meanwhile the only bikes for $400 around me are missing half the bike ...

I bought a Honda exactly like this when I came back home from national guard basic training in 1972. Same year, same color, same model. Wow, I rode that bike everywhere and it was so fun to ride. Of course, I wish I never sold it, but I did. I am 73 now and on my 25th bike. Still love it. Thanks for the post and the memories!

The best thing about this channel is I can see how things work and I don't have to put it back together.

these 350 Honda twins from the early 70s and late 60s were camshaft eaters. I was a Honda dealership mechanic in the early 70s. There were seven mechanics at this shop I worked at. A bulletin came in from Japan to every dealership in the country, stock seven camshaft top end rebuild kits for every 10 CB 350 motorcycles you sell.
I was one of two mechanics that got the 350 Honda twin warranty work to do. We didn’t like that because warranty work paid less money, but I would go into work. I was flat rate so I kind of set my own hours so I would show up around 9:30 in the morning, I would do two top ends on these 350 Hondas, and I would call it a day at about 2:30 PM and make 16 hrs pay.,so I could leave before rush-hour because the shop was in the east suburbs of Pittsburgh and I lived in the north and had to cross the river and the bridges would get crowded at rush-hour
these machines didn’t have any oil filter. The camshaft would float side to side in the aluminum blocks, which were the bearings where the points are, the camshaft and rockers would show heavy signs of where, those particles would continue to circulate through the engine since there was no oil filter. The camshaft going side to side would eat the tiny, thin thrust washers, I think they were made out of some kind of metal and copper plated, but I’m not sure, but they were very thin, it didn’t take much to disintegrate them, and then the cam would start eating into the bearing block aluminum.
It’s possible that some of these CB 350 twins had more than 20,000 miles on them, but I never saw one that had more than 20,000 miles on it. The camshaft usually and the rockers at the point at which they ride on the cam were always very worn
when you start the pike up, let it run for a while at least take it out for a ride maybe for an hour, and drain the oil into a clean brand new oil pan that you buy at a dollar store for a buck or two, that way you can see all the metal .. when I change oil in any motorcycle, I take my bikes for a ride, and I will have everything ready before I leave home so that when I pull back in the garage, I will let the bike idle until I have a wrench ready to pull the drain plug. Then I will pull the drain plug within 30 seconds of shutting the key off. That way, the detergent in the oil will have kept the sludge, grit, gum, suit acid, and tiny metal particles from the clutch basket, from the gear faces, from the shift drum, and from the camshaft on this machine and the rockers and the aluminum bearings and the thrust washers, all that debris will come out with the oil if you pull the plug while that stuff is still suspended in the oil.
That’s one way to determine the health of the engine, and if it is self-destructing it a fast rate ..
You must use premium oil in these machines and I would change the oil in one of these machines that has no oil filtration every thousand miles.
get a small magnet and swirl it around at the bottom of the oil pan you have drained the oil into, and see how much magnetic particles came out. Clutch basket material will not be magnetic, neither will particles from the bearing blocks that the cam each into once the thrust washers are gone.
The oils today are probably many times better than the oils that were available in the 1970s. Since 1989 motorcycle oil has been engineered to be specific for certain applications. Motorcycle oil has not had the zinc and phosphorus levels reduced for motorcycle oils, but they had to reduce zinc and phosphorus to thin the oils out , and because zinc and phosphorus can damage catalytic converters. But motorcycle oil still has high levels of zinc and phosphorus, which gives the oil a higher film strength for clinging to the transmission gears while they are sliding against each other with all that pressure behind them. You have to use motorcycle oils in these bikes you cannot use car oil, especially because wet clutches, some of them are susceptible to certain oils that have friction modifiers in them that will make the clutch slip in a motorcycle with a wet clutch.
One other note
i’m not certain about the year of your motorcycle, but back in the early 70s, the owners manual used to actually tell the owner how to do maintenance unlike today, where they don’t want the liability of telling people how to work on their own motorcycles.. But back, then they used to tell you how to set the valves and set the timing . This is the only motorcycle I ever heard of that the factory owners manual tells you how to set the timing the wrong way. These machines have two sets of points. You have to set the points that are attached to the large movable backing plate that the points are attached to first, then you set the second set of points that have their own movable backing plate last..

Can't remember the last time i was so fascinated watching a "real life" video. Filmed beautifully, audio was perfect, the demeaner and communication style of the creator was perfect, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience... an hour well-spent! Thank you!!!

Man there's nothing better than buying an old bike and finding the factory tool kit! It just says so much about how it was taken care of.😊

@28:03 "as you can ssEEee" 😂. Cut scene. Warning kids. Turn the key off before messing with the points. There's angry pixies in there.

Don’t forget, those tires are over 25 years old, don’t go too far or too fast on them, they might let you down. Great video, I enjoyed it.

