from the shift shaft seal. That incident prompted me to go through and change some other seals that we're weeping. Ah I also had to drop the oil pan to extract a rounded off drain plug and leaky crush washer. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this because I was pretty much covered in oil the entire time. More pics to come from the front end and paint.

 

[kickinwing]

When I got to the front end I did basically the same as the rear end. Pulled everything off and either cleaned, polished, or painted most everything. When I pulled the headlight bucket off I went through and hit all the connectors with some steel wool and gave them a dab of electrical grease. Here it is up on the lift before I tore into it.

 

[kickinwing]

Everything all pulled off for cleaning/rebuilding

 

[kickinwing]

After I pulled the forks off I discovered they were in dire need of some new seals. I put the new seals in and polished them up. In the picture below you can see a before and after of them.

 

[rufio]

^ dude.....your workspace is commercial front of structure? Or you have huge windows on your garage. At any rate I'm jelly of your space and your Fj40.

 

[kickinwing]

Ha thanks dude I appreciate it. Unfortunately the FJ is my old man's. My work space is actually an old used car dealership, hence the windows in the showroom.

 

[kickinwing]

I went crazy cleaning everything on the front end. I did not like the look of the fixed brake line although it functioned fine. So I stripped the caliper and pained it and also replaced the bottom brake line. I soaked and cleaned all the other pieces as well. I debated whether or not to ditch the stock fork guards for gaitors. I really like the look of the bigger cb's so I decided to go with after market headlight brackets and gaitors.

 

[kickinwing]

As you can see in the pictures I also painted the headlight housing and relocated the blinkers to the side of it. I was pretty pumped that worked out because I was not thrilled about drilling into my brand new headlight ears. The gauges, gauge housings, and the brackets all got re sprayed as well.

 

[kickinwing]

I decided I wanted to go ahead and paint it. I had been debating getting all the tins done professionally , but got too many quotes that were more than what I paid for the bike. I watched a few videos online of people rattle-canning tins with pretty good results but I also decided against that. I may take some crap for it, but it wasn't original paint, so I went with spray on bed liner. Easy, durable, looks cool (IMO) and most importantly cheap. So I went to work.

 

[kickinwing]

Beginning to end on the tank. Pretty much the same process on the side covers minus the paint stripping. A light sanding did the trick on the plastic. I also just cleaned the badges with some wd 40 because they have a cool worn look to them.

 

[kickinwing]

Finished product sans the seat which is still at the upholstery shop. After this photo was taken I ended up ripping the rear wheel and brake set up off to do a little more cleaning cuz I was bored.