Author Topic: Restoration of a 350 four update: Back from the Dead (Read 66205 times)

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #125 on:** June 30, 2009, 05:58:36 PM »

Not having to work this week is making it really easy to get things done on the 350. Maybe I should do this more often....

Today I started out with a good few hours of buffing the fork lowers. Here I have one done so you can see the difference:

After I got sick of buffing I decided to finally grease my steering head bearings. Now you can stop bugging me about it Johnie

When I got the thing apart I was very surprised how much grease was in there and the general condition of things. Since this area hasn't received any attention in the 13 years it's been in my family (and probably since it left the factory) I would have expected the bearings to be quite dry but this was not the case.

I hung a bucket on the neck to catch any balls that decided to fall down.

I cleaned out as much of the old grease as I could. There was no noticeable wear on any of the ball bearings or races.

Once again, the magnetic part tray really came in handy for reassembly.

FYI: The upper and lower bearing counts in the honda shop manual are wrong
The honda manual states 19 for the upper and 18 for the lower. These numbers should be reversed. I found this out the hard way when my retainer wouldn't screw on right.

With my steering bearings greased, I finished buffing the fork cases. Yummy....

All in all, a pretty successful day.

goldwing55706 · « **Reply #126 on:** July 01, 2009, 05:42:25 AM »

Thank you very much for the detailed description for changing fork seals. I have had many vintage cycles (currently I have a CB350-4, a CL175, a KZ750LTD, and a Super 90) and have never had to change fork seals YET. I'm sure the day will come and when it does, your post to this site will be invaluable.
Very nice job of polishing the forks as well - something I need to do.
Thanks again,
Jon

Bryan Boyle · « **Reply #127 on:** July 01, 2009, 09:20:44 AM »

Quote from: hoodellyhoo on June 30, 2009, 05:58:36 PM

***LOTS OF DELETIA***

Something i have to ask...where did you find the MIVV exhaust. The second 350F I just picked up has a 4-to-1, while in good condition, is not in keeping with the style of the bike (my other one has an MCM 4-to-2 which looks ok...)...I'd like to investigate going to the 4-to-4 (knowing full well that a complete set of OEMs have been unobtainium since the late 80s...

Thanks!

Bryan
SOHC #47
2x CB350F
1x Dream
1x CA95
2x Lotus Europas
A full garage of parts...

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #128 on:** July 01, 2009, 02:20:26 PM »

Exact replicas of the OEM exhaust are available again, but cost $$$$ and probably are just as rust-prone as the originals. They can be had from Davis Silver's or CMSNL.

Apparently MIVV has stopped production of this 350 exhaust and someone here said they only had one set left (possibly gone by now).

If you want a 4-4 system there is this option:http://www.motostoricheitaliane.com/Eng_Menu.html

I don't know of anyone that has tried them but they seem like they would look quite similar to the MIVV mufflers. They also sell headpipes which is a bonus.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #129 on:** July 01, 2009, 02:26:14 PM »

Nothing too exciting to report on today, just did some odd jobs. I cleaned as much rust off of my fork legs as I could. I also did some rolling tests and the fork legs seem perfectly straight :)I also cleaned up the copper washers from the bottom of the fork cases, though I am going to try to find replacements. I tried my best to straighten my bent headlight ear but it seems to be a lost cause. Anyone have one?

? I could still put this old one back on but then the side reflector would be pointing off in some stupid direction. And lastly I took all of the controls off of my bent handlebars in anticipation of a transplant.

Bryan Boyle · « **Reply #130 on:** July 02, 2009, 10:46:57 AM »

Quote from: hoodellyhoo on July 01, 2009, 02:20:26 PM

Exact replicas of the OEM exhaust are available again, but cost $$$$ and probably are just as rust-prone as the originals. They can be had from Davis Silver's or CMSNL.

Nice. About what I would expect in terms of price, but the shipping is what will kill it. That's about what I paid for the OEM for the 750 in my profile photo...

Quote

Apparently MIVV has stopped production of this 350 exhaust and someone here said they only had one set left (possibly gone by now).

Yep. Got an email from them about 3 hours ago saying "so sorry...".

Quote

If you want a 4-4 system there is this option:http://www.motostoricheitaliane.com/Eng_Menu.html

I don't know of anyone that has tried them but they seem like they would look quite similar to the MIVV mufflers. They also sell headpipes which is a bonus.

