Due to the combination of a small bike, small luggage and not so small camping gear I have to try and fit it all on the bike as best I can. I’m trying to buy better and smaller camping items as I go but just due to their expense I can’t afford to buy it all the one time. So for now, I’m stuck dealing with my budget $40 tent with its two foot long poles.
Continue reading “CB500X – ABS Camping Mod”
One project stalling means one of the other bikes can get some much needed attention. I can’t decide on a paint scheme for the CB350, so instead of rushing into a colour I’m not 100% sure of I decided to roll it off the table and replace it with the MB5 to focus on getting it back into riding shape. It has been sadly neglected recently and I don’t even think I rode it at all last year, really missing it so going to try to get it up and running so I can enjoy it. Continue reading “Honda MB5 – To-Do List (Part 1)”
Since I swapped the stock exhaust headers on the CB350 over to its CL350 counterpart scrambler style headers I needed to figure out what I was going to do about mufflers. I bought the headers second hand and the mufflers were cut off, so I just got the header pipes and that was it. I initially wanted to go with Cone Engineering stainless steel slip on mufflers. They are beautifully made but at the moment they are out of my price range. Also, one thing that would have been a hiccup with these is that they don’t come with any mounting points and I can barely weld mild steel let alone stainless, so welding on a bracket seemed out of reach (see note below). Continue reading “Baffle’d”
All the while working on the CB350 I had intensionally neglected the rear shocks because it was my intent to buy new set of Works Performance shocks that would be custom built for my weight and riding style/conditions. Sadly, the cost is well out of my reach for now so to carry me over until I can afford a new set, and to remove the eyesore that they are from the bike, I decided to try cleaning up the stock shocks to make them a bit more presentable. Also since Spring will be starting in a week or two it makes a good time to do an actual spring cleaning (groan…sorry ). Continue reading “CB350 Project – Spring Clean Up”
Short post just to give a quick project update. Very slow progress lately due to a few different things preventing me from getting any real garage time. I did get a bit of time though recently to finish off the remainder of the parts polishing (I hope anyway) and so I decided to temporarily install the front wheel and center stand so that I could actually get the bike up and off the table and standing up by itself. I have to say it was a great feeling seeing the bike upright on its own, it’s really started to finally look like a motorcycle once again. It’s been a long time coming to get to this point but I can finally see something like a finish line up ahead. Continue reading “CB350 Project – Unicycle”
Even though I made this fairing a while ago, long before starting this blog, I thought I’d post up some details on how I went about making it since it will be coming up again in the CB350 project when I’m at the point when I’ll be designing the paint scheme for the tank, seat and fairing, which should be right after I have the wheels done and the bike is up on two wheels (or at least one). Continue reading “CB350 Project – Custom Fairing”
Finally time to start putting the engine back together. Took more time than I planned to get everything ready for reassembly with the main impact being the high humidity slowing the painting down. Still don’t have all the parts painted but have the main parts done so on with the assembly!
Next up with the CB350 project was diving in and attempting to lace my first ever wheel. The wheels in total were in pretty rough shape; spokes were looking pretty ratty and one was bent, chrome on the rims were severely pitted and rusting and the hub was looking old and tired. So I decided to go all in, get new spokes, clean up the hub and paint the rims. Always wanted to try lacing up and truing a wheel anyway so this was the perfect opportunity. Continue reading “CB350 Project – Lace ‘Em Up”