I am 66 now but in 1979 (When I was 20) I got a new Kawasaki 650 SR. I rode it from MN to CA and stayed there for over 40 years. I will never forget that awesome bike. After owning it for several years I sold it and got more than I paid for it new. (I kept it in perfect shape.) I once did 130 MPH + on it. I only sold it because it was too tempting to go over 100 on it every day,  and I wanted to sell it while my luck had heald out with no accidents or problems. I have missed it ever since. It was also RED. You video reminded me of mine, so I thought I would share my story with you. Have fun.😉👍

When I was a teenager (mid 90s) I found three of these motorcycles in the bushes behind my family's barn. They had belonged to my father and his two siblings. I was able to take parts from two and get one (this same color) running. Rode it for years until I had trouble with the points that I didn't know how to fix. Wish I'd had the internet to help me back then. Your video brought back a lot of great memories for me

You are a National Treasure! 21 years ago I worked in a motorcycle shop, and was the only one there who could fix carburetors. There aren't many of us left now.............        Most mechanics now don't know what a Quadrajet is; let alone fix it!

Can’t kill a Honda.. nicely done 😮😊

I'm only 2 minutes and 30 seconds in and I'm thinking to myself, "it's a Honda… How bad could it possibly be? I know it's gonna run"!!! Now it's time to see if I'm right!!!! 😂😂😂🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅

You really must make a BUTTLOAD of money purchasing these bikes and flipping them like this. You are DA MAN!

I want an old CB. I've had 2 modern cbr sports. A 500 and a 300. They were both unbelievably reliable. Honda makes the best motorcycles in the world, full stop.

My very first bike was one of these. I road it everywhere even lived on a gravel road. It taught me some good lessons and some bad things but I loved it.
Thanks for the memories today

I’m liking these beautiful old bikes. That seller really cared for his baby. Lucky Joe. 😊😊😊😊

I bought a '73 CL-350 when I was a sophomore in college, back in 1976. It had fairly low miles on it. It was a great commuter bike, nimble and quick and so it was great in traffic but it had enough power to cruise on the interstate at 60-70 mph. I moved up from there to a CB-500, to a CB-750F to a Kawasaki ZRX-1200R. But out of them all, I'd have to say that I loved that little 350 the most. I had a lot of fun on it. One time I had just pulled off the interstate and parked it on campus and oil was pouring out from the shift lever seal. My CB-750F also leaked a little bit from that seal. I wish I still had that little 350. I think it's almost as much fun, maybe more fun to ride a small bike fast than it is to ride a big bike.

I have a 2017 ram bighorn 4 x 4 hemi that I bought new and 17. I have been using mobile 1 oil since the first oil change. I do all my own oil changes over the past  decades since 1968 when I got my first car. In fact, I have never had anyone change oil in any of my trucks, cars, or motorcycles ever. I made my living as a motorcycle mechanic at three different dealerships when I was in my 20s, when I was in high school I worked in a gas station/service station after school and weekends and summers where I was doing things like pulling transmissions, installing drum brake shoes, changing tires on wheels that had tubes in them, rebuilding carburetors, pulling heads to replace head, gaskets and/or do valve jobs, I can certainly handle, I can certainly handle changing my oil
After seeing that, General Motors did a Band-Aid fix for their 6.2 truck engines by simply increasing the viscosity of the oil from 0W 20 / to 0w40.. I did a lot of research and found that the hemi engine occasionally has lifter problems after 150,000 miles, not always, just occasionally. So I decided to do the same and change the oil I use in my truck from 5w 20. , to 5w 30 mobile 1 oil..
Doing research online I find that this engine oil for this engine is recommended in other countries to use 10 W 30. But to get those brownie points from the federal government to be within the specification requirements for improved gas mileage, the manufacturers are pressured to suggest the thinnest possible oil that the engine can tolerate and hopefully not expire while under warranty
So my oil will flow like five weight oil on cold startups in the winter. And it will remain at the consistency of 30 weight oil at the high temperature mark in warm weather. But the main thing is, it will be added film strength for the lifters surfaces where they contact up against the cam lobes constantly with the valve springs resisting constantly against the cam lobes.. it’s a miracle. The oil is able to prevent the camshaft from wearing out sooner than it does or the lifter faces that ride against the camshaft.
I recently learned something I never considered. The cross hatch hone marks in the cylinders, actually hold a lot of oil. Under a microscope those hone marks are very deep scratches in the cylinder walls. They hold oil. As the rings pass over those hone marks in the cylinder walls, they are actually shearing the molecules of the oil in the hone mark scratches, degrading the oil on a molecular level. Shearing the molecules apart over and over and over until the long molecules are gone, which give the oil its film strength… like a rubber band, the elasticity of those molecules of oil are constantly being cut, caught, cut cut by the rings like a guillotine... That is one particular environment in an engine that is very severe on oil. In places like the main bearings, the rod bearings, the camshaft bearings, those bearings very rarely contact the crankshaft or the camshaft or the rod bearings because they are floating on what is known as a hydrodynamic film of oil. They’re not contacting metal, they are floating on a layer of oil. But not the piston rings or the cam lobes. They are just about making metal to metal contact…

I'm having flashbacks man!  Cool piece of motorcycle history.  Good to see someone young who can work on these vintage bikes.