Nice. No price, but, that' ok. I order parts for the Lotuses I have from overseas all the time...and the $$$ is about the same for whatever you're getting...

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #131 on:** July 03, 2009, 03:48:34 PM »

Did my best to squeeze in some work time today. I took my carbs off and ploished the tops and float bowls. I'm eager to see how it looks all put back together. I also started to polish out the scratches on my alternator cover. It's a tedious process but I think the scratches should come out.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #132 on:** July 07, 2009, 07:31:24 PM »

With work starting up again progress on the bike has slowed again. Today I accomplished two main things:

1) Rebuild my master cylinder (again) using genuine honda parts. I bought a cheap rebuild kit last summer and the M/C leaked. The honda parts seem to be of better quality so hopefully that cures things.

2) Raised the needle clip back to where it was with my old 4-2 exhaust (2nd from top). I lowered the clip with the new exhaust because I figured it need it since it is a better flowing system but it never ran quite right. I was noticing some signs of richness and never had as much power in the upper rev range. I think this should cure that. I also put my polished tops and float bowls on the carbs. They look fantastic! I can't wait to see what they look like mounted on the bike.

Tim in Ohio · « **Reply #133 on:** July 16, 2009, 09:51:49 AM »

Hey Hoodelly... I have been off the web for a while... just caught your post... (since laying the bike down)... Looking forward to reading it thoroughly after work. I think my front end will get a good going over after riding season. No pun intended, but Honey, if you log on and read this... yeah... THAT front end too...

1974CB750rider · « **Reply #134 on:** July 16, 2009, 04:57:43 PM »

Thats a beautiful bike, I rode one in highschool. As far as your electrical problem goes, here's an idea. My 750 was blowing fuses left and right. It took some time but i figured it out. Check your ignition switch where the wires go into it. There's a metal collar there that holds the wires in place and if any of those wires are naked close to it and it touches the metal, BOOM!!!!!!!! blown fuse. This is just an idea, I hope it helps.

Hoosier Daddy · « **Reply #135 on:** March 13, 2010, 08:35:11 AM »

Posting for future referance...

RickB · « **Reply #136 on:** March 31, 2010, 12:48:20 AM »

Thanks for the encouragement over in my thread.

I have a quick question about the fork lowers. I'm doing that exact same thing now, so thanks for the 'how-to' guide. I believe the 400F is the same, so I'm hoping I can put mine back together correctly. Are you able to remember the correct amount of fork oil required? My manuals are with my mechanic and I'm stuck.

Thanks again,
Rick.

HondanutRider · « **Reply #137 on:** March 31, 2010, 06:31:28 AM »

I just checked the shop manual for the 350F and 400F, and for the 400F it lists the front fork oil capacity as: "160-165 cc (to fill if dry) (5.6-5.8 ozs.)" or "145-150 cc (to fill after draining) (4.8-4.9 ozs.)"

The 350F is listed as 125 cc and 105 cc capacity respectively.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #138 on:** April 13, 2010, 07:55:50 PM »

Time for another update:

Today, since I was going change the oil on both bikes I decided to bust out my new impact driver and remove my clutch cover so I can polish it.

I used this trick again so I know what length screw go where. These will be replaced with allen head hardware.

I used a pipe to pop the cover off from the other side.

The insde of the cover.

The Clutch. Everything looks shiney and new!

The bummer of the day: I discovered my tach cable holder broke. Anyone have a spare?

The only other news is that I'm finally getting new tires to replace the old current ones from when my dad owned the bike. I am going with Avon RoadRiders (90/90/18 front and 100/90/18 rear). I look forward to finally having some decent tires on this thing!

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #139 on:** April 27, 2010, 07:03:13 PM »

Before I get to today's work I'm gonna have to backtrack a little bit. It seems I left out a few pictures and info from after I spilled my bike a year ago. Bear with me here.

OK...So....After I got my forks torn apart I rolled my fork tubes on the garage floor and figured out that they weren't bent (yay!). This meant that my alignment problems were in the triple trees. To check that nothing was twisted I Installed the fork tubes into the trees as described in the manual. I bought a piece of glass from the hardware store and set it on the fork tubes. Since the glass laid flat and didn't rock at all, I knew that my front end was okay. Evidently all that happened is that the top triple tree twisted around the steering stem. I also finally installed my replacement top tripple tree. The original one had a broken handlebar bolt so I only had 3 bolts instead of four. It was nice to have 4 bolts there for the first time. I even bought new chrome bolts form the hardware store.

