Old Faithful Gets What She Deserves—Carbs Completed and Frame Welded

It's been pretty busy here at Road Dog Publications with Kirk Swanick's hilarious new book in editing and another manuscript soon to arrive for the same treatment, but I have managed to get some progress done on Old Faithful, my 1968 CB350.

The first order of business was to clean the pair of 350A carbs I found on eBay. That done, I ordered and installed all new o-rings and gaskets, ordered direclty from my local Honda Dealer. The last piece of the carb puzzle were the floats. The ones that came with the carbs are filled with fuel, which you can hear sloshing around inside. I have tried to repair these before, but as heat was applied to resolder leaky seams, the same heat loosened up good seams and resulted in even more leaks. When I received the new carbs and found their floats filled with fluid I pondered what to do. Luckily, I recalled seeing some aftermarket floats that fit this particular carburetor. The 350As were used for only the very early CB350 motors and have unusual rectangular floats. In the pic below you can see the round floats (very corroded) that were used in all the other later CB350 bikes, the original but leaking brass rectangular ones that came with the carbs, and in the carbs themselves are the new plastic floats. I measured float height on both new floats and they were spot on, requiring no adjustment. The carbs are not cleaned inisde and out and awaiting reinstall on the motor.

Original floats in background and round floats used in all other 350 carbs are on the left in the foreground. The new, plastic rectangular floats are installed in the carb.

The weld I had done in North Carolina to get me home was rough. I took the frame into one of our local biek shops and found they had a welder handy who could put the frame back to rights and ready for powdercoating for a very reasonable cost ($80).

Here is the original frame weld by the lower right motor mount.

And here it is rewelded and ready for powdercoating.

I am heading out on the Bonnie next week for the Barber Vintage Festival, in Leeds, Alabama (near Birmingham), and afterwards for a ride around the Ozarks so it will be a little bit before I post the next installment of the bike restoration. On the Triumph, however, I have made some modifications to make travelling easier, including an aftermarket center stand. I will post the install sequence soon, for anyone interested in doing the same.

If you are at the Barbers Vintage Festival, look me up. I will me camped out in the swapmeet area and I have arranged for some of our first two books to be shipped ahead of me and they will be on sale at the festival at special prices.

Cheers,

Road Dog

"Ride Your Own Ride"