Topic: 1972 CB350 For the Daughter

[Harsh]

Alrighty...time to start another build.  This one will start out a bit slow due to a pretty aggressive honey-do list, but once it starts it will be hot and heavy.



So this is the starting platform.  It didn't come with a title, but I have already rectified that with VA and I have a clean title in hand.  The paint isn't nearly as good as it appears.  The white stripes were painted by hand and in a lot of spots you can tell.  The tank has been lined and the cross over tubes are clogged because of that.  Not sure if there are pin holes or what, but I guess I will find out when I pour some MEK in the tank and go to town shaking the crap out of it. 

I have worked it out with my daughter that I will fund the build and when I am done she will buy it from me.  I am keeping a very detailed list of the expenses.  Doing it this way will allow me to buy parts as needed and not have to wait on her to save up for them.  Which should allow the build to go faster.  I need to get it done before I retire while I still have a steady flow of income.  While the honey-dos might keep me from working in earnest on it that doesn't stop me from looking and collecting parts for it. 

I don't want to do spokes on this one.  There is a guy that works next door to me that has also built a CB400A (has a build there here) that needed some carb work done to one of his other bikes so I traded that along with some cash for a 78 CB400Tii front end, wheels, and swingarm (not sure if I can or will use that).




Yesterday I picked up a dual piston front caliper and mounting bracket off of an 85 VT1100C for a bit better braking.  I also bought a caliper off of an 83 VF750.  The caliper is the same, but the mounting bracket is different.  I will use whichever caliper is in better overall condition and the bracket off of the VT1100C.

85 VT


83 VF (right center)

[70CB750]

Following-

Good luck!

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

I'm in, AGAIN! 

Those two piston calipers work great.  They swap directly into the 750F2/F3 models and improve the stopping power.

[Restoration Fan]

Great to see you're doing another one, Harsh.  I'll be following this one as well.  Love the way you work!

[Harsh]

The rest of the brake parts came in today.

I took both of the calipers apart to inspect, do a little bit of cleaning, and get an overall consensus of which one was in better condition.  Neither caliper was in bad condition, but the 83 VF750 was just a tick better so that is the one I am going to use.
 
Everything mounted on the fork leg and the wheel mounted.  The picture isn't at the best angle, but as far as I can tell I will not have to get a different rotor.  Just like on the 750 I will send the rotor off to be ground flat and have some holes drilled in it.

[dusterdude]

Cool build harsh

[Harsh]

LOOOONG time no update.

Well plans changed a bit. Instead of me building the bike and my daughter buying it from me, my daughter and I are going to build it together. She is still paying for it.  I never got a chance to get started on the bike before I retired from the Navy, but that is life I guess. My daughter returns tomorrow from her first deployment onboard the USS Harry S. Truman. Yes she followed in my footsteps and joined the Navy. This ought to prove a bit frustrating at times since I typically do all of the projects and building of things by myself so I am not sure how it is going to go working with someone else. My daughter seems anxious to get started so that is good. I guess while she is still in the anxious state I will have her do all of the dirty work of cleaning and scrubbing down the engine and shaking the tank with MEK to remove the crap that is in there.

Standby in the coming days/weeks for updates.

[dusterdude]

Groovy

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

[calj737]

Was wondering just the other day what ever happened to you? Now I know, living the life of leisure as a retired Navy man. And the neck is all healed up?

[Harsh]

If that leisurely life was hunting for and getting another job then sure.  The neck is ehh.  I have had some symptoms crop back up with numbness and stiffness, but nothing debilitating like before.  Recovering from a wreck at the track on Memorial Day weekend though.  I blew it going into a turn after coming down the straight.  Probably hit the ground at about 100mph after flying through the air about 30 feet.  Lacerated my kidney and liver, tore my rotator cuff and chipped a bone in my wrist.  I just got the cast off today.  Other than that I am goid.  How have you been Cal?

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

If that leisurely life was hunting for and getting another job then sure.  The neck is ehh.  I have had some symptoms crop back up with numbness and stiffness, but nothing debilitating like before.  Recovering from a wreck at the track on Memorial Day weekend though.  I blew it going into a turn after coming down the straight.  Probably hit the ground at about 100mph after flying through the air about 30 feet.  Lacerated my kidney and liver, tore my rotator cuff and chipped a bone in my wrist.  I just got the cast off today.  Other than that I am goid.  How have you been Cal?

Sweet Jesus, Harsh! That's awful. I'm glad you are okay, but that sounds pretty damn serious.  I assume given your speed that you were riding something more modern.

[calj737]

So it sounds like riding lesson are in your future  Never knew retirement was so hazardous to your health either. Must be why you old folks cost us tax payers so dang much in Medicare expenses!   

[Harsh]

Oh yah, but the CB750 could easily do it.  I was on my Triumph Daytona 675.  After the wreck I hung out at the track for a few hours, loaded my stuff up, drove 2.5 hours home, took a 30 minute nap, and unloaded everything.  Went to take a shower and noticed I was pissing blood.  So I drove to the ER and subsequently spent two days in ICU.  Good times 

[Harsh]

So it sounds like riding lesson are in your future  Never knew retirement was so hazardous to your health either. Must be why you old folks cost us tax payers so dang much in Medicare expenses!   

