Topic: Another new guy

[bking]

Hi every one.

I just found the site yesterday. Looks like a ton of info and looking forward to looking around and to see what I can learn.
My son and I just finished a senior project for him. His school requires all the seniors to complete a senior project to graduate. The school just wants the kids to come up with a project, plan it out, complete it and then do a report on it at the end.
My son (Patrick) Really didn't have a idea of what to do. I suggested restoring a 72 CB350F that I bought at a garage sale 20+ years ago for $25.00. After looking at the bike he liked the idea. Patrick is not a gear head and I tried to warn him about the amount of effort it was going to take but he was all in. Needless to say along the way he was pretty tired of the project. When we started to put it back together he started to get excited again. Some where along the way we decided to make it a cafe racer. We have a couple more little things left to do but it is almost done. After complete dis-assembly  we took the bike into the basement over the winter months. We just took it out of the basement two weeks ago to get it running. I need to tune the bike and balance the carbs yet but it runs pretty good and is a blast to drive.
My personal bike is a 84 Honda V65 Sabre that I put some time in. It will be pretty cool going out together with a couple old school bikes.
This is Patricks first bike so he needs to get his lic yet. He is now riding the bike in the yard getting use to it and is pretty excited.
Here is a couple pics of the bike.
Bruce

Here is one of the bike before we started. It was in pretty good shape for sitting around all those years..



On the way down





Starting to come together



Out of the basement






One of my Sabre, don't hate me.

[Magilla]

Very nice

[WhyNot2]

I love that little 350, wish I had the guts and money and time and knowledge and....and....and..

Very nice job on it.

[mono]

WOW that's one hell of a senior project!  I'm going to ask my dad why he was not that cool when i was a kid! hahaha.  and great job!  some fantastic polishing on those covers.

I love that little 350, wish I had the guts and money and time and knowledge and....and....and..

^ lol.

[Really?]

Ditto on that WoW.  He won't feel embarrassed riding that to school.  I am sure that bike will get more eyes on it versus the newer sport bikes at school.

[OneWheelDrive]

Looks killer!!  What seat is that?

[bking]

Thanks guys for the nice comments.

I have only had it out for a couple short rides but I can tell you it turns heads.

The seat is kind of a story in its self. The very first thing we did after getting the bike tore down was to have the frame powder coated. Notice I did not say plan out our build first. Fast forward to where we have a little over half of the bike reassembled and we are trying to pick out a seat. That is when I learned that all the cafe seats are made to match the width of the frame, not including the factory seat brkts that are welded on the outside of the frame on both sides. I can't cut off the brkts now and touch up powder coating. So I started to look for a cafe seat that uses the factory seat pan and mount brkt. I found one and it was on Ebay and made in Veitnam. The seat came powdercoated and had the seat padding on it. The padding look really good in the pics but the metal part looked rough. I thought what the heck. I can do metal work and make the seat look like I want, but I don't have the time to make one from scratch. So we bought it. Sure enough when it got here it was just like it looked on Ebay. We ground off the powder coat, which smelled a lot like rattle can paint. The metal part of the seat was covered in filler. After reworking the seat it looks great and we are happy with it. I also found out that the seat curves up in the rear because it was designed to have a fender under it. So we cut and modified the original rear fender. I am pretty happy how it turned out even with our lack of planning.

[bking]

I thought that I would show you a picture of the bike with Patrick. Mom made him get his pic with the bike for his open house invitations. He hates to get his picture taken but didn't seem to mind having his pic taken with the bike.
We took the bike out in the country today and he spent some time learning how to drive it. It was pretty cool watching him go through the gears on it. I cant wait until we can go riding together.

[grcamna2]

Did you have the frame powder coated in red & then again in Clear ? Nice !

[bking]

No, just red.
I sent Patrick to take the frame and pick out the color. To be honest I didn't really like it at first but it is his bike. But as the bike started to come together I seen he made a good choice.