1976 Honda XL 350 Project Bike

                            

  1976 Honda XL 350 shop bike , purchased used in 2013 for $150 in Humboldt County. Bike was a lone survivor of a garage fire and was ridden from the east (Jersey) to west coasts by the previous owner. The back tire had a nice fat flat spot right down the middle ! I happen to be the 5th owner of this bike. The XL was running but was a basket case its hard to believe the bike made it out to the west coast, a testament to the durability of the bike.

   At fist glance the bike had:  Dead battery, leaky head gasket, blinkers did not flash, needed  tires,  swing-arm bushings and wheel bearings, chain /sprocket, throttle cable worn, choke cable missing, ignition coil barely worked, missing tach ,tires were toast and one wonky rim among other various annoying little things. The pictures above show the condition of the XL when we took possession of the bike .

   

   Honda's trend setting  on /off-road bike was made for riders who live in the city but whos hearts are in the country, check out these ads from 1975           

          

   Our goal for the XL is to set the bike up for street and dirt, with some features like clip on handle bars , Two sets of front sprockets 14 T and a 15 T and 43 T rear sprocket, two sets of rims and tires , Tail chop with removable tail light and blinkers, custom seat, air box ,custom front fender  and  custom exhaust re routed away from the kick start to the left side, to start ...their is a few other mods for this bike that sound pretty cool also like CDI ignition, eliminating the kick start and adding a compression relief valve.

   The first task was to tear down the motor check out the piston, cylinder, cam ,valves and rockers . After inspection the decision was made to do a top end rebuild . A rebuild of anything on this bike is no easy task , NOS /OE parts for this bike have not been made for years, and like any good bike stuff gets used up and then its gone forever..really.. . Aftermarket parts are available but mostly consist of flat track or racing options at really high prices due to these bikes being turned into race bikes for flat track etc. so it doesn't leave a lot of options for a stock-ish build. All stock parts that need to be replaced have to be found used or come from japan NOS.

   We plan to post all part numbers we have and links for the XL, add info and literature we used along the way with some pics we have of the build so far. Its our hope this info can help keep these bikes on the road .