Thanks to everyone for your offers and very interesting trade offers.

I’m so excited about the potential of getting it running, but I’ve been finding out that parts are extremely hard to find and when you d find them they’re really expensive.  So, I’ll take whatever I get for it and try to get the CL200 a little further along.

I’m definately interested in a trade….just can’t steer myself away from new bike projects!

Anyway, I managed to get three of the four bowls off.  The fourth has unfortunately turned into an opportunity to test out one of those tools guaranteed to remove stripped screws.

Toward the bottom of the picture, just below the fuel line, you can see the corrosion around the main jet on the last carburetor.  Other than that, these LOOK pretty clean, but I’m sure they’re not.

Does anyone know if you can just soak the entire rack of carbs in something for a few days to let the liquid penetrate all of the crevices prior to ultimate disassembly?  Acetone?  Too strong?  I think obviously I’d remove the vacuum seals and anything else that isn’t metal.  Any suggestions are much appreciated…I’m very much a newbie with engine parts, but I”m determined to quickly become knowledgable.

After some careful persuasion, some WD40 and a pair of pliers, I finally got them to move.  After some more WD40 and manually opening and closing them about 30 or 40 times, they now move freely and spring back into the closed position as they should. 

As you can see from the picture, the two end throttles aren’t in alignment with the other two.  That’s because there’s a spring missing from each one and they flop around.  I have both of them (they fell out)…should be interesting trying to get them back into place.

So, I decided that rather than standing around in my garage looking at the GSX-R and sighing thinking about what I got myself into, it was time to get down to business.  This is that magical time when you first start on a bike project and you’re shaking your head, knowing that it would have been cheaper in the long run to buy something that isn’t a basket case.  But, where’s the fun in that?

It’s late, so I’m keeping this brief….I have a lot more pictures.  Below is one of the two frozen and rusty front calipers.  I took them off so I can start the rebuild of them over the cold months.

Another picture below is of the carbs…smelling strongly of rotten gas.  One of them (at least) is also frozen.  You can see a ton of corrosion holding the valve closed.  No problem…another good project for the winter.

The big plan is to fix all of the electrical issues, the calipers, and the carburetors over the winter.  Hopefully in the spring I’ll be ready to start addressing whatever may be wrong with the engine.

Mentally, it scares the crap out of me since it was not only a fast bike from the factory, but is now a retired racing bike and will be scary fast once it’s running again.  On the other hand, just looking at it and thinking about the potential that it has is very exciting.

I guess I could de-tune it and try to get it back to factory specs….but that could be a ton of money.

Any suggestions?  Should I just try to trade it for something more civil?

I do have the tank and some of the body work, but it’s not on in this picture.    The back tire is a nice fattie!

So..I’m not sure where to begin with this thing.  I tried jumping the battery just to see if the lights and starter work, but it’s absolutely dead…so obviously a fuse or electrical problem.

All three calipers are frozen as well.

My immediate plan, aside from kind of chilling out for the winter, is to maybe get the calipers off and rebuild them over the winter.  I’ll poke around at the electrical issues, but not much until the spring (my garage is not heated).  The gas tank has no cap so it’s all rusted inside…another good winter task.  There’s really not much I can do I guess until it has a working electrical system and the ability to put fuel into it.

Another good task is cleaning out the carbs.  There is no way they’re not totally gummed up.  Does anyone know how to get the air box off of a 1989 GSX-R 750 so that I can then proceed to get the carbs off?

I almost forgot to mention – the guy told me this was a racing bike before he bought it in 1994.  That seems to be accurate since it has a racing seat, front slick, and little twisted wires through and around most of the bolts.  Supposedly the engine is build and has Wiseco pistons and some other crap and output is (was) around 130+ horsepower.

That’s too much.  If I need to do a top end rebuild, I’ll de-tune it.  I don’t need or want that kind of power.  The stock 102 HP is more than enough.

It’s 20 years old, so that qualifies as vintage, right?  I watched the Suzuki episode of Twist The Throttle and it sounds like this bike had played pretty significant role in creating the sport bike market.  I’ve never really been into sport bikes, but I think these are really cool with the side by side headlights – a look I’ve always loved.

This will be bike #3 in my collection.  The first is my 2008 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 that was my first bike.  It’s pretty nice and really resembles the classic Japanese bikes of the 70’s and 80’s but it just doesn’t excite me all that much and low speed steering is a pain in the ass.  It’s incredibly comfortable for riding though and the engine is extremely smooth (good old parallel twin).  The second is of course my 1974 Honda CL200.

I’m also not really into customizing very much, but have been itching to do it a little.  The Kawasaki is too new to molest and the Honda is too rare and classic to molest.  This one should be a little fun…and the top end of the engine is f’ed so I’ll get to play around with a rebuild too. Hopefully the gearbox is fine.

Either way, I really like this look for my GSX-R 750.

I’ve decided to buy it. $300 with OH title….hard to go wrong with that since almost all of the bike is there. Worst case scenario I’ll part it out. Either way I don’t see myself doing much of anything with it this year.

It’s not really similar to the Honda CB line that I’ve been messing with, but it is 20 years old so I’d still consider it kind of vintage…another 5 years and OH will let me put historic vehicle plates on it.

The guy said the engine needs a top end rebuild. Could be a fun learning project. Parts for these bikes are plentiful and often cheap since everyone seems to want to make them even faster than they already are.

My vision for it is a naked bike look.