[MNellis]

I'm well underway to restoring this great bike so I'll start in the middle. I'm not doing a "down to frame" restoration. Instead, I'll be doing things piece by piece to decrease the down time since we can ride year 'round here in central texas.

I've had the the swing arm, foot peg bracket and some other bits already powdercoated. The next step is to do the foot rest support and tail light bracket.

I've also got some new road tires coming in and I'll be getting the damaged tank painted soon.

Here are a few BEFORE pictures.

And here is an after shot of the tail light mounting plate. It's amazing how well this stuff clean up if you spend a little time with it.

 

[MNellis]

I have a question on how others have dealt with this sort of problem. There are frequently time when we need to remove rubber grommets that are no longer available. In most cases so far, they have hardened to the point where they can not be squeezed and removed. Is there a secret technique that people are using to get these out? I've tried a heat gun but that just burned my fingers.

I'm starting to think of using a razor to cut it cleanly in half and then just reuse them as two piece units.

Here are the pieces I'm talking about right now but it could just as well have been the side cover grommets.

 

[tbpmusic]

Plain ol' xylol from the hardware store.
Pour some in a container (well ventilated area), sit the afflicted piece in it for a couple of hours, they'll soften up nicely.
Leave them in too long and they will swell up, but will return to normal size after a while.

Someone I trust told me that deisel fuel works just as well (though I've never tried it myself), and is probably easier on painted objects.

 

[CresentSon]

Got any all over shots. Once your done that will help the rest of us appreciate how much progress you made. Plus, I just want to eyeball your scoot and see what ya got there.

Good to see central TX getting more representation around here.
Welcome aboard and keep it coming.

 

[Bird76Mojo]

PICS!!!

I just use a shot of oil to pull out those grommets. It does'nt soften them though, but makes them easy to pull out.

I got a spare shifter for that thing I think, should you ever need one.

GB :mrgreen:

 

[MNellis]

Well, here is what I started with when I found it in a hanger. It hadn't been registered since '82, 4400 miles on the odo.

I've got a blog going of the work I've done so far but I don't have a recent picture of the whole bike. The tank was damaged when the tie down broke on the way home and I found a new NOS tank for $100 that will be getting painted soon. I've also lined up a seat cover so that should be done in the near future.

http://1968hondacl350.blogspot.com for the build so far. Sorry for the size of the photo but at least you can see the detail.

 

[MNellis]

Before doing any bike related stuff I finished building a small portable table with a sliding drawer to hold "stuff".

I pulled the sprocket cover to start the process of cleaning buffing it and this is what I found. Actually, based on some pretty grungy stuff
I've seen before, this one wasn't too bad. Maybe about right for a 4400 mile motorcycle with a worn out chain. The previous owner probably didn't lube it much.

After about 10 minutes in the solvent tank it cleaned up pretty well. I all I had was a solvent brush and a green Scotchbrite pad.
I'm going to let the cover soak in the solvent overnight and maybe it'll loosen up some of the remaining crud.

This is the outside of the cover after cleaning in the solvent. I forgot to take a 'before' picture but it ws pretty yellow grundgy.
With the scotchbrite pad and solvent I was able to get most of the yellow out and it cleaned pretty well. I ran out of stripper today but
tomorrow I'll strip the clear coat off the outside and start the wet sanding a polishing phase.

While I was at it I pulled off a couple more pieces that need to get powdercoated. The foot peg bracket in this picture was stripped, primered and painted
a while back but it's already chipping just from installing the bolts so. I had the other side powdercoated and it looks great. The tail light bracket is a spare
that I had so that will be a straight swap out. The bar that holds the foot peg hangs down below everything and is probably the dirtiest part on the bike.
I still have to remove the center stand and that will be it for a while. The only think left to powdercoat will be the wheel hubs but that's still a while off.

 

[MNellis]

Get my seat restored to original condition has been a little frustrating but I think we got it done. I checked with all the big motorcycle seat guys like Sargents, Corbin etc. and I even thought about a guy in Australia who did a great job for a guy in Sweden that restored a beautiful Suzuki GT750. There was a guy in Kansas who's web site looks like does good work but he couldn't get the proper textured material for the '68 K0. He and others told me it would be tough to find so I resigned myself to having something other than the original look.

Ultimately, I ended up getting a seat cover from a Canadian guy off eBay primarilary because he had the HONDA logo on the back of the cover. The grab handle was not correct (black stitching) and the texture of the material was a non-stock plain material. When I got the cover in it looked good and if it weren't for the poor condition of the existing seat foam I would have done the work myself. I found a guy that was reasonable local in San Antonio, TX that said he could do the re foam, covering and painting of the seat pan for $200. I took the material to him along with the seat and when he saw the old seat cover material he said he could match it and promptly pulled out a sample swatch that looked almost identical to the original. WOW!

