One of my friends happens to have a 76 cb360 in his basement that's been there for years. He never told me about it but one day I was at his house and noticed it and had some fun looking it over. It's in pretty rough shape, a lot of wear on the chrome and I don't think it has any headers or pipes. He's gonna sell it to me for $100 though I'll throw some pictures up tomorrow when I go to his house, I swear, it DID happen. I've never cleaned up chrome before and some parts are peppered with rust. Any good ways to clean chrome up or are those parts in need of new plating. I'd love to get the bike restored without turning it into part of my household budget. I'll get you some pics tomorrow though, I swear.

 

Finding parts is not going to be a fun thing ... but if you don't set a time limit then you can have fun looking for things. If there is rust then the chromed stuff will have to be recoated. Lots of places do this with varying quality levels. I'm sure peeps here have had stuff chromed recently and can hook you up.

 

Eh I figured parts would be hard to find but the engine is in good shape and the bike isn't missing anything other than the pipes. There's a 50 flathead I'm trying to get my hands on as well and I'm in no big hurry to restore anything. One car I owned took me 5 yrs just to round up all of the parts for.

 

you would probably be better off doing a resto-mod on it as far as the chrome goes. Most of the chrome on those bikes never looked good even when new. I would sand the plating down and paint all the chrome parts on it. Black everything out.

its nice not having to rush it. you can do what you want to it and make it your way... I am in the middle of a 68 camaro restoration. I'm planning do be done within the next 5 years. that my goal anyway.. no rush for me either.

good luck with it and have fun.

 

Sweet man can't wait for some pics ! How are you doing on quitting smoking btw ?

 

Get some Naval Jelly for the chrome. You may need to replate them, but for a $5-10 investment and an hour or three of your time you might be able to get away with a good polish. Never hurts to try. Oh, and wear gloves and do it outside...sulfuric acid stinks like a bastard and will eat your hands up.

 

Oh, and when you take it apart...TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES so you know how it goes back together! And every assembly that comes apart gets its own labeled ziploc bag...every nut and bolt. Clean everything as you take it apart, because when re-assembly begins, you are going to want to get it together to see progress, so the temptation to half-*** it will rear it's ugly head. If everything is cleaned and repainted already, you'll be able to breeze right back through. Take my word for it, I'm currently rebuilding this

from a rusty old stocker, and also doing this

Ducati Monster engine swap/rebuild/modification

as it is now...and having bags of clean parts makes reassembly much more pleasant.

 

About pictures before taking it apart.. I bought it in pieces from a friend and carted it home last night ($40 dollars got it in my garage) I tried to take a picture of it but all of the flourescent lighting in my garage stopped working at once about a month ago and I haven't had any good lighting in there. I can show you the best picture I got but it is absolute crud. The best sign I saw when looking the thing over is clean wiring (I hate rewiring stuff) and the engine is very free. I can give the top of one of the pistons a good push when it is at tdc and it spins for about 3 1/2 strokes on the momentum alone. I'm thinking I could get it all put together for pretty cheap.. I just hope my neighbor doesn't get mad at me. He seems very touchy about me abusing classics. I've put together some pretty beat up old vehicles and he seemed to get on to me about not taking care of them.. I guess I get too excited when I'm putting them back together and he sees me driving half-assembled cars around the block. I play around on that little mb5 that I have and he gets onto me about treating it poorly and tells me a bike like it needs to be taken care of. He's 86-88 I think and he still rides his goldwing every day, big honda fan.

Eh with the smoking.. I buckled on friday and smoked a couple but didn't feel like I'd ruined my job of quitting so I still haven't had any since then. It really did ease my cravings back a few notches though. Haven't had one since and I guess if it starts to affect my mood too badly over this week I'll have one more but so far I've gone down from a pack a day to.. well 3 cigarettes on friday and none others since I posted that I was quitting really. I'll get over them soon enough though, thanks for asking .

51plymouth thanks for that tip on the naval jelly. I'd like to clean up the gas cap at least as it's only got minor pitting.. still cant figure out how to open the durn thing though, hah. I learned my lesson on taking lots of pictures when I tried working on my very first car. I had an old bug that I bought when I was barely 15 and I had one hell of a time figuring out what I had done to it when I decided I had taken it apart enough a year later and attempted to reassemble it. I tend to group stuff together a lot with paper bags, magnets or just tape and I keep lots of pictures (digital cameras are so handy). I am debating on bringing the engine from that motorcycle from home to my dorm room so I can mess around with it in my room and hopefully get it running. Man it would be crazy if I managed to fire it up on the sidewalk in front of the building. I don't know if it's against policy to work on gasoline engines in the dorm rooms but honestly I don't care My brother used to go to a mechanic college and they explicitly listed on the leases that working on engines in the dorm rooms was not allowed.. doubt they'd think about that at uah though, hahaha.

If I get this bike done I saw what I believe to be a 50's panhead in the back of a friends shed who doesn't seem to know much about the bike or really care. If I can get him to sell it to me for cheap I might try restoring it.

 

GETTHEPANHEAD!
GETTHEPANHEAD!
GETTHEPANHEAD!
GETTHEPANHEAD!
GETTHEPANHEAD!
I'MSERIOUSGETTHEPANHEAD!
GETTHEPANHEAD!
GETTHEPANHEAD!

IMHO, one of the best looking engines that H-D ever put out.

 

HAhaha so I really should get it eh? Well I'll look into it and see what I can do.