First, let me say THANK YOU! to the administrator and contributors of this site. Other than my handy manual and a little common sense (very little), SOHC4 was my go-to source for help while I was working on this bike. It's my first bike restoration / build so go easy on me
My name is Don, I live in San Diego, CA and I retired from the U.S. Navy about 2.5 years ago. I've got a decent enough mechanical background, most standard tools, and a good place to work.
This is the first bike I owned, I bought it several years ago after falling in love with the lines of the CB350F. I rode it, did minimal maintenance, left it outside until i got rid of the wife so i could have my garage back.... and still, it worked for me every day. I took it to a shop to have the top end rattle and leaky head gasket checked out, They fixed the gasket, and busted the cam chain tensioner bolt off in the block. SO back in June 2010, I decided to tear into it and see what could be done. As usual, the project took on a life of its own. What was going to be a simple explore / inspect / repair, turned into "Why not, It's already apart"
Here's the original bike..
I used the frame, fenders, harness, the old MAC 4 into 1, crank, conn rods, wheels, tank, carbs, and side covers.
I picked up this 75 CB400F for a cool 150$
Then went to work. The donor bike had 33K+ miles, had been wrecked, beat, drained of oil and left in a back yard.... I used the top end, tranny, forks, seat and chain guard. New Honda .50 over pistons, a great machine shop for the bore and head work, a great chrome shop, hundreds of unknown bits and pieces (I have the list, but it's long) from several different on line vendors and SIX months of fitting, cleaning, polishing, painting, tuning and re-tuning. Having an assembled and running CB350F as a guide was key for me. There were lots of pieces and parts that i wasn't paying attention to their location as i was tearing into it... One word of advice from this novice..LABLE EVERYTHING!
For the setup, I used stock 400f bars and seat, MC again rear sets, 11" rear shocks, stock master cylinder and caliper, stock size tire up front and a 4.0 on the back. CB350 front and rear sprockets, (new) I got rid of the dummy light setup on the bars, and Incorporated 3 LEDs (green, Yellow, Blue) into the headlight bucket. I like knowing what my oil pressure is rather than the light, so i put a gauge just forward of the generator fed by copper tube from the pressure sender port in the left case. Also removed were the right hand control (run/stop and start) there are two toggle switches up by the mini tach and speedo, one on/off switch and a momentary toggle for starting. On the left i went with a new setup, (Hi/low beam, pass, center detente blinkers).
I still can't decide what to do for a seat, I'm not much into the bump stop, the 400 seat looks OK, but.... The difference in power between the 350 and 400 is DRAMATIC! I'm still in the break in period for the engine, so haven't been hard on it. The 6 speed tranny is a dream! Cruise speed of 65 only revs around 5400 rpm +- with lots of power throughout the range.
Have fun guys and gals, It's all about what you like.
