CB175 Cafe Buildup - The beginnings of something... small.

Yeah, mine aren't nearly that bad luckily. Briefly started attacking one of them with a scotch brite pad, it started coming off pretty well, so I think I'll go that route.

Made a bit more progress today too. Gave the carbs a thorough cleaning, including using a bread tie wire to clean out the jets. Everything came out squeaky clean, and operating smoothly, so I'll be tossing them back on the bike tomorrow.

Also started de-rusting the tank. Hit it first with the old nuts n bolts treatment, but only manually rolled it around for about 15-20 minutes, less than I would prefer. I must have dumped out about a quarter pound of rust powder after that, but still had a fair bit left visible in the tank. Next, I tested out the good old fashion apple cider vinegar method on the gas cap, which had a bunch of rust, just as much as the tank. An hour or so later, the rust had basically turned into a slight coating of mush. Wiped right off. Wife is buying me a few gallons tomorrow and I'll be doing the whole tank.

While that is bubbling away, I'll be tossing in a new battery, reinstalling the carbs, and running a remote supply of gas to try and get the thing up and running. We'll see how it goes!
 
BTW, anybody know if the CB175 is compatible with other CB model clutch cables? I'm looking at a few pictures online and they look similar (specifically the CB350/550/750 cable over at DCC), but just checking in to see if anyone has swapped one in from a different model. I only ask because I can get the bigger CB model cables for cheap and relatively closer, closer at least than the ones I'm finding on Ebay based in Thailand.

Same question for the front brake cable as well.

Thanks in advance!
 
If we can't find an answer on here, I'll just take some measurements and really compare some photos and probably just buy the lines. They're cheap enough, and if they don't work, I'm sure I could find some people that could use them, haha.
 
Cables were hard to find for my Cb175
I would go over to the hondatwins site as a specialty site is normally much better for tech questions
 
Huzzah! After this vid, I adjusted the carbs and got a nice 1100 RPM idle, no sputtering, no lumping. Throttle response is great. I'm pretty f**king excited today!

http://s514.photobucket.com/albums/t344/booligan1985/CB175/?action=view&current=4a97ec05.mp4


Please ignore my messy workshed, haha. I was a bit excited to try and bring her to life.

EDIT: Linking vids from photobucket seems to operate on some sort of voodoo... I'll figure it out.
 
Now that she's running, I can start fabbing stuff up for the end product. I'll be tucking a small AGM battery underneath the seat cowl, along with all the other electrics, so I built a small shelf to house everything:

682c1d58.jpg


Made of 22 gauge steel, cut and shaped to fit in the spot where the fender normally sits. I still have about 3.5" of clearance over the tire. It's bolted in at the front as well as at the rear fender mount holes, and it sits on the inner frame bulges. It's pretty damn solid in there.
 
Slowly but surely, haha. Some parts are ordered and on the way, tank is de-rusted and paint is stripping off of it, headlight is primered and waiting for paint.

Parts list consists of:
31mm clip-ons
New headlight ears
New cables
Roccity seat, between the Bonneville or Interceptor, I need to find out how wide the flattest part of the Bonneville is for mounting it up.
I was debating running pods, but I found some velocity stacks that I might be able to make work. Not sure on that yet.
LED taillight, design depends on which seat I end up running.
Pipes, I kind of want to run CL ones, or just baffled short straight pipes off the stock headers.

I'm sure there will be a million other small tweaks and changes along the way though.
 
Forks are out of their vinegar bath, came out really well, no more rust. Totally unattractive metal finish though, the rust ate all the chrome and left some funky grey metal. Looks like I'll be painting the top portion to prevent more rust buildup and clean it up a bit. Bottom half will be covered by some fork boots. The travel portions still look great, so no worries there.
 
Got word from the Utah DMV that a new title is being issued for me next week, which is pretty awesome and was damn quick. Won't be a funky bonded title or anything. Also, now I feel ready to roll on stripping off the tank's 5 or so layers of paint (bike used to be gold it turns out) and to fab up a new rear mounting point for the tank to bolt onto. I also will be working on satin-ing the chrome parts. Already did the gas cap, which had some pretty nasty chrome. Got a decent brushed finish on it, but the pre-existing scratches are still pretty apparent. I'll be trying it again tomorrow. I'll also be doing the front fender and possibly the headlight ring. Should be a fun weekend.

