My name is Dan and I have a 1965 Honda CB160 Sport Bike with 3,000 some miles. My Grandpa gave it to me when he was moving to a smaller house, back in the early 1990's. It wasn't running then, but only the carbs needed to be rebuilt because one was missing the needle jet. Life got in the way and the bike sat around and out in the elements, though covered with a tarp, and the weather in Washington State was less than kind. The carbs now needed more than just the needle jet, and a coworker at Boeing Commercial Aircraft did me the favor of rebuilding them and wouldn't even let me pay for the parts!! Problem was that the main seal of the engine started to weep by this time, and that indicated I needed to do at least a light rebuild. Life got in the way again and though it has been heavy on my heart to do, it never happened.
Fast forward to the present and I am moving from my house of 13 years to a condo, and unless I want to pay to have the conversion done, the time to do it is now. I have the time, I have the money, and most importantly I have an eager assistant - my son Tyler is doing much of the grunt labor.
I have an idea of what I want her to look like - I have always wanted a cafe racer, so instead of simply restoring her, I am choosing to do the conversion to cafe racer. At minimum, this requires a change of the seat style and handlebar style, though to give it a more aggressive look, there is more you can do. I don't want to chop or stretch the frame as some do, and I want to try to keep it original as much as possible.
This is what she looked like back in the beginning.
This is Franky, a conversion from Lossa Engineering. He comes the closest to the look I have decided on. Once mine is done, I will post the before and after.
In actuality, I am trying more for this look. It is a CB400 conversion by Lossa Engineering.
Mine will have features of each and will depart in areas based upon my design preferences.
I am going to bring you up to date on where we are at and on decisions that have been made and then blog progress from here.
Engine
Work began on March 16, 2013. I started ordering parts and my son started disassembly.
First my son pulled the engine because that is going to take time to get parts if they are needed. Unfortunately the rings welded pretty well into the cylinders. I was surprised because of the low miles, but there is a lot I did not do correctly in storing her - my bad, definitely and I am going to pay for those decisions in this rebuild! The rest of the engine internals look like you'd expect. Nice and clean with little to no wear evident. Pictures to follow later. The piston tails are broken, which is very typical in these engines. I would love to get racing pistons, but I cannot source any, so it is OEM. The machine shop called after having the engine a couple weeks and told me the cylinders will clean up at the 2nd oversize of 0.5 mm. I have ordered the pistons and they should arrive tomorrow. And rings too, from a different source. That is all they need to finish honing and blasting.
By the way, I had been trying to avoid eBay because I hate them as a company, but many, many Honda sites claim they have parts for this, and then two days later call and cancel the order, so after dealing with that four times I went to eBay. At least with eBay sellers, the people actually do have the parts and they are new.
I've ordered and received engine rebuild gaskets and seals in separate orders. I am trying to determine if rod bearings and cam bearings are available and if I should even bother. If this was a car engine or if parts were openly available still, I wouldn't give this any thought. I would just replace them - it is cheaper to do now instead of later.
I asked the machine shop about valve guides and seals, and they seemed to think I did not need them. This is another thing that is hard to source separately. If you do need them, you need to pop on the entire valve kit at a cost of around $500, so I am awaiting the machine shop to finish to see whether I am sad or happy in this regard!
Cables
I have elected to just replace all cables to avoid issues later. None were working well after all this time anyway, and there is the chance I could have lubed them and gotten them to function again, but they were available aftermarket, so I bought them. They took a long time to come, as does anything you buy from Thailand!
Tires, Brakes and Wheel Bearings
The tires are very old with little to no wear, but I think they won't last long once the bike is being ridden frequently, and the look is not the cafe racer look either, so I bought new tires. This was another difficult task because matching tires, which you'd want for look and function, are hard to find that aren't meant for mopeds, which have a slower speed rating than we'd want. As it is with the tires I bought, my speed rating is like 98 MPH, which since I am not really planning to race it is fine. I bought new bearings front and back since the wheels weren't spinning as freely as you'd want. These are another thing I could have likely just lubed up and kept. Once the wheel was pulled apart the bearings looked fine, but they are the open bearing style and I decided to go with new technology bearings. Not too bad price-wise by the way. I also decided to replace the brake pads, though the existing ones looked good still. I would imagine after all this time that I could end up with some disintegration and stopping is kind of important and the pads weren't too bad price-wise. I also sourced an aftermarket chain.