Nah, I am good.  I received all the lessons I need.  Technically I am still in active duty until the end of this month so no additional costs involved 

[Lostboy Steve]

Oh yah, but ghe CB750 could easily do it.  I was on my Triumph Daytona 675.  After the wreck I hung out at the track for a few hours, loaded my stuff up, drove 2.5 hours home, took a 30 minute nap, and unloaded everything.  Went to take a shower and noticed I was pissing blood.  So I drove to the ER and subsequently spent two days in ICU.  Good times 

That's fun. Jesus. I had a friend go down on a 675 and break his collar bone pretty good. At least you're alive!

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Oh yah, but the CB750 could easily do it.  I was on my Triumph Daytona 675.  After the wreck I hung out at the track for a few hours, loaded my stuff up, drove 2.5 hours home, took a 30 minute nap, and unloaded everything.  Went to take a shower and noticed I was pissing blood.  So I drove to the ER and subsequently spent two days in ICU.  Good times 

It sounds like you could have been a goner if you hadn't gone to the hospital.  2.5 hour drive home - Chuckwalla?

[Harsh]

Oh yah, but the CB750 could easily do it.  I was on my Triumph Daytona 675.  After the wreck I hung out at the track for a few hours, loaded my stuff up, drove 2.5 hours home, took a 30 minute nap, and unloaded everything.  Went to take a shower and noticed I was pissing blood.  So I drove to the ER and subsequently spent two days in ICU.  Good times 

It sounds like you could have been a goner if you hadn't gone to the hospital.  2.5 hour drive home - Chuckwalla?

Nah, NCBike.

[Harsh]

And down the rabbit hole I go.

As she sits now.




She was a leaker.







Popped the top just to take a quick look inside.  Doesn't look too bad.




My daughter only got mad at me once, so that was good.  She was trying to use a wrench like a screwdriver and when I got onto her about it telling her all she was going to do was strip the nut she got all huffy.  Her issue was that there was a bar in her way and the engine case was directly above and she couldn't get to the nut.  I told her to work smarter not harder.  Go below the bar to get to the nut.  She was trying to loosen the bottom rear bolt that holds the engine to the frame.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

How did she take the lecture on JIS versus Phillips drivers?

[Harsh]

Never got there because I used the impact driver to loosen all of those screws because I didn't want to deal with having to remove a stripped screw.

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Never got there because I used the impact driver to loosen all of those screws because I didn't want to deal with having to remove a stripped screw.

Smart choice.

[Harsh]

Never got there because I used the impact driver to loosen all of those screws because I didn't want to deal with having to remove a stripped screw.

Smart choice.

Easy with that sort of language.  Someone might read that and start to believe it.  Then I won't be able to play dumb anymore and get what I want.

[Harsh]

The daughter has duty today, but I thought I would do a little mundane work in order to speed things along later.  Since I forgot to drain the oil before we pulled the engine I figured I would rig up some way to do that without getting oil everywhere.  Accomplished that easily.   Went to pop off the side covers to drain them...yah not so easy.  Instead of a gasket the last person that was in the engine used sealant.   It took me an hour using a razor blade to slice through that crap.  After I got the vast majority of oil out of the engine I hosed it down with some engine degreaser and am letting it sit overnight.  There was so much crap built up where the front sprocket is and inside the points housing it was crazy.

[Harsh]

Alrighty...got half of the engine apart today.  I am pretty sure I know why it was leaking.  The head bolts were barely tight.  I think whoever was in the engine before didn't torque down a thing.  One of the bolts that holds the cam gear to the cam was about half way backed off when I went to remove it.  You can actually see the head of the bolt in the picture I posted earlier looking down at the cam.  Even after a good scrub down it is still pretty filthy.  It is going to require A LOT of degreaser and elbow grease to get it ready for future work.

[Harsh]

Dropped some coin the other day stuff to rebuild the engine.  Gasket kit, oil seal kit, piston rings, spark plug covers, spark plugs, and a stainless steel bolt kit.  Some of the other stuff I wanted to order was out of stock.  I don't really need those parts until I go to install the engine so I can wait a little bit. 

Most of the engine parts came in today.  I received everything except the bolt kit.

I was able to get the cases split in half today.  My daughter missed out since she found it more important to go to the mall than to work with me.  It was a a bit dirty inside and I keep finding little pieces of the gasket maker crap inside the engine.  I am going to have to go over the pieces very well to make sure I get all of that crap removed.  I would hate to get everything back together only to have a piece of that crap block an oil passage.  There was a bunch of it in the centrifugal oil filter.

There is still lots of scrubbing inside and out that needs to be accomplished before I can even think about doing any media blasting.

Thick sludge at the bottom.


When I was removing the windage tray one of the screws stripped out.  After I drilled and cut most of he hear away and was using a cold chisel to remove the remaining part the boss/post that the screw goes into snapped off.  It made a clean brake at the bottom of the case so no harm no foul.  There are only two screws and three "riveted pieces.  I remove the riveted pieces and drill/tap them for screws anyways so there will be plenty of support.