My bike building fund gets topped up on Tuesday, so I'll be ordering, well, everything. Pretty much all the parts I should need will be ordered and on the way next week. This is moving way faster than I was expecting it to.
 
Got the fender and other chrome bits down to a nice brushed/satin-ish finish. Also stripped the gas tank, but it had quite a few layers of gunk to break through. Picking up a sandblaster this week to finish the job and prep some other parts of the bike. Looks like there are two small dents in the tank that were previously bondo'd up, so I'll be blasting that off and redoing it. I think I'll be filling in the Honda wording mounting point to smooth it out, but I want to keep the HM wings.

I think I also decided on a paint scheme. Going with a satin silver on the tank and seat with black and red highlights reminiscent of a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane. Along these lines:

27135-004-AAE5D4FF.jpg


Simple job, just satin silver base, black headlight and ring, black portion on the front of the tank, and a red circle and vertical stripe on the cowl.

I think it'd be an interesting play on the old "warbird" paint schemes that are always in fashion.
 
At least is a Japanese paint scheme
I always feel funny seeing a 70s honda playing dress up as a 60s brit bike ridden by someone that thinks its the 50s with 40s american warbird paint...lol
 
Yeah, throwing a P40 Warhawk scheme on this thing would be, well, wrong. Just wrong.

This will be subtle enough that most people won't even recognize it as an airplane paint scheme.
 
BTW, I also decided on pipes. Going with the 16" slashcut mufflers from DCC. Has a removable baffle, so I'll be able to tweak the backpressure as needed easily by modifying it. I measured the headers, and right before the point where they connect with the factory mufflers, they appear to have a 1.75" OD, which should work perfectly with the 1.75" ID for the mufflers. Should be able to clamp them on with some heavy duty clamps.
 
Booligan said:
Got the fender and other chrome bits down to a nice brushed/satin-ish finish. Also stripped the gas tank, but it had quite a few layers of gunk to break through. Picking up a sandblaster this week to finish the job and prep some other parts of the bike. Looks like there are two small dents in the tank that were previously bondo'd up, so I'll be blasting that off and redoing it. I think I'll be filling in the Honda wording mounting point to smooth it out, but I want to keep the HM wings.

I think I also decided on a paint scheme. Going with a satin silver on the tank and seat with black and red highlights reminiscent of a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero fighter plane. Along these lines:

27135-004-AAE5D4FF.jpg


Simple job, just satin silver base, black headlight and ring, black portion on the front of the tank, and a red circle and vertical stripe on the cowl.

I think it'd be an interesting play on the old "warbird" paint schemes that are always in fashion.
Click to expand...

That'll look nice. Can't wait to see it.
 
Booligan said:
Next, I tested out the good old fashion apple cider vinegar method on the gas cap, which had a bunch of rust, just as much as the tank. An hour or so later, the rust had basically turned into a slight coating of mush. Wiped right off. Wife is buying me a few gallons tomorrow and I'll be doing the whole tank.
Click to expand...

thats a hell of a trick, didnt know 'bout that, sure gonna check it up with my tank. DId it work for you? How'd you clean it out afterwards? :D
 
It worked quite well for the tank actually. The hardest part was keeping the vinegar in the tank, as this had a flat petcock mount that was a PITA to seal up. I dumped it out probably 3 times over 3 days, with a nice slushy mess of rust coming out with every dump. Once I figured it was done, I gave it a neutralizing rinse with a water/baking soda mixture to stop the acid reaction, and power washed the inside as best as I could with straight water to get out the last of the loosened/converted gunk. After that, I thoroughly rinsed it out with fresh gasoline. Seems to be holding up for now. Next step is to give the inside a coating of Clymer's to seal the freshly exposed metal.
 
yikes okay worked that fine huh? well that'll be my next step to fix my tank, i was worried it'd be expensive with chemicals and sheit, but it works that good that's the way to do it! :D BTW you dont happen to have a before/after pic to tease me with? ;)
 
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