"Look what the cat dragged in!" Mouse build

[Butcherblock]

Well, she's not a 750, but I thought you all might want to see this.

Been trolling craigslist for a deal on a small cc bike, hopefully taken apart by an over ambitious builder who has given up. Well this little beasty came up for $350 bones, looks like I found what I was looking for. Its not much, and a lot of it is in boxes, so I am taking a bit of a gamble here (probably not as much of a gamble as darkside ). She has papers, and it seems that most of her is here, so I guess we see where this ends up.

Yes those are "really" low bars...
take the tank and seat off...
Yep, that's got to be the smallest carb in existence....
Some stuff she came with..
More stuff...
the wiring loom...
woot! extra carb!!!
So that is about it, she did come with more stuff, mostly just footpegs, shocks, bar controls, and other odds and sods.
Total cash in so far :$350

[TOOLS1]

Twinstars are COOL!!! Here is a link to Toolbabes Twinstar Bobber. http://honda-cb750-s.456789.n3.nabble.com/Toolbabe-s-Bobber-td3211258.html
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

Dang Butcher,that thing is clean! I'd say you got a good deal on that bike. Especially having papers to go along with it. Very cool. Good score buddy.

[Butcherblock]

Thanks guys. I think it is a pretty cool collection of parts that will hopefully run someday. One of the highlights is the mid 70's cb tank on it. Its in good condition on the outside, the inside has been treated at some point.

So I decided to do some digging today. The carb on the bike was a spotlessly clean "runtune" carb. Its a pretty cheap aftermarket job. The "extra" carb is the original Keihin, comparing them side by side you can see and feel the difference. The Keihin was filthy however. The green crystal sludge resisted the carb cleaner amazingly well. However, elbow grease and perseverance won the day and I got her scrubbed 'n' clean.

Attempted to pull all the side covers as well. The CDI cover came off easy, as did the front sprocket cover. However the right side cover proved a bit troublesome. After pulling the kickstarter off, and taking the bolts out of the case the sidecover would not release. Its seems to be hung up around the kickstarter. Gonna have to do some reading, see whats behind there.

The last bit I found today was the coil. I believe that it has been changed with one from a salvage shop, as it has "cbr900rr" written on the side. Is there much difference between coils? Should I be looking for something off of a smaller bike?

That's about all for today. I hope to wire the battery, alternator and coil together, mock up a fuel tank, fill her with oil, and check for spark/see if I can turn her over.

[shinyribs]

IMO, a coil is a coil. Since they are both 12 volts coils I'd give it a try. I can't think of anything it would hurt.

[TOOLS1]

Unless it's a 6 volt Twinstar.
TOOLS

[shinyribs]

Err...



OOPS!

See? That's why we need this man.

[easyrider12]

Nice find there Butcher! should be enough to keep you busy till winter (4 months away) DOH!

[Butcherblock]

LOL Shiney. BTW, that's Captain Mal from the t.v. show firefly. He is awesome. Quite a few of those moments in the show!

Soooo, I was trolling ebay, and saw some nice headers from a cl 175. For those that don't know, the cl was Hondas late 60's scrambler. So I asked the seller what diameter the collar on the pipes were, and it just so happens that its the same size as the exhaust port on the 200. Im thinking these may look good on Mouse. Thoughts?


Here is an pic of a cl175

[easyrider12]

Here is an inspirational photo for you.  'The girl with the dragon tattoo' bike.  nice pipes

[Butcherblock]

Wow, that is a great bike. I like the front forks on it. And yes, those are great pipes!

[Butcherblock]

Today I mocked her up with the kickstarter, shifter, wiring harness, headers, Ceru's battery, and a beer bottle full of gas (not dangerous at all....). Filled her with oil, and had to give her a few kicks, and SHE LIVES!!!!! And she sounded good to! Totally surprised by this,  and she rev'ed up nice and smooth too. Very stoked about this. The P.O. mentioned that he couldn't get her to run smoothly, guess that's what a good carb clean can do!

So now I get to tear it down again, and start on the little things. I feel justified in ordering some parts, and starting to really clean her up. Still debating ordering those pipes, not %100 sure the angle of the headers will line up. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? If the angle of the new headers is "slightly" off, will the head bolts just pull them into place anyways? I know the engines on these 2 bikes are similar, just not exact. I suppose at worst I could cut the muffler off, and run two strait pipes with drag baffles in (the bike isn't loud even with headers only).

Pretty excited about this build, little bikes are a lot o fun. Now I am looking into capacitors. I'm sure someone will understand what I am attempting to do next...

[LukeM]

The nice thing about these little Honda bikes/motors (from the Cub on up to the 250) is they were designed for, shall we say, less than optimal environments. In 3rd world countries, people beat their Cubs and mopeds to death, and they keep coming back for more. Dirt in the fuel lines?  Blow it out, put it back together, and it'll run. No oil in the crankcase?  Might hurt if you do it a lot, but for the short term, it'll still work.

Congrats on getting the little one running. On to the rebuild.
Luke M

[shinyribs]

Good news Butcher!  I was talking to a guy in North Carolina about old Jap bikes and he mentioned something I'd never heard of before. Pretty much along the same lines as what Luke is saying. He told me that at one time the general population didn't have access to gasoline-it was reserved for military use only-so vehicles were actually being operated on distilled pine tar. lol. That's awesome.

Keep plugging away bud. I'm curious to see what you end up with here.

[Lucky 1]

Duel cam front brakes standard.

Things used to be made better...solid proof.

[Butcherblock]

Thanks for the support everyone. I'm interested in what I come up with to! I got a few pics of mouse as I started taking her apart.

Naked!

Your absolutely right Lucky. Look at this older cb wheel. I love the drum style. The P.O. drilled some speed holes in it, but they look good to me anyways.



This little bracket was an oddity. I tried to think of what to do with it, but alas, she had to go.


I also pumped the disgusting fluid from the forks. This is about as far as I am going to tear her down (at this point). May go farther later, but I'm gonna sit on it for a bit and think.

[shinyribs]

Speedholes,badass fork brace and the ''mystery bracket''....that was somebody's hotrod at one time!

That mystery bracket was to mount a race style fairing at one point.

[Butcherblock]

I hope I can restore this"hotrod"status to this awesome machine. I am really having fun with it.

Next on the list,a little cosmetic fun. I didn't have a lot of time, we are in the middle of house negotiations right now, so I am taking any chance I get to do little things. I have to be able to drop jobs at anytime, so little things are key.
Got the sandpaper out and started working on these.


To this,

I'm going to leave some of the original patina intact. This bike had been around for 30 years,I want some of that to show.

[shultz_1978]

Nice job on the forks. Good luck on the house. I am doing the same thing. Buying one and trying to sell another.

[shinyribs]

Ditto Shultz on the forks. Those came out nice! And I'm going tomorrow morning to see about buying a house myself. Seems to be alot of that going on around here lately!