Finished Rebuilding the CL350
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2015 9:41 pm
Steve and I finished work on my 1973 Honda CL350K5 today. This one is just like the first bike I ever owned: same year, same model, same color. We had a bit of time between when the snow melted and the weather turned cold again, and Steve and I were both able to ride it around the block before we retired to the garage for cigars and fermented beverages.
We started out with three bikes (more like two and three-quarters) and took the best bits off of each. In some instances we only had one decent part out of the bunch. I was able to get some of the bits that are subject to wear or badly rusted (tires, cables, battery, air filters, various rubber parts, etc.) from Honda or off Ebay.
We took it clear down to the frame, cleaned up a bunch of rust (Evaporust is a great product, in addition to the wire brushes we went through,) and primed and painted all the black pieces. We cleaned up the chrome parts as best we could, and replaced some (turn signals, fasteners, etc.) that couldn't be saved.
We wound up using parts from all three engines, using our lowest mileage engine as the base, and cleaned up the best of the two exhaust systems we had. (CL350 exhausts in decent condition are getting hard to find.)
Everything finally went back together, with the help of Honda and Clymer manuals (and some information from the Honda Twins forum.) The finished bike is somewhere between a restoration and a good “survivor.” It doesn't look quite a good as the brand new leftover '73 model that I purchased in late '74, but it's pretty good for forty-plus years old.
I'll probably ride it to a couple of the ROMEO lunches after we get a few more miles on it, but here are some photos taken during the rebuilding process.
We started out with three bikes (more like two and three-quarters) and took the best bits off of each. In some instances we only had one decent part out of the bunch. I was able to get some of the bits that are subject to wear or badly rusted (tires, cables, battery, air filters, various rubber parts, etc.) from Honda or off Ebay.
We took it clear down to the frame, cleaned up a bunch of rust (Evaporust is a great product, in addition to the wire brushes we went through,) and primed and painted all the black pieces. We cleaned up the chrome parts as best we could, and replaced some (turn signals, fasteners, etc.) that couldn't be saved.
We wound up using parts from all three engines, using our lowest mileage engine as the base, and cleaned up the best of the two exhaust systems we had. (CL350 exhausts in decent condition are getting hard to find.)
Everything finally went back together, with the help of Honda and Clymer manuals (and some information from the Honda Twins forum.) The finished bike is somewhere between a restoration and a good “survivor.” It doesn't look quite a good as the brand new leftover '73 model that I purchased in late '74, but it's pretty good for forty-plus years old.
I'll probably ride it to a couple of the ROMEO lunches after we get a few more miles on it, but here are some photos taken during the rebuilding process.
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