Oh Hai! CB160 Build

[BoostedVeeDub]

I got the bike in yesterday after waiting 27 days for it to be delivered since date of purchase. I started to tear the bike down to get the frame ready for powdercoating. Apparently it has been painted alot. I believe the original color was red, then school bus yellow, green, two shades of blue and finally black. It looks like all the cables have to be replaced due to their age. The wiring in the headlight bucket was a mess and it took me awhile to sort that out. I'll have to figure out a better way to wire this thing when I build it back up. I'll try to keep this thread updated but I'm torn between work, my mba program and this lil project. But I'll do my best to take pics and keep this thread updated.

I'll be checking the compression and pulling the motor and start inspecting that next.

This is a picture of the bike that the seller took when it was up in Michigan. It made the journey down to Woodstock, Ga after 27 days.

No baffles and the bottom of the pipe is well rusted through. I have replacement pipes from a CL. So I have to mount the brackets from this set onto the new pipes.

This is about as far as I got today. I'm considering relocating the battery, but I haven't figure out how to accomplish that yet. I may get a smaller dry cell and hide it under the seat.

Tank is in pretty good condition as well as the pads. There is some rust in the tank, which I'll need to remove. Poco Bastardo in the background keeping me inspired.

Mr.Sheeperz overseeing the work aloft his dank-o-licious cafe seat.

The old air filters to be replaced with K&N goodness.

[DimalovesAlfa]

that IS a dank-o-licious seat, you planning on going any rides longer than 10 minutes?

Nice bike man, looks great.

[BoostedVeeDub]

Quote, originally posted by DimalovesAlfa »

that IS a dank-o-licious seat, you planning on going any rides longer than 10 minutes? Nice bike man, looks great.

lol considering it's a lil 160, I don't think I'll be able to go farther than 10 minutes will take me.

[NEGTi]

Oh SWEET!

I'll be watching this thread.

[JPawn1]

Quote, originally posted by BoostedVeeDub »

lol considering it's a lil 160, I don't think I'll be able to go farther than 10 minutes will take me.

10 minutes to the end of the block and back!

Good luck with the build, that tank is amazing...I'd love to have one of those for my 450...only painted, not chrome...but the chrome fits a café style bike great.

[A2jettafreak]

niiiiceee.. that tank is prob worth more then the bike.. looks clean!

[Metallitubby]

get it going and let's go ride

[BoostedVeeDub]

Andy, you'll leave me in the dust. I think I'll be able to keep up with you for a whole 30 seconds.

I didn't have much time to work on it tonight. So I was only able to pull off the rear shocks and rear wheel.

Just noticed this bracket on the rear wheel was busted. The search begins to find a replacement. At the very least I suppose I can use this to practice my polishing skillz yo!

Emma-Girl came out to keep me company in the garage tonight.

For some reason that stupid lil bracket on the bottom right inside of the frame was giving me a stupid amount of trouble to remove.

Rust on one of the exhausts. Right after this I found out the replacements I got do not fit the bike. I will need to ponder my next steps in regards to replacing this wonderful, seasoned piece of hardware.

[Metallitubby]

Quote, originally posted by BoostedVeeDub »

Andy, you'll leave me in the dust. I think I'll be able to keep up with you for a whole 30 seconds.

you don't have to go fast to have fun!

[BoostedVeeDub]

Thanks for the emotional support Andy. Feel free to stop by and help out if you're in the area. The KTM dealer is right down the street from me. I got alot done tonight. Now, everything is nice and smoooovveee. Any reccomendations on how to strip the paint? Should I use a chemical stripper or sand it down?

Started the afternoon by grinding down the tabs on the top tubes of the frame.

I decided I might as well play with the camera settings to capture some of the sparks.

Goodbye Mr. Battery Tray!

Mr.Battery Tray put up a good fight. But, alas... This was all that was left of him.

The spot where Mr.BT's friend used to live. Miss Tabs

This concludes the end of this chapter.

[Metallitubby]

lemme know if you need to use the sandblaster, plasma cutter, or welder...

[WindsorJetta8v]

sweet! deff wanna do a Cafe style bike for next season or when i tire of the ruckus!

[BoostedVeeDub]

Quote, originally posted by Metallitubby »

lemme know if you need to use the sandblaster, plasma cutter, or welder...

I'm gonna see if I can fit the frame into the sandblaster here at work or even if the guys will let me get some stuff in there (different department). But I may take you up on that offer. I might need a welding lesson, I've been wanting to learn how to do that.

[Mk1Racer]

Grinding w/ no shirt on? meh.

[skaterhernandez4]

Quote, originally posted by Mk1Racer »

Grinding w/ no shirt on? meh.

Mr. sheepers does not approve.

[T-Boy]

Nice little project! While you're working on the motor, lets slap a turbo on it. I got a mitsu 14G sitting in my garage.

[MK2*GTI*GUY]

this is going to be a sweet build

[blue70beetle]

Quote, originally posted by Mk1Racer »

Grinding w/ no shirt on? meh.

Srsly. It's a Dremel.

People just get ridiculous about perceived safety.

Very nice project, BTW.

[blksabbath]

Awesome bike! My dad has his 1965 cb160 sitting in their basement waiting to be cleaned up. He bought it brand new to cruise around at college.

[BoostedVeeDub]

Thanks! I'm having fun with it so far.

Today I finished smoothing off the remaining top section of the battery tray.

I finally decided to grind off the remaining supports for the tool box.

Old vs. New

Working on polishing/buffing for the first time evar.

Modified by BoostedVeeDub at 1:11 AM 7-3-2009

[TheGoodDoctor]

NICE!

GOOD WORK!

