Disassembly Pt. 3

Alright, so after a full week of tinkering with the bike, this is what is left on the bike. As you can see, I've been quite busy in the past few days. Let me fill you in on my progress. On Thursday, I decided to take a stab at draining the fuel out of the tank. To do this, I first needed to take the fuel tubes going from the tank to the carbs off. After spending 10 minutes trying to pry the tubes off the tank, I decided to simply syphon the fuel using a piece of plastic conduit piping. Long story short, I ended up with more gas in my mouth than in the bottle. I eventually managed to get the gas lines off and filled up about 4, 2 litre pop bottles with rusty old gas. Hurrah, the tank can be removed! Next, I decided to remove the wiring harness, along with the headlamp which has still yet to be opened. Overall, the electrical wasn't much of a problem. Just clipped the zip ties holding the wires to the frame, took of the ignition coils off, and gave it a firm pull. This is what it looked like:After a few days of struggling with the headlamp screws, I just decided pull out as many wires out from the hole in the back that I could. They all ended up removed safe and sound which means I didn't need to open the headlamp after all! This is what the electrical looks like when spread out on my patio:Next, I turned my attention towards the carburetors. My first attempt at getting them detached from the engine had me giggling and wiggling the damn things expecting them to simply slide off the rubber gaskets that connect the carbs to the engine. After that failed, I went for broke and grabbed the CROWBAR. The carbs didn't put up much of a fight after that I just had to disconnect the throttle cables and I was done. I then opened up the clutch cover, removed the front sprocket, chain and shift lever, and disassembled the rear brake assembly. A note to anyone who ever decides to restore a motorcycle, make sure you replace the stock engine bolts with hex bolts for the simple reason that Philips head bolts strip easily compared to hex or even Allen head bolts.

Although the picture above appears to be horribly dirty and thus poorly maintained, this is not the case. The grease off of the chain has actually coated the bare metal, and protected it from the elements. But I still have to clean it...

I also have a new set of triple trees to add to my parts list. This is what I discovered yesterday:

Ya, that crack shouldn't be there. It seems as if this project just won't stop burning holes in my wallet!

This is what is left to remove:

1. Rear Swing arm
2. Engine
3. Front forks
4. Front wheel

After those things are done, I can begin focusing on the repairing stage of this project, including fixing the dents in the tank, getting the engine and front forks rebuilt, and paint. Hmm... it all seems so easy on paper...

Disassembly Pt.2

A fair bit of progress was made today! For starters, the battery box, starter switch, tool box, fuse box, air filters and gauges were removed... Only one thing troubled me about this part of the tear down. When I took off the toolbox I was greeted by the signal blinker switch, and the silicon rectifier which looked a bit off. I took a look through my CB 360 Shop manual and found someone, for some unknown reason, decided to relocate these parts from their usual position (beside the starter switch) to where I found them. I will try to get to the bottom of this and figure out what motivated the PO (previous owner) to do such a thing.

The discovery of the misplaced electrical components was soon followed by my futile attempt at removing the headlight bezel. The screws are rusted and most of the electrical is routed through the headlight case, so I'm stuck with the headlamp hanging off the bike and know idea how I'm going to get the darn thing off without smashing it. The handlebars are also giving me a bit of trouble thanks to more rusted screws...After that, I tackled the front brake, stopping short of actually removing the calipers themselves. I also managed to take the front fender off.

The only thing I didn't get around to was draining the fuel out of the carburateurs and tank. I suppose I will leave that for later.

Believe it or not, Things are coming together... well more like apart... VERY quickly! I'm really pumped that I'm making so much progress, I just have to remember that taking the bike apart is one thing, reassembly is another!

Finally, I will leave you with a new list of things I NEED to replace.

• Front fork seals
• Rear shocks
• muffler and headers (Planning on using a 2 into 1 exhaust)
• Clutch perch
• Electronic ignition start button
• Tires
• Front fender
• Tachometer
• Tail light
• Turn signal blinker switch
• Turn signals
• clutch, tach, speedo cables (maybe salvagable, not too sure yet)
• Headlight housing (in the event I end up breaking it in half trying to open it!)
• Seat (discovered the seat pan is bent, a real bummer)

Wow, that list is a lot longer than even I thought it would be... Lets just hope it doesn't grow by too much!

As always, stay tuned for the next installment of the project where I drain the fuel, remove the tank, and sort out the stubborn headlamp.