Restoration of a CL70
 

Hey everyone, I just found this forum and I'm just starting a restoration on a red '72 CL70. Here are some before pictures:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_4...0/DSC_0470.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_4...0/DSC_0469.JPG

and Current

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_4...0/DSC_0524.JPG

I've gotten quite a bit off and all of the wiring freed up. I'm planning on redoing the connections and possibly replacing some of the individual wires as necessary. I'm planning on re-wraping the harness as all of the sheathing has degraded.

The only thing i'm finding right now is there is a little more rust inside the frame that i would have liked to see. I'm planning on using a wire brush to clean it right now but if its too bad I may have it sand blasted at the shop (only the inside).

The carburetor needs alot of work and it was missing the float pin. Surprisingly enough, I have not run into any seized bolts yet even though many were showing quite a bit of oxidation.

The other bike you see in there is an 07 Suzuki v-strom. It got me across country and back.

Hey welcome to the forum. That's a very good condition CL70 you have there. I like the color! You bike seems to be in the same level of condition as mine. I've bee encouraged to give mine a full restoration but how do you justify the cost!? A full paint job and a huge amount of hours plus miscellaneous parts is over a thousand bucks. :-(

We just have to take care of the obvious thins and keep them in good running shape. I'm a supporter of keeping things as original as possible... including the paint. It really shows how nice these bikes were from the factory. Just some easy rust removal by hand and coat things in some preservative spray lubricant would be my preference. The tires look ok though. What kind are they?

V-strom = one of the best bikes out there. Very nice.

I'm not planning a full restoration, but anything that is showing some serious deterioration I'm going to clean up. I'm planning on keeping the paint, it looks good and there are only a couple of dings that i'll find a close match and touch it up. the inside of the frame is going to be a different issue though :(.

I'm not sure of the tires off the top of my head. The rear is looking ok but the front is cracking something fierce. I'll hang on to them until the bike really road worthy and then swap them out.

The front springs are showing a lot of rust but it may only be surface. We'll see once the forks come off. The fenders are showing severe rust on the underside but some wire wheeling and a good coating should take care of that.

I'll have some time to do everything this summer and if i'm not done by the winter, not only will my girlfriend be upset with me (she doesn't ride but got excited when she sat on the bike and I said I was going to teach her :) ), i'll have all winter to finish.

These bikes are absolutely perfect to teach people how to ride a motorcycle. It's so easy to ride these and teach people how to control a bike and work the controls. Then when they move to something larger shifting isn't so much of an issue for them. I have new fork seals for mine - just need to find the time to dedicate to changing them out. JC Whitney also has tires very cheap for this bike. I need to swap out my knobby tires really bad. Keep us updated on your progress and I'll do the same. I'll put all sorts of pictures and info about the fork reconditioning when I get to that point. I'm sure the gf will approve of this bike in particular, once it's done of course. :)

After spending the summer working onsite and away from home, I'm back and restarting the work. I started a blog that is very picture heavy showing the condition of the bike and some of the issues with it. After coming back to the site, I realized I didn't post the website of the blog last spring. So for any interested, here it is:

http://hondacl70.blogspot.com/

I'm a little behind on the posts and hope to seriously update it soon. I've got to sit down and order a couple of special tools to continue tearing down the engine. I'm going to have to order a new piston as well. Right now it will be mostly cleaning everything up. The reassembly will hopefully start sometime this winter.

i am new here nice bike,

Hows the progress on this CL70 resto? I see your forks are a little worse than mine. I'm waiting for someone to rebuild their forks before I do mine. :) All I need is a spare afternoon and a clean garage... two things that are very hard for me to come by at the same time!

haha, i actually had time to get back into it last night. There are a few things that I have to order first for the engine. That is my main focus right now, then the frame. As for the forks, I have taken them apart which is very easy. Thats where it stops. I thought I would have to buy new tubes but I think I will be able to get by with what I have. I'll try and post something on my forks this week, that should get me back into the blogging spirit.

As for the forks, make sure they are completely drained, I missed a little bit and it almost ended up on my v-strom tires. Once you have the circlip at the top removed I believe you can just pull the fork tube out as it is just a friction fit. You will probably have to jerk them a few times but they should start coming just fine. There are two circlips near the bottom of the tube, don't bother to remove them, I don't believe they need to come off for any reason.

I'll get my pictures up and a description of the tear down finished before too long. I've been working a little on my vstrom, i put some tires on that I had taken off 6 months ago and apparently sitting wasn't good for them. the bike slid out from under me not less than 50 feet from my driveway. broken blinker and sore thumb, otherwise everything is fine (other than my pride).

take it easy

New post is up on the blog about the forks. Any questions, feel free to ask.

Awesome! Thanks for the update. Let us know when you get around to testing and the performance review!

I"m getting some more posts worked out for the blog. Lots of pictures of the engine tear down and what not. I've got to buy a tool to remove the clutch and then I should be able to finish tearing the engine down.

My parts list is growing, but I expect the bike should last quite a while more once i'm done.

How this bike coming along? I saw your blog and you have some great engine pictures on there. Very neat pictures. Just wondering how your bike is coming along. I want to start working on mine again pretty soon. :)

Sorry for the late reply, summer work blew up and I have barely been at home since May. Needless to say I haven't accomplished much except to find more work that I need to do to it :). I think I need to get this engine cleaned and back together and running. My cylinder is shot but the head is still useable. I'm going to have to get the valve seats serviced though. I'm still considering an ultrasonic cleaner.

I'm considering having the frame stripped at some point after I get everything up and in running order. The nice part about the bike is that stripping the frame of all of the parts is easy.

I still need to tackle the wiring. I need to find a good source to get the wire and terminals to do the work. Any good sources for wire? Anyone know what gauge wire I should be using?