With that squared away I took the fork tubes back out and assembled the forks together with new seals. I used the old seals to pound the new ones in.

My other problem was that my handlebars were bent. I was trying to get my bike put back together to take it to vintage car races the next day and the handlebars I bought hadn't come in yet. I determined that they weren't bent too bad so I stuck them in a vise and used a long piece of pipe to straighten them. It worked great and you can't tell they were ever bent.

With the clock ticking and the sun going down I did as much as I could. This was as far as I got on friday night. Don't those polished fork lowers look nice?

Except there was one little problem that you can't see in the pictures...... I forgot the dust seals

. I could either run the bike for a littlewhile without the dust seals and put them in later, or I could quick do it the day I wanted to leave to go to the races. My decision? Since I didn't want to have to mess with the front end a second time I woke myself up at something like 4am to put the dust seals in. It only took me 45 minutes to tear everything down and get it back to where it was in the pictures. After working as fast as I could I got the bike completely reassembled and ready to go to the races. I had a great day watching some fantastic old cars tearing it up at Road America. I even got to meet Peter Egan. Nothing like good times on an old Honda.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #140 on:** April 27, 2010, 07:28:26 PM »

Fast forward to today....

The last few days I have been doing my best to strip the clearcoat off the clutch cover. Also, when I took out the old oil seals I accidentally gouged to cover. I filled the scratches with JB weld last night and today I used my dremel tool to smooth out those areas. Hopefully this will prevent things from leaking. As long as I had things apart I obviously bought all new seals and o-rings for the clutch cover. My starting point:

After a couple hours at the buffer I ended up with this:

It's not perfect but it's certainly better than having random chunks of yellowed clearcoat. I'm happy with it.
Action shot!

Shinny cover installedwith new allen head bolts and clutch adjusted:

The weather was nice today so I had to go for a ride and see if there were any leaks (none so far..). It was a nice 30 mile rideAt the gas station on the edge of town I had a guy come over and compliment my old bike. "Man, that thing is just cherry" he said. Hard to get a reaction like that from a stranger on another bike

In a small town nearby I came across this beautifully restored truck and had to take a picture:

On the way home I stopped in a guy's driveway because I saw an old Kawasaki KZ650 and a Yamaha XS650. The KZ owner turns out to be a really nice guy who enjoys thrashing his old bike now and then. He was adjusting his chain and once he finished he let me take it for a ride! It was a very smooth and nice handling bike. I could deffinitely see myself owning one. Since he was nice enough to offer his bike I let him take mine for a ride. When he first sat on it he said it feels like a moped

. When he got back the sun was almost down so I left for home. Another enjoyable day on my trusty old Honda.

Next on the to-do list is to get my new tires and have them installed and to paint and install my replacement valve cover. The one on the bike now is still missing part of the area where the tach cable plugs in. I hope to get this done in time for the Road America even in June.

midnightrider · « **Reply #141 on:** April 28, 2010, 01:27:56 PM »

Wow. I am working on a '72 Green 350F and I can see that this thread is going to be very helpful.
Thanks for documenting all of this and good luck with getting everything how you want it.

Hoosier Daddy · « **Reply #142 on:** May 12, 2010, 09:25:22 AM »

What a fantastic looking CB.
Great job!

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #143 on:** May 12, 2010, 08:27:38 PM »

Today I removed my tires by following the directions in this helpful video:
[youtube=425,350]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="

name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="

type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/youtube]

I bought a set of tire irons ($40

) from Fleet Farm and I used a cut up oil container for rim protectors. Unfortunately the irons poked through the plastic so I folded them over for the second rim and that seemed to be thick enough. When I do this again I'll try to find some thicker plastic.

When I took the front wheel off I spun the axle and there was a good amount of drag. I'm not sure if this was caused by the rubber boot or the speedo drive. I'll have to do some research to see if that's normal or if I need to get my bearings replaced. I probably should do it anyways as long as the wheels are off but I'm running on a tight budget right now.

I got my avon roadriders in the mail a week ago. I ordered them from tiresunlimited.com because they have a free shipping promotion right now. I ordered them late monday night and had them by friday! Pretty good for free ground shipping. I'll take them to the dealer tomorrow to get them mounted and balanced with new tubes. I'm really looking forward to having a quality set of tires under this thing. The old cheng shin and kenda were fine but I want something that corners a lot better.

