Many steps forwards, a couple of steps back. Hopefully sorted now.

[gtmdriver]

In the 5 weeks since I got my CB350F it's come along quite a bit.

When I bought it it had this godawful fairing on and was running very roughly.



Since then I've put in a fair amount of work.

The fairing has gone but the headlamp unit was the wrong one for the bike so I've temporarily fitted a complete chrome unit.

I've refitted proper indicators. The stalks are Honda but not quite the correct ones.

I cleaned out the tank and fuel tap, stripped, rebuilt and reset the carbs, fitted new points, condensers and plugs and gave the engine a full service. It now runs very nicely.

I removed and greased both stands then pulled out the rear wheel and mudguard.

The mudguard has been de-rusted, treated and undersealed with stone chip. I changed the chain and sprockets, the wheel bearings, the brake shoes and the tyre, tube and rim tape.

I managed to get a universal carrier to fit and a friend gave me the top box so, after a good clean, it now looks like this. Not massively different but definitely on the right track.



So far so good. Then I took it for a run across to Carlisle from Chester le Street and on the way back a coil failed and I lost cylinders 1 and 4. To be fair I suspect it's my own fault as a couple of days ago, while I was doing some wiring work, I accidentally left the ignition switched on for an hour or so while I had a lunch break. I suspect I must have seriously overheated the 42 year old coil.

More annoyingly, at some point in the ride I lost the L/H side panel logo. the one that says "350 4". I know DS has then but they're not exactly the same as the original.

So on Monday I'll order a pair of coils and a new logo and get down to a little more work. I guess these things are sent to try us.

[hairygit]

Little niggles often abound when you buy a 40+ year old bike, but they are thankfully easy to sort. Keep it up, it's looking good, and enjoy riding it

Sent from my D2303 using Tapatalk

[royhall]

Those little niggles only ever happen when your miles away. Still, it will be a better bike when you've fixed it. Are they MIVV exhausts on it?

[gtmdriver]

Are they MIVV exhausts on it?

Honestly I don't know.

The bike came into the UK from America 2 or 3 years ago and I was told by the seller that they were period after market replacements.

They are OK and fit reasonably but the nearside inner front pipe fouls the side stand spring and none of the pipes have any provision for centre or side stand abutments. It sounds nice tough without being over loud.

[Tiny Tim]

Bike looks good.
How does it ride compared to 400?

[gtmdriver]

I've never had a 400. To be honest I was never keen on the styling.

Performance is limited as it's a heavy 350 and I'm a heavy bloke. It's more like riding a 250 really but the sound of the 4 pipes is brilliant. Especially on the overrun

[gtmdriver]

It's taken a week but I think I'm back to making forward progress.

I replaced the lost side panel logo with a new aftermarket one from David Silver. Unfortunately it is a stick-on like the one which fell off. Strangely, when I had a close look, the badge had been moulded with the original mounting pins in place then these had been cut off to allow the double sided sticky tape to be used.

I also replaced both coils with new aftermarket ones from DS Spares. These bolt straight on in place of the old ones and have extra long plug leads which you can cut down as required.

I also decided, while I was sorting the ignition, to change to a contactless electronic system. I decided to go with the Boyer Bransden unit. Kit 00089 is listed for the CB400F and CB750F but correctly I assumed it would fit my 350F too.

I managed to mount the electronic box under the frame below the seat nose.



The rotor attaches to the mechanical advance unit AFTER the bobweights and springs are removed and the circuit board replaces the points back plate.



The Boyer Bransden unit has a built in electronic advance curve so the mechanical unit is not needed.

Like all aftermarket ignition systems the BB unit is designed to work with the stock coils. These have a primary coil resistance of 4 ohms. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to check the resistance of the replacements which was just as well as they only had a 2.2 ohm primary resistance which would have drawn far too much current through the BB electronic box. After checking with BB I used a couple of 1.6 ohm ballast resistors, one in the power feed to each coil.



The initial set up gets the bike started then you can use a strobe to accurately set the timing at the full advance marks.

Thankfully it fired up a treat on all four cylinders and drove very well.

An interesting feature of the BB ignition is that, with two pick up coils replacing the contact breakers, and a single rotating magnet replacing the cam each pair of plugs would fire once per crank revolution BUT the BB unit has two rotating magnets so all the plugs fire together twice per engine revolution.

I wonder what that does for plug life?

[hairygit]

Probably no different for plug life than Honda's standard set up, which also had the wasted spark system, allegedly it helps keep emissions down.

Sent from my D2303 using Tapatalk

[gtmdriver]

Yes but the BB system fires all the plugs all the time. Twice as often as the standard system.