About a month and a half ago I was searching craigslist locally to find a bike that needed work and stumbled across a CB350F for $100. Back wheel was off but everything was there. PO had no idea what it needed and was under the impression that it needed quite a bit of work. It had no title, his uncle had bought it for him in the condition it was in at an auction at the local Kawasaki dealership. So being the naive 19 year old who had never even ridden a bike and had only worked on cars I went and picked it up as fast as possible.
Picked it up looking like this.
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It came with no key so first thing I did was pull the tumbler off to take it and have a set made.
Looking it over it was obvious that the gas tank was toast. Hole in the left side and rust all around. Not to mention the yellow coating from gas sitting in it. So quickly removed that once I had my keys to unlock the seat.
I tried to polish things up a bit. Decided it's just going to be better to sandblast and powdercoat it all. So then the tear down process began. Decided that when I get the gaskets and all in I'll just rebuild the motor and either attempt the carb rebuild or send it to the dealership and have their guy do it since I've heard he's a mad scientist with the carbs on these older bikes.
Drained the oil to where I could get a good look at it, no metal flakes and nothing looking bad, oil didn't even look that old just about ready for a change. Tranny shifted smoothly and the engine appeared to have good compression(need to get an actual tester) Carb wasn't even stuck just the throttle cable was a little rusty so once the cable was off I could open it pretty easily. The carb from the outside and what little I could see inside without tearing into them was very clean, way cleaner than the engine. Oil was caked up all around the front sprocket.
This is how she sits right now, torn apart waiting for new parts and a nice sandblasting.
Basically from what I can see now I for sure need a wiring harness, tail light, headlight, tires, battery, battery leads, and new intake manifold. I'm sure small other things will arise. All I have right now are spark plugs though. Looking like I ended up with a pretty good deal from what I can see since I'll be doing the powdercoating and painting myself. Thinking about a cafe build with powdering the whole frame, engine, carb, exhaust, fenders, and wheels black. Then painting the tank either Ferrari Gregio Medio with bmw e46 m3 carbon black metallic flakes which are like a navy, bright red, and semi dark yellow. Or going for the R33 Nissan Skyline V-Spec II Midnight purple. Either one will be with a satin clear and will have to wait until this fall when I have access to a paint mixer with factory formulas. '
Here's pics of the two paint colors. What do you guys think? I'm also thinking about just Hot Rod Black.
If my M3 was a standard and I was keeping it I'd already have painted it that grey, I don't know why but it's so attractive.