He didn't have the set up to copy the HONDA logo so we decided that for an additional $50 he would order the necessary material and cut out the logo from the cover I bought and redo the strap with the white thread.

Anway, the results certainly met my expectations and he had it done in about 2 days. The '68 CL350 seat cover was unique to that year and I think it was the same material they used on the '67 & '68 CL450's but I could be wrong.

Here is a link to a photo album that shows all the pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/6453635/SeatRestoration#

Sample Picture

 

[johnnyc14]

That looks great!

 

[MNellis]

Here is the most recent powder coated parts.

I got a couple of new foot peg rubbers to replace the old/cracked units as well.

 

[MNellis]

Additionally, I cleaned up the countershaft sprocket area but I didn't get any 'before' pictures. As with all these old bikes, it was pretty miserable just like the quality of this picture.

I pulled the starter and cleaned it up well then mounted both the polished stator cover and the countershaft sprocket cover. It's to dark out so I'll have to post those pictures later.

 

[dlslick]

You are doing a great job on that bike. I think the seat looks awesome.I have a CB350KO with the red and white paint. You are going to love riding that bike and it will be a favorite at the events you take it to.
Don Slicker

 

[MNellis]

You are doing a great job on that bike. I think the seat looks awesome.I have a CB350KO with the red and white paint. You are going to love riding that bike and it will be a favorite at the events you take it to.
Don Slicker

Thanks, that's a great looking original example you have there as well. It looks like everything on yours is original and well maintained without being "restored".

I pulled the clutch cover off last night and I'll be polishing it up in the next couple of days so it was good to see what the finished cover might look like on yours.

I'm picking up a '70 450 K3 in tomorrow so I've got to get going and finish this up so I can ride something while I work on the 450.

 

[dlslick]

Thanks for the nice comment on my 350. It is a great bike. It has been repainted because when I got the bike it was painted white and was set up to be a Shriners parade bike.



I have a 72 CB450 that still has its original paint though.

 

[MNellis]

Thanks for the nice comment on my 350. It is a great bike. It has been repainted because when I got the bike it was painted white and was set up to be a Shriners parade bike.
I have a 72 CB450 that still has its original paint though.

That's a nice example as well

. Here is my project 450. The first things to go will be the clubman bars, replace the broken tach and get some good fork boots on it. It's got some engine problems so the first thing I'll do it a good check out of the compression, timing and valve train to try and determine if it's just a tuning issue or something broke inside. The tank paint is not original and was poorly applied. There is a small ding on the other side of the tank but the inside of the tank is good.

Overall it's in reasonable shape and I think it's worth the $600 it cost me.

 

[Jason TEAM SHRALP]

what year tank is that?

 

[66Sprint]

Jason... That is actually painted as a 1969 K1 tank (Same tank as K0, but has thin stripe under wings/over Honda logo)... The serial number will/can determine and verify K0 or K1..... A K0 has a serial LESS THAN CB350-1020596, a K1 that number or higher..... However, Honda had a habit of using up already manufactured parts during the transitions, so some late K0 bikes got the occaisional K1 parts, and some early K1's got left-over K0 parts.... (The K1 front fender carried a reflector for instance, and this bike doesn't have that)..... There are almost always examples of "transitional" bikes, or, the dealer could have simply replaced a dented-during-shipping tank with what was currently available in order to sell the bike.....
The serial number is what determines which "K", regardless of the parts on the bike.

 

[MNellis]

Jason... That is actually painted as a 1969 K1 tank (Same tank as K0, but has thin stripe under wings/over Honda logo)... The serial number will/can determine and verify K0 or K1..... A K0 has a serial LESS THAN CB350-1020596, a K1 that number or higher..... However, Honda had a habit of using up already manufactured parts during the transitions, so some late K0 bikes got the occaisional K1 parts, and some early K1's got left-over K0 parts.... (The K1 front fender carried a reflector for instance, and this bike doesn't have that)..... There are almost always examples of "transitional" bikes, or, the dealer could have simply replaced a dented-during-shipping tank with what was currently available in order to sell the bike.....
The serial number is what determines which "K", regardless of the parts on the bike.

That is some great information. I've seen pictures of CL's that had the white strip and fender reflector as well. I never saw that feature in any of the brochures so I always thought it was a European or Canadian thing. Additionally, the white on the CL K0 (and I thought K1) extended up to cover the whole leading edge at the front of the tank abouit 1/2" wide as seen here.

 

[66Sprint]

Mike, CB and CL numbers have different "K" divisions....

http://www.motorera.com/honda/h0350/scr ... ram350.htm

Steve

 

[dlslick]

The title says it is a 1970 but the build date is in 1968 if I remeber right. The serial number is 1039125. The bike was all white when I got it and the stripe was what we thought it should have had so we may not have it exactly right.
The fender is an NOS that I got off ebay but it is the same as the one that I replaced. One of the mufflers is not original and is a one piece muffler. Everything else is original as far as I know.