Exhaust
My pipes have dings and dents and are rusted out a little, but are still serviceable if someone wants them. Let me know. I have chosen to go with a flared pipe like the CB400 above, so I bought the main piece for both sides. I will need to rechrome the header pipes (first section). More about this below in the section on chroming.
Air Filter
My stock air filters are looking pretty bad. They are paper and as much as I would like to keep the look of stock there, the technology will not hold up in Florida's weather. I have opted for a K&N looking filter which is available for the CB160.
Steering and Forks
My forks started leaking as my son was working on them, so they need to be rebuilt. I could only find one of the seals that are available still, and it seems this may be all that is needed to be replaced, but I see on the parts microfiche that there is an o-ring and another seal. Once I have these apart I can tell better. I can always order an o-ring that is the right size and material even if no one is selling them as a CB160 seal, but the other seal may be the difficult one to replace if it is needed. A lot of people just upgrade the forks, but I have a low serial number version and want to keep mine, though I may chrome the lower portion. More on that in the chroming section below.
I bought a kit to rebuild the steering bearings and seals too since the response is pretty strained.
Manuals
First thing I bought was a Haynes manual and was unimpressed, so I bought an OEM workshop manual. I was disappointed to see it is made by Haynes and is essentially the same one as I first purchased, though the printing doesn't have the pirated look. So keep that in mind to avoid my mistake.
Handlebars and Side Mirrors
One trademark look of the cafe racer style is Clubman handlebars, so I bought those and plan to reuse my stock grips, switches and other. Now the stock mirror look is not what I want and a lot of conversions leave off the mirrors, but the law here is that you need mirrors, so I got bar end mirrors. I wanted rectangular, but settled for round.
Seat and Fenders
Another trademark look for a cafe racer is the seat with scooped, reduced seat pad and fairing at the rear of the seat. After doing a lot of research, I chose to do one that uses the stock seat pan/frame, has the cafe racer look, but has a little more padding than others, and is an integrated soft fairing look, just in case I want to give my kids a ride. I may reinforce the fairing area so it will still give the support needed to keep from slipping off the back in a quick takeoff. This seat came from Thailand and has a high quality look. It is leather. With this without a hard seat fairing, I will need to keep some of the rear fender at the very least and I am working on that now.
I am going to keep some of the front fender and am still working this out. I like the CB400 look, but I am not sure I will not go with the Franky CB160 look there. I don't like the bar.
Rear Shocks
I am planning on just cleaning these up and reusing as is, though many others go with the exposed spring type for the look, I like the stock enclosed look.
Gas Tank
My son disassembled and sand blasted the tank and it is pretty bad, like swiss cheese. I bought a POR-15 tank liner kit. At this point I am going to patch, bondo and line the tank It is undented otherwise. The swiss cheese problem won't impact the ability to hold gas with the liquid liner installed, so I might as well. I can always replace it later with one from Thailand. I plan on cleaning the chrome panels and reusing as is.
Frame and Paint
The frame was in real good shape, but since we were sandblasting anyway, we went ahead and sandblasted that too. It, along with all other parts to be painted are being primed now. I am using a marine primer and paint that is a little more durable. It is also cheaper than auto paint at Advanced Auto Parts or the local Autobody Paint Shop, which surprised me. I am getting it though Lowes. Colors are limited, but gloss black is my color and they have it. I am keeping my stock kickstand by the way. Others uninstall it.
Everything Else
I will replace all other hoses, but plan to reuse the wiring and electronics if they work. I will address that as I get to it. The headlight, housing and speedometer work, but chrome needs same attention as chrome on gas tank panels.
Chrome and Polish
I got a shock yesterday. My son took the parts to the local Chromer to get an estimate for chroming all or chrome steel and polish aluminum. The picture below shows what I decided to chrome or polish.
I didn't want much chromed. Just the lower engine covers, the sprocket and a few other very small pieces. See picture above. The estimate was ~$900 to chrome all and $613 to polish the aluminum pieces and chrome the steel. Youch!
I was already hinging between chroming these and painting them the Honda grey, like I will the engine, so I have decided to just rechrome the header pipes and go from the stock Honda grey on the rest. And I have decided to go Honda grey on the forks from the joint down to replicate the look of the rear shock.
Update: The cost to buy header pipes delivered from Thailand is cheaper than the cost to rechrome, so I ordered them today. They are going to be pushing project completion, so I picked expedited shipping. The end of April 2013 is when I need to be finished in a perfect world.
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