CodeName Clara - my winter project

**McMurdo** · 2nd January 09, 08:09 PM

Congratulations on the bike, my second bike was a 1971 CB750, you have a real work horse there, I'm looking forward to the new pics and the continuing story.

**Downix** · 2nd January 09, 08:26 PM

making me miss my old Suzuki GT380 here...

**JamieKerr** · 2nd January 09, 10:04 PM

As promised, pictures

Here she is with the seat removed. It was not as easy as I thought it would be. I had to cut away the foam padding that serves as the seat cushion to get at the bolts which secure the seat to the frame. Fortunately I was able to take a blade and flatly cut the foam from the surface without damaging it. Should be easy to resecure it. It took me about an hour of flipping through my Clymer manual and looking at the tank with a flash light to realize there are no bolts holding the tank to the frame, and that I only had to lift it up and pull it out. Oops.

The seat has to come out before you can do anything else on the bike, as it blocks entry to the carbs and the battery. With the seat removed I was gained entrance to everything else. Yay!

Next stop was pulling out the airbox. Looking straight down at the air filter I realized in 5 seconds why I had been having so many issues before. My bike tends to want to idle high, and wastes a lot of fuel. Well one look at the air filter makes that issue's cause clear.

There is no cover to my air box. Even worse, there's no sort of protective shielding between the rear tire and the air box. This means that the back tire is constantly kicking everything on the road up into my air filter. Blech!
There's no air flow getting into my carbs.

Well. I quickly ripped the airbox out of my bike. It won't be going back on. Why? Because I have these babies now instead! Individual UNI racing filters. One of them slips over each carb, and they can be repeatedly cleaned and reused.

**JamieKerr** · 2nd January 09, 10:05 PM

With the airbox gone, I was able to easily remove the carbs.

These are the first carbs I've ever taken off any vehicle of any kind, so I don't know what really bad carbs look like. But I thought these looked rather bleh. I've done a lot of scrubbing with a toothbrush and carb cleaner, I'll post pics on that later.

Next up, began sanding of the seat.

I'm handing off my gas tank tomorrow, and a friend will get to sand blasting it sometime this week.

**runewolf** · 3rd January 09, 06:35 AM

Great old bike! I ride an antique myself, a 1978 Suzuki GS750. One thing to remember, the project never ends

You will always find something to replace/repair/remove lol.

Here is an older pic of mine, little different now, I'm playing with painting the engine and other parts.

**JamieKerr** · 3rd January 09, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by runewolf

Great old bike! I ride an antique myself, a 1978 Suzuki GS750. One thing to remember, the project never ends

You will always find something to replace/repair/remove lol.

I would not have it any other way. I'm a gun collector. I absolutely love going to a gun show and purchasing an old military firearm that's been stored in cosmaline (a preservative agent that looks rather like vaseline). Once I get it home I have to rub it down with paint stripper to get the preservative off, then sand the wood parts down and clean every single little part. It's so fulfilling. When I purchase a brand new gun that comes in its own original clean box, I don't know what to do with myself....its just there! When people compliment me on the purchase of a new gun, stating how wonderful it looks...I don't say a word. I had nothing to do with its beauty. It came that way. When I purchase a used gunked up firearm, I make it beautiful by putting continuous work into it!

**ChattanCat** · 3rd January 09, 07:11 AM

Those carbs look pretty gunked up. Are they gunked up from sitting? The floats would do for a good cleaning and check to make sure they still float. I would check the needle valves also, that is where you will get in trouble with the gunk. The needles may also be worn down too.

**Rogerson785** · 3rd January 09, 08:18 AM

That is a really cool old bike, I almost bought the newer model back in 1992 when I returned from Saudi Arabia, instead I bought a 1991 Toyota 4x4 and she just died in 2007.