Here is my inspiration for this build. If you look at my Porsche build blog you can see that I am a big fan of simple, stripped down vehicles and this bike will be no exception.

I found a 1970 Honda CL350 on Craigslist.

When I bought it it didn't run and was pretty rough but the engine showed potential and the frame was clean.

It looks like it was laid down pretty hard but nothing I intend on keeping was damaged.
It came with a ton of extra parts that I will not need and can sell to recoup my losses.

I pulled the tank and seat so I could get to the electronics and carbs. I bought a small 12V 8AH battery that will tuck under a cafe style tail. After a heavy dose of ether the engine started and actually ran pretty well. I am going to rebuild the carbs after I pull the engine but I think the rest of the engine is mechanically solid.

I found the tank off of a 1960's Benelli 125 in a junk yard.
I think it fits the vintage cafe look a lot better than the stock tank.

The frame on the Honda is to wide for the tank so I cut off the bottom of the Honda tank and used it to replace the bottom of the Benelli tank. It was a lot of work but now the Benelli tank fits on the Honda like it's stock.

Here you can see how much wider the cutout in the Honda tank is compared to the Benelli.


I cut out the bottom of the Honda tank and cleaned it up with a wire wheel.

Then I cut out the bottom of the Benelli tank and welded in the bottom of the Honda tank.

While I was welding on the tank I replaced the tall crude looking Benelli filler with the more flush Honda filler.

Here you can really see the diffrence in the two tank bottoms. Since the Benelli tank is so much longer than the Honda tank I had to make a filler piece to extend the tunnel. After I finished welding I filled up the bathtub and did a leak test. After a couple trips between the tub and the welder I stopped all of the leaks. I will still probably coat the inside of the tank with some Kreem tank sealer just to be safe.

Since I did not have the bike with me I waited to weld in a bung for the petcock, I will find a good place for it once I have tested the tank on the bike.

I fitted the tank onto the frame today, it fits really well and I think it looks the part too!

I pulled the engine and cleaned it up with a wire wheel then I painted the fins with some high temp engine paint. As you can see in the pics I pulled out all of the horrible stripped out phillips head fasteners and replaced them with stainless allen heads. I also found a plug for the starter from MG innovative products, I could have built it myself but I got lazy, it is actually a nice piece and their service is really good.
Since the engine ran pretty well before I pulled it I am going to leave it as is internally.

I also stripped down the frame. I am waiting on a cafe tail so I will wait to paint the frame until I know how I am going to mount the seat. I also need to grind off a couple unneeded tabs.

I received my cafe seat and the fit and finish is great, I will need to shorten the seat by about 3" but it is really exactly what I was looking for.

I ground off all of the unneeded tabs remaining on the frame then rebuilt the brakes, replaced the front shocks, had new tires mounted, and then mounted the front and rear suspension.

Check out the Tarozzi clipons and rear sets. I think I may have to cut down the clipons, the bars are a little too long.

I had been debating for a while on how I was going to paint the bike. After looking at the bikes weathered Benelli tank for a long time I decided that it's patina was way too cool to sand off. I am going to replicate the tanks patina on the rest of the bike, this will not be a rat bike by any means, I just want it to look like it was an original cafe racer from the sixties that I dug out of a barn and cleaned up.

Here is my attempt at making a one week old seat look fifty years old, I carefully replicated the tanks layers of paint, even the pin striping. Then I took fine sand paper and sos pads to it until it matched the tank.

I dropped the engine in and started working on the hand controls.

 

Today I got most of the front end put together. I cut down a pair of CB350 headlight ears to fit under the clipons and mounted an old italian scooter headlight to them, then I mounted the stock CL350 fender back on painted to match.

I rebuilt and installed the carbs, topped them with K&Ns, and installed a MAC 2-1 exhaust.

It's getting close!

I installed the original wiring harness, once everything is working I will cut out what I don't need.

After I hooked up a fresh battery it fired up on the first kick, it runs great and idles smooth.

I built the linkages for the rear-sets and installed them.

I decided to take some nice pics of the bike so I rode it all of 50 feet from my garage to the sidewalk in front of my house. So here it is, still some work but getting close.

I took the bike to its first show today, I rode it for about an hour this morning and it is doing really well. I think this it the point at which I call her done.

I added all of the necessary bits to make her somewhat street legal and upholstered the seat with a tattered old leather jacket.