Some pics:

The carnage of the day. I tried my hardest to find a way to lift the bike without taking the exhaust off but every time I tried it the bike kept leaning to the right

The 750 is still waiting to be picked up by the new owner who's shipping it back to japan.

My rims are still in okay shape. The back has some bad gouges from when my dad removed the original tires to put on the cheapies I just removed.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #144 on:** May 17, 2010, 07:37:37 PM »

Not really an update, but i found some pictures I had of the VJEMC bike show last summer and scanned them. Here's me with my bike and the little display I made with some period advertisements and such.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #145 on:** May 28, 2010, 08:24:03 PM »

I got my new tires back on the bike on tuesday and put 240 miles on them today. I'm no speed demon but these roadriders are fun! I also got a mesh jacket that works well for these hot summer days. This is a shot after I took the free ferry ride over the wisconsin river.

The reason for the ride today was to get a photo tag on the adventure rider site. I had snapped a pic of the tag when I saw another rider approaching to get the tag. Imagine my surprise when it was another 350F!! The rider was from Middleton so we sat and talked bikes for a little bit. I could hardly believe it.

As long as I was down in that part of the state I went to visit my gf's grandma in Madison. She talked my ear off so I had to really open it up to get back to oshkosh before the sun went down and the deer come out. I got into oshkosh a little before 8. Since I was hungry I stopped at the local carhop place to get some food. Lots of people staring at my bike as they drove by.

What a fun day!

Johnie · « **Reply #146 on:** May 29, 2010, 06:26:37 AM »

T....nice pics. Enjoy that single life while you have it!!!

Before you know it you will be changing diapers not tires.

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #147 on:** May 29, 2010, 07:54:48 AM »

Quote from: Johnie on May 29, 2010, 06:26:37 AM

T....nice pics. Enjoy that single life while you have it!!! Before you know it you will be changing diapers not tires.

There are restrictions as it is. The whole reason I was able to take the day off and ride was because my girlfriend was working.

traveler · « **Reply #148 on:** May 29, 2010, 08:32:26 AM »

Glad to hear thing are working well!

Also makes me smile to see that you are actually riding and enjoying it.

You are at the "all I need is gas and oil" stage.

~Joe

hoodellyhoo · « **Reply #149 on:** July 10, 2010, 06:03:54 PM »

I suppose there's been enough done for an update.

Ever since I put the MIVV exhaust on the bike has never run the same. With the old 4-2 it ran great and would get no less than 55 mpg no matter the type of riding. With the new 4-4 it still ran fine but mpg dropped to 50 or less and it never seemed to pull quite as hard at about 7,500 to redline. The MIVV mufflers are less restrictive than the old 4-2 (noticeably louder but still what i would consider quiet). In the past , in order to get it to run the same as it had I had switched the needle position from 2nd from top back to the middle which produced no noticeable changes. Eventually I switched the clip back to 2nd from top thinking that the leaner setting should give me better mpg. I have also switched out my new air filter with my old one thinking that the old one seemes to flow a little better. I haven't made up my mind on this yet.

This year I'm getting the bike to run better than it has but the old mpg and weaker top end problems persist. On friday I took a long ride with my parents and on the way home the majority of my riding was at 1/2 to full throttle. According to the reading I have been doing (including hondaman's book) this area is regulated by mostly the needle clip and eventually just the main jet.

The day after this ride I pulled my plugs to take a look and there was good news and bad news. The good news is that they all looked the same. The bad news is they all looked quite lean (white deposits, deffinitely not sooty or tan). I find this a little strange because I have never had any of the more typical lean symptoms like popping or surging when letting off the throttle. Ether way, it all seems to be happening to all the carbs in an even fashion so I assume my problem is setting related as opposed to something like carb synch/ igntion/ air boot leak, etc.

To try and fix this today I set the needle clip on step richer from stock. I also snipped about 1/4 inch off my plug wires which i think helped even out my idle. I just added new plugs (D8EA) and condensors. I would have gone on a test ride today but the forcast changed from okay to lots of rain. Depending on how these changes work I may have to up the main jet to a 78. We'll see I guess. Someday I'll get that perfect chocolate spark plug!

News:

Author Topic: Restoration of a 350 four update: Back from the Dead (Read 66205 times)

traveler