Merry Christmas Eve!

So I somehow maneuvered into being the owner of the little CB350 again (I had sold it a while ago).  In the process I ended up rebuilding the motor with my room mate.  We got the motor back together and in the bike.  Now I am rebuilding the carbs and doing some upkeep (repainting battery box where acid ate it, repairing some small wear and tear). 

In the meantime the CB750 stares at me forlornly from the corner....

And that little gray thing with the word "MO" on it? That would be the gas heater that came with the garage.  I fired her up tonight as I was out there working.  Kills the gas bills but totally worth it.

Brushing up on My AC/DC

So in the process of tearing down the motor, I removed the generator cover and found these little treats. 

The wirey copper thingy is part of the black magic pieces call a "Stator".  Another part called a "rotor" is inside the stator and agitates the little demons that live there through some kind of voodoo called inductance.  The demons go running around the wire part (stator) screaming bloody death until they finally come out of of it looking for something to kill (they are called AC here for Angry Cherubs), the only exit is the black wires to the bottom of the picture that tricks the demons into going into a "regulator/rectifier"  that calms the demons and makes them cooperative (Domesticated Cherubs)  thus DC. This is the source of such tunes as "Back in Black" and "She Shook me all night long".  It also makes headlights and spark plugs work.

Anyway, the small black plastic item to the right of the stator is a housing that olds two electric pick-up brushes that rub on the face of the rotor.  Unfortunately, as you can see in the following picture one of the brushes is fractured and will need to be replaced.  Honda part price?  $30.00.  Ouch.

Drum Solo

So I disassembled the rear drum and cleaned it up for a change of pace.  Trying to decide what to do with it. 

Functional features of the rear drum cover are the center boss which mounts on the rear axle, the lower opening that allows the Cam actuator to exit the housing (gold piece upper right), The upper two bosses that have rivets mounted in them (these provide pivots for the brake shoes) and the boss extending out to the right in the casting that provides the mounting point for the rear brake stay.  One thought is to smooth out the extraneous ribs on the left face of the casting, then drill some uber sweet lightening holes in the face which allow water to get in when it rains, thus cleaning out all the nasty brake dust..... so it serves two purposes, lighter for speed and self cleaning.... Or maybe I just hack away as much of the housing as possible to allow for better air cooling of these hi performance drum shoes.....Decisions, decisions. 

And motor de-construct

Also startedi in on the Motor. The head gasket leaks so will tear it down at least to the bottome cases, still undecided if I will split them. 

There is the valve cover and the little cam caps next to it.  I wil be considering the cam caps.  I am tempted to see if I can make a replacement part, not sure how I feel about them yet.  They remind me of chrome "outie" belly buttons when they are in place.  I am curious about how a half moon shape would look in contrast.... hmmm. 

A close up of the little beasties.  The half moon shape is trapped in the rubber gasket between the valve cover and the head with the round chrome cap facing out. 

SwingArm Strip

So got the swing arm off, taped over the ends where the bearing reside(I was pleasantly suprised to find needle bearings residing there) and went at it with oven cleaner and  a hose, followed by a twisted wire brush on my angle grinder.  Will do a little hand clean up then prime it.  Oh the joy!

Proper engine rebuild etiquette....

 I made a bracket in order to mount the motor on an old car engine stand I had lying around.  Now I am ready to tear into the motor and start replacing gaskets and seals.  And painting and polishing different parts. This is the first time doing a DOHC CB750 motor so should be fun.  I also have a CB900f waiting in the wings. This will be much better then when I did the CB350, I had that motor on a bench and kinda rolled it around to work on it.  It was about half the size of this pig and still pain.  This will be much better.  As I side note I discovered that I am getting older as I started muscling this sucker around and discovered today that I toasted my back.  Gonna need one of those lift chairs from the old folks home real soon!

Sprinkle Sprinkle

Drilled and countersunk for style.  I showed this to one of my friends and he thought I was making a sprinkler.....

Strip Show

OK, final mockup done on the cb750. It's time to tear it down. Stripping all parts, labeling and bagging fasteners. This part goes fast. Nice! Not sure what to call this style, sorta bratstyle but bobberish too?

...and stripped! Just the forks and engine to go! Then start reworking parts and welding mounting tabs on the frame for the tail section.

More pics

An Early on tail shot....

Later rear shot. I am debating whether or not to even mount the speedo.

First attempt at speedo bracket. I ended up making another before I liked the results...

Forward Progress

So next I made a bracket to mount the stock speedo in the center of the top triple clamp and also made a bracket to mount a smaller 6" headlight on the bottom clamp. In addition I mocked up a tail section out of cardboard then welded it up. I am also made a battery box and will be mounting it up behind the carbs to help empty out the back frame area of the motorcycle. At this point I have also added new bars and a new throttle to clean up the front end. Also I machined down a lot of extra Aluminum off the handlebar clamps to help clean up the top tree area as well.

Step one, amputate

I decided to try out a solo seat approach and went ahead and lopped off the back frame rails that extend over the rear tire. Here is the first mock up after that little operation. At this point I perched a tail section off another bike on the rear to see how it would look. I have also removed that large ugly headlight and other misc, parts. No, I didn't paint the tank, it's still rusty green on the other half!

Distractions Arise

OK, time to update this puppy. I was working on a bike for a fellow and he hit a tight spot and couldn't pay for the parts for it so I decided to go ahead an buy it off him. It is a 1980 CB750C. I was going to do a quick repair and sell it, but since winter was coming on decided to go ahead and mod it up a little.