Well this will be my second try at restoring this bike. I first bought this bike 10 years ago from one of my neighbors. He had it sitting in his garage for 17 years. I saw it sitting in the corner of the garage when I went by his house. I think I paid around $150 for it. I filled up the tires, took off the front break since it was frozen, and pushed the bike home. I took apart the carbs and had the bike running a couple of days later. I then took it by Texas Muscle Bikes in Austin and let the owner of the shop (Brent Adams), go nuts on the motor. He put in an 836 kit, Carillo rods, new valves and springs, had the head ported and polished, new undercut transmission, cam and all the usual go fast goodies. He had the motor for at least 3 or four years. I then drove it around for a couple of years. The only thing the bike lacked was a set of smoothbore carbs and new coils.
Then like a dummy, I let the bike sit outside for around five years. I started working on it last week. I took the carbs apart again, but they are pretty much shot. Looks like water damage to the inside of the carbs and a lot of the main jet towers have corrosion and the jets could barely screw on. Surprisingly it started right up, but it ran like crap. There was no blow by or smoke, so I'm pretty sure the bottom end is fine. I went to check the spark plugs and one of he sparkplug wires broke off because the wires where hard as a rock. Also, 3 of the sparkplugs would not come out. So it looks like I will have to take the head off and put some heli coils in the sparkplug holes.
Last week I bought a new Dina 2000 with coils, and new Keihin 29mm smoothbore carbs. I already had bought extra polished aluminum covers for the engine, so I am ready to take this puppy apart and start with the restoration. I used to have a brand new 75 CB750, so I am doing this one, like I would have done my original one back in the 70's if I would have had the money. I am probably going to send my head off to Mike and have him fix it for me. Then I will powder coat the frame, polish everything else and chrome the swing arm. I have a Kerker 4 into 1 on it right now, but I will probably go with the K0 stock single pipes. In the 70's, the first thing we did was take off the stock pipes and trash them, and put some 4 into 1 or 4 into 2 pipes on. Now it seems that everybody is going back with the stock pipes.
So on to the before pictures. Here is the bike as it stands right now. In the second picture you can see the new carbs and my polished covers. In the third picture you can see my new aluminum jack. I plan on painting the bike the original orange. So let the fun begin.