[vwfansince95]

another good build-out thread

[BoostedVeeDub]

Thanks guys! The past couple days I've been polishing some parts. I have about three more pieces on the motor I would like to polish. But this is what I've done so far. That large casing was very difficult for me to polish. The irregular shapes were just hard to navigate around. Overall, I'm happy with the results although one piece (top right) still has a LITTLE milky look to it. I'm not sure what that's about. But, I did redo it from the picture posted previously and there is significant improvement. I have been sanding the pieces with 600 grit and then 1000, and then buffed with ebony, white and then rogue.

Found this wedged in the alternator. It looks like it's already cut a groove in the magnets. I'm glad I decided to tear the motor down.

Current state


Modified by BoostedVeeDub at 9:56 PM 7-7-2009

[WindsorJetta8v]

as soon as i sell my vw im looking for one of these... fun winter project

[BoostedVeeDub]

I've been insanely busy the past couple days. I did manage a few hours today to polish this piece. As I get further into the motor I'm encountering a large number of stripped philips head screws. A few of them I had to drill out and use a screw extractor. Maybe I'll replace this with some allen head bolts. I also had some company from a little butterfly, who hungout right next to me the whole time.

Modified by BoostedVeeDub at 8:50 PM 7-12-2009

[copperlite]

Looking really good! I've been working on mine for a few months now. Finding parts is near impossible.

If you are getting the frame powder coated you should consider getting those polished bits coated clear as well. It's funny, mine has the same gouge on the Honda logo.

For the stripped philips head screws I got a manual impact driver. It work REALLY well! http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_1...river

You may have found this already, but here is a link to the honda factory service manual. http://www.freepdfmanual.com/1...nual/. It's not great quality but it at least has all the specs you need. If you need a better version of anything I have an original copy I can scan stuff from.

Here's some more links that may help you:
http://www.cmsnl.com/ <-- oem and aftermarket parts (from UK)
http://www.batemanracing.com/ <-- Race parts
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/F-160/ <-- yahoo formula 160 group (great knowledge base)

Here is mine when I first brought it home!

[Spinnaker]

You ever use Mother's Mag Polish? You can pick it up cheap at walmart and it works wonders if you want to put the finishing touch on those pieces you shined up.

[BoostedVeeDub]

Bringing this back from the dead. After 2 years and some big changes in my life, I have my workspace and tools up and running here in Milwaukee. After not touching this bike for that long and looking at all those parts in boxes, I think I’m getting a little overwhelmed. There’s so much I want to get done with this bike that I’m thinking about everything at once. I went to a local shop to help with the rebuild portion of the motor. I got a quote of $900 to rebuild/refresh the motor (labor only). I just want them to make sure everything is in proper working order with new parts if needed. I already have new contacts, points, bolt kit and gasket kit which I would provide them. Is that too much?

Aesthetically, I will be spraying the top and bottom end of the motor bright silver and mounting the polished sides back on.

I was debating on going with a big bore kit, but the complexity is a little over my head. Not to mention, I will not be racing it; only commuting to work on a nice day. So I may just go with larger carbs and call it a day.

On the frame front, I think I’m going to disassemble the front end and take the parts/frame I’d like painted and blast it with plastic media in order to get it ready for paint. I did find this pretty neat shop locally that let’s you media blast your parts yourself. For the color I’d like to use Audi's Nimbus Grey and get a satin or matte finish on it. The cafe seat pan will have some rich brown leather wrapped cushioning.

For the wheels, I would like to get them powder coated black. I have not figured out what I want to do about the damn muffler. Any ideas, post them up.



Lossa apparently has built a nice little cb160 exactly as I’d like to complete mine, so you can get an idea of what I’m going for. Nice to have a visual point of reference to keep me going during this build.

I'll be posting pics of this project again shortly.

[BoostedVeeDub]

Sooo, back too it! I keep changing direction as to how I'm going to finish this project. For now, I plan to strip down the motor and bead blast it myself at a local shop. I was looking to soda blast it, but no luck finding a shop locally to do that. So for now, I'll hafta seal it up real good and use the beads.


Started the night off pouring out all the fluids.


I ended up using a 12 point socket and knocking out the tappet covers with a rubber mallet. All of them opened up smoothly except for one.


Liquid Wrench to the rescue! I had to let it soak for about 10 minutes and some work. I got a little nervous because these covers are pretty soft.


MMmmm, tappet covers! Seals look to be worn out and will need to be replaced.


I spy a tappet!... Also quite a bit of surface rust.

[BoostedVeeDub]

These gaskets are getting to be trouble.


This impact driver is quickly becoming a favorite.


Now, where's that master link?


Found it!


Smooth


Also smooth


!#$%* Not so smooth. Anyone know how to pull this lower casing off easily? I only see one bolt on the backside and that's it. Am I missing something?

[pknopp]

Any question you will ever think about with this bike can be answered here.

http://www.honda305.com/forums/index.php

It states 305 but they are basically the same.

[BoostedVeeDub]

Thanks! I had completely forgot about that forum.

[BoostedVeeDub]

Here's where I got to tonight. I was going to open up the bottom end but it's getting late.


You were right about the gasket. I never thought that it was going to come off!




A lot of carbon on the pistons.


First time I had to use the breaker bar on this motor to loosen up some bolts.

[BoostedVeeDub]

This is where I started off tonight. However, I didn't get too far. >




Whoops! Almost forgot one.


This stinking clip was a little tricky to pull off.




So this is where I got stuck. Any ideas on how I can pull these two pieces off?

[StaggerLee]

You gotta get that oil spinner/filter off the motor first. You'll need a special spanner to do so:



Motion Pro sells them; so will any decent bike shop.