Topic: CB350F - Slow Time Restoration

[ozm29c]

I have almost finished repairing the rear indicator lamp support brackets. Yes I know they can be purchased new but it's a challenge to repair the old ones. The countersinks for the retainer screws have been elongated over time so I have replaced the damaged section. Photos tell the story. When done, they are off to the platers. Last photo shows repaired compared to as found.

[RAFster122s]

That’s some very nice work. You have more than a few skills in your quiver.

[bek1966]

Brilliant work John.  The 350 Fours are fantastic little bikes and well worth the effort to bring them back to service.  Good on you for your efforts to return at least two more to the road.  Thanks for sharing!

Brad

[ozm29c]

Another one of those time consuming restoration jobs completed. This time cleaning the conrods. When I removed the conrods from the engine, they were covered in baked on scaly oil residue and some corrosion for added measure. I machined an aluminium adaptor to protect the ground surfaces from glass bead blasting. I also buffed the thrust faces on a nylon mesh/aluminium oxide grinding wheel. Without going into too much extra detail, the pictures better tell the story. I also had to restamp the rod grade (#3 for all rods) and a letter identifier for each rod.

[RAFster122s]

This 350 is a priceless rebuild. What is , or was, your occupation? You clearly have superior machinist and fabrication skills. Most will never have a clue the lengths that you have taken to bring this one back.

Few would invest the time and money to bring one back using original parts you rebuilt, instead replacing everything.
This is akin to restoration work on very rare motors and vehicles that occurs when you have no option but to do the costly and time consuming refresh/rebuild/remanufacturing you are undertaking.
WWII aircraft see this kind of work routinely.

Thank you for sharing with us the insight and glimpses into the skills and rebuild you are doing.

David

[ozm29c]

David, thanks for the BZ. It took 3 and 1/2 years of delicate negotiations to finally purchase this project bike along with what was left of two donor bikes. I must admit that I do enjoy the challenge of restoring this bike. I am a Fitter/Machinist by trade and learnt my skills by serving 20 years in the Navy. I must admit that this is my first bike restoration. My last restoration was a Studebaker Weasel that took 23 years (not full time though ) to complete. Photo attached. Like most restorers,  you can see where my strengths lie but having said that I have a friend who is a professional panel beater/spray painter to do the painting. Painting is not one of my strong points. Cheers.

[ozm29c]

Another small step, my fuel tank has been lined and is now ready for paint. In view that this tank has been through some major metal surgery and I used a MIG welder to rejoin the tank halves, there were only two small pin holes found.

[ozm29c]

A small report today. Slow but steady progress working on the carburettors. The expensive carburettor repair kit that I chose to purchase off Ebay had the all important replacement linkage ball straps and felt washers however the fuel bowl gaskets were incorrect. A lot of time was wasted sourcing the correct replacement fuel bowl gaskets, one of the down sides of working through Ebay. I also found that one of the plastic inter-carb connector pipes was missing and the remaining one was beyond repair as the plastic had aged. I machined two new aluminium replacements. Drawing attached. The OEM jets came up a treat after some cleaning and a soaking in some CLR. I did find that the idle jets were missing from this Carby set ? so I will have to source a replacement set. As you can see in the last photo, I still have a way to go to get the carburettors back together.

[ozm29c]

This is where time can get away on you when restoring a CB350F. Over the last few days I have been working on the Carburettor linkage holders. Unfortunately the Carburettor set that I found had been cannibalised for the link ball stops, for want of a better word. I have machined a new set out of brass. Also I finally have a set of the rubber covers for the linkage holders. Now its time to put this together.

[newday777]

Thanks all, I appreciate your compliments. Next sub-project on the agenda is to build a good fuel tank using the tank that came with the bike and a donor tank. When I removed all of the bondo from my tank that came with the bike, I found that a major repair had been done previously on the near side front of the tank. The PO had accessed the inside tank area by cutting an access hole on the inner side of the tank. Unfortunately the tank is now not 'true' after the repairs. The attached photos better show what I am alluding to. The donor tank (blue tank in photos) has some large dents on the upper surface but it has a great lower pan. If I can't repair the donor tank then I will unzip the bottom pan from the donor tank and graft it onto the other tank (grey tank in photos). Anyway a plan is a basis for change so stay tuned for future updates on this tank repair.

How did you unzip the seams? Someone else was asking if anyone had done a tank repair.

Any further progress reports on the bike?

[ozm29c]

Fortunately the tank seams are not spot or machine welded seams . It was just a case of lightly running along the top of the seam join with a flapper disc in my angle grinder to just remove enough of the weld and expose the join. Hopefully the attached photo will give you an idea how I did it.
As for progress I have been bogged down with the rebuild of my carburettors. The last piece of the puzzle arrived in the post last Friday. Thanks to advice from this forum I was able to track down a set of the elusive link rod dust seals. They came out of Japan and cost a small fortune. Here is the link to my report;
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=193163.new;topicseen#new
Once the carbs are together I will be moving on to the gauges.
 

[ozm29c]

My Carburettor rebuild is done for now. Thanks to the generosity of some SOHC members I managed to find the last hard to find items, believe it or not, the simple hose clamps. I did a static adjustment of the carburettor slides with a dial indicator which will be more acceptable for the first engine start. Photos attached. Now onto the Gauges.

[RAFster122s]

My replacement Frame/VIN tag arrived in time for Christmas. Not quite an OEM finish as the background is a different colour and the Frame/VIN numbers are not inverse stampings but hey, it will be fine for my restoration and I still have the original if needed in the future. Vendor can be found here; https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/153050695190?mkevt=1&mkpid=0...

BTW, it is not uncommon for black to weather into the odd brown of your original VIN plate.
Most mess up with the rivets they use to reattach the plates as they are not like the stock rivet pins and a skilled inspector will easily see more modern substitutes people try to pass off for VIN plate swaps people try to do.

[ozm29c]

Just a short update. Received a pile of goodies back from the Electroplater, Winkler Chrome Plating over in Lismore NSW. Of note, Mark did wonders bringing my OEM front mudguard/fender back from the dead. Of course he relieved me of a lot of cash to restore this part but in the end it was still cheaper than importing a repo from overseas.