Bobber Restoration – Stripping off some parts
Needed to remove and drain the tank to get better access to the bulk of the bike. From the year of sitting outside, the bike’s pretty dirty–leaves, grime, etc. I was able to clean some of it off, but this is going to be an ongoing process.
My plan is to make my way through most of this bike, and the most obvious place was to start at the carbs. After a little bit of effort, I had the airbox and the carbs off the bike. When removing the carburetor pack, I found that the throttle push cable was snapped. The other cables (throttle pull cable, choke cable) seem alright, but I’ll need to inspect them a bit more as well. The airbox has a bit of oil in it, but at the moment it doesn’t seem to be too much to worry about, mostly just blow-by from the crankcase and subtransmission. Likely the accumulation is from this bike not be able to actually get warm enough to ride.
Removed carbs and airbox
Another view of the removed airbox and glove box.
My original thought was to completely remove the airbox and replace with pod filters. Looking at some examples online, I really like the cleaner look this would give. But, as I research a little bit more, it seems that these DOHC Honda’s don’t particularly like not having their stock airbox. I’ve got the parts for the pod conversion, but I think I’ll shelve them for a later time and focus on just getting things working again.
As time was pretty limited today, I decided to also tackle that handle bar. I’m not a fan of the big handle bars, preferring the much sportier look of cafe racers. As such, I needed to get rid of the bars that came on the bike, and opted for much leaner looking drag bars. Since I needed to pull all the controls off the bars, this gave me a chance to also yank out the bad throttle cable.
Drag handlebars installed
Carbs pulled, airbox pulled, and handlebars swapped.
New bars in place, I think the bike is going to look a lot better. Storms are moving in and other errands are needed to be done; so it’s time to see what all has been pulled off so far.
Parts removed from this venture.