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CB350F Restoration by royhall (NOW FINISHED)
royhall:
Finally got over the disaster that was the headlamp ears. The originals that came with the bike turned out to be from a 350 twin, although I didn't discover this until they were painted. I had also bought a NOS headlamp shell from Germany that was also wrong, think it may be CB450 so no headlamp shell either.
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Had a bit of trouble sourcing NOS headlamp ears but managed to find one in the USA and another was found by Chris. Strangely, both are red ones and neither of them had been lacquered. They could possibly be a batch of seconds that never made the production line, and that's why they are available today? Anyway, got them off to the painters along with a used plastic headlamp shell.
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Now any eagle eyed viewer will spot the latest mistake. Due to a mix up at the painters the headlamp shell should be black and was painted green. As he didn't charge me for redoing them I am going to repaint it black myself.
Whilst that gets done I am going to tackle fitting the exhaust. Hopefully that will go without a hitch (touch wood). More soon.
Bryanj:
Why not leave it green it looks great
royhall:
I could leave it green Bryan, but that would stir the wrath of the rivet counters. So shiny black it's going to be.
Whilst I sort out the headlamp shell, I thought I would have a go at the exhausts. If you remember from earlier in this sorry tale, due to the very poor standard of the original Sankei exhausts the system I ended up with is a 4 into 4 made by MIVV in Italy (discontinued 5 years ago). The kit included 4 header pipes, 4 silencers, 4 tube clamps, and a rubber stopper for the centre stand. All as in the picture.
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According to the instructions the silencers are mounted first on the rear footrest mounts, then the header pipes slide into the silencer and are bolted up. Sounds really simple, unfortunately as is the case with pattern parts its never that easy. Firstly the header pipes are not identified so its anyones guess which pipe goes to which cylinder. That took a lot of experimenting to sort out. When I offered up the first header pipe this is what I found.
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Yes, your seeing that right. A system made for the CB350F and costing £700 you have to finish off yourself. All four pipes are way too long and needed cutting down to suit.
Two of the pipes have a short bend on the silencer end that had to be cut off (no idea why that bend was there) almost like they were made for another bike and just thrown into the the kit as they are near enough? All fairly poor really, pattern parts yet again. This is what had to be cut off across the 4 pipes (note the bends that were cut off). Another thing I noticed is whilst cutting the pipes (hacksaw) the chrome was flaking. They have been chromed directly onto the steel. Guess they will be coming off again at some point to be re-chromed.
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With lots of time and patience, and a whole lot of measuring and taking on and off, I finally got all four pipes on and looking okay.
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I then managed to find a fault on one of the silencers that I previously had missed. The black end cap on the lower left silencer is missing (never been fitted at the factory, so much for quality control).
Not sure how to get over this problem as its a pressed steel part that will be hard to replicate. Tried emailing MIVV who did reply quickly, but to say it had been discontinued for five years and they had disposed of all the remaining parts.
I'm thinking these were still available after 5 years as they were seconds? If that's the case they should really say so.
I have contacted the German supplier (named earlier in this thread) and they think I may have been supplied with CB500/550 headers by mistake. That would make sense. They are also searching the stores to try to find an end cap for the silencer as they used to keep them. So there's still hope for an easy fix. Looks like the header pipes are not made by MIVV (just the silencers), this could be correct as the quality of the silencers is way better than the headers (except for the end cap obviously).
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I will sort it out somehow, it needs a bit of thought so I will leave that for now. When I think back, I only decided to do a CB350F as exhausts were readily available. That came back and bit me I think ;D .
Next job is to finish the headlamp shell and get it fitted. Then on with the handlebars and on to the bit I dread, the bowl of spaghetti that is the wiring in the headlight.
I am up to date now. More to follow.
PS. Just discovered that the centre stand completely misses the rubber stop and slams into the silencer. No damage done, but another unnecessary job to find a way around.
hairygit:
I can hear Bitsa laughing agaim about pattern parts! Sorry it's causing you so much aggro, you haven't had much luck with exhausts. The issue with the poor chrome plating is one of the many reasons I would not go near anything italian made, it's all so shoddy and badly made/finished (remember 70's fiats and lancias for rust!) The bend on the silencer ends were probably part of the bending mandrel operation at the factory, and should have been cut off before chroming. Terrible shame as you have done a great job on the rest of the bike, but don't get despondent, you'll find a way to sort it!
Sent from my D2303 using Tapatalk
royhall:
Thanks Hairy for the kind words.
Will sort it out somehow, just another challenge. By the time it hits the road nobody will be able to spot it.
Am thinking I may mask it off carefully and paint the inner of the silencer with the same High Temperature Matt black and put some same size pop rivets in. Don't think anybody will notice it even if prompted.
But will look first for a metal dish the correct diameter that I can drill out to look correct.
Pain in the arse really but the Sankai's were way worse.
Cheers.
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