[the dime city "four hundred" built for season 2 of Cafe Racer TV]

This stunning little Honda Hawk TII was built by a customer of our’s in Colorado. It’s nice to see with a little time and effort authentic Cafe Racer aesthetic can be achieved even with some of the new small CC machines.

This stunning vintage Honda Board Tracker homage was built by a good friend of the DCC Crew with not much more than a Harbor Freight Tube Bender, a MIG welder and some bottles of wine…  You can see more about it by clicking here on DoTheTon.com via his build thread.

There are a great many Cafe Racers being built in the garages of Cafe enthusiasts around the world and The Crew @ Dime City Cycles is proud to help see these bikes to fruition by providing access to parts, knowledge and just the occasional ”hey man, that looks cool as hell!” So in the spirit of inspiration, we’ll be taking submissions for customer built bikes to be showcased in our new “Customer Featured Bikes” section of the DCC Diatribe.

You built a sweet mo’chine and it’s our little thank you for giving us the opportunity to earn your business. So get those two wheeled vintage speed machines finished and send three photos along with details on the build to thecrew@dimecitycycles.com.

And with that…we give you Aaron Ruse’s tight 1975 Honda CL360 and folks is it a looker! Having an eye for design and living in a city filled with inspiration definitely has it’s benefits when sizing up and framing out a bike build. Aaron really went the extra mile with this little number using and refurbishing as many of the original items from the bike as possible. Like the bling of those factory cases? Be sure to take a look at Herm’s polishing guide and you can have the same results with a little patience and some elbow grease. And folks, keep in mind, this is Aaron’s FIRST bike build…

Build Specifications

Doner bike: 1975 Honda CL360
Total investment: Under $1300.00 & several hundred hours
Work environment: Unheated 2 car garage in Chicago
Tools Used: Hand tools and a portable MIG welder
Paint Job: Rattle can
DCC Parts Used: Loaded Gun Rearsets and Universal Linkage Kit, Lightweight Chrome Headlight Brackets, Vintage Rubber Fork Gaiters, Retro STOP Taillight, 7” Chrome Headlight Visor, Chrome Shorty Shocks, Chrome Universal Clip-ons, and Mini Oval Turn Signals

A little bit about the build from Aaron:

I just finished my first cafe project. I got interested in motorcycles last summer as a way to learn about basic mechanics. This interest quickly grew into a fast love for classic motorcycles. Inspired by the example of my uncle RJ Ruse and his buddies who restore classic bikes and a new friendship with Team Hansan Racing’s Terry Naughtin, I set out to build a cafe racer last winter.

I found a beat up 75′ CL360 and badly dented and rusted cb350F tank in a back junk yard of a local motorcycle shop and set out to work. While in its decrepit state, I went through electrical and mechanical systems enough to get it started and rolling around the block. And then began the tear down…

Working solo in my garage over the next several months I stripped each part off the bike and restored, repaired, painted and polished them. The dented and rusted tank was the first major project and chance to learn about sheet metal body work. Rather than pulling the dents out, I embraced them and accentuated them to become knee and hand dents. This process involved a ball tip hammer, some oak dowel rods, a bit of body filler and tons of patience.

Once the tank was primed, I moved on to any part made of aluminum. Using a vintage buffing wheel from craigslist, i slowly worked my way through a mountain of tarnished, dirty parts. As the shiny and functional pile of finished parts grew, the frame finally exposed itself.  Determined to take this project as far as I could, I cut off anything from the frame that didn’t make it go faster or help it stop. The concept was to strip the bike down the the basic components and celebrate the great geometry hiding under all the added stuff.

Additional seat bracing, triple tree stops, rearset mounts, rear loop, battery box and license plate bracket were fabricated and welded with simple hand tools and a portable MIG welder.  After unsuccessfully scouring Internet vendors for just the right seat/tail, I decided to try my hand at fiberglass. Sculpted the tail piece shape from foam then laying up glass and finally sanding and filling to a final shape gave me a one of a kind tail that fits the contours of the bike perfectly.

At this point, we were in the dead of a very cold Chicago winter and it was time for paint. My "paint booth" is a cleaned out portion of the unheated garage. Over the next several weeks, my very patient wife allowed me to keep all the parts in the kitchen while I dashed to the garage to spray small parts and the frame; immediately running back into the warm house with wet part in hand to be hung off cabinet doors or doorways. New tires, rearsets, signal/break lights, and clip-ons were ordered from the helpful guys at Dime City Cycles while the paint dried.

Assembly was the next task. Once again, the kitchen was the only logical location for such a project given the weather outside.  Happily, the parts came together relatively smoothly and was finished just before the snow melted this spring. That said, the weather is finally good enough to take it out and tune it so I’m on to that task!

There are a great many Cafe Racers being built in the garages of Cafe enthusiasts around the world and The Crew @ Dime City Cycles is proud to help see these bikes to fruition by providing access to parts, knowledge and just the occasional ”hey man, that looks cool as hell!” So in the spirit of inspiration, we’ll be taking submissions for customer built bikes to be showcased in our new “Customer Featured Bikes” section of the DCC Diatribe.

You built a sweet mo’chine and it’s our little thank you for giving us the opportunity to earn your business. So get those two wheeled vintage speed machines finished and send three photos along with details on the build to thecrew@dimecitycycles.com.

And with that…we leave you with Anthony Mishlers’ sweet little CB360. It was stowed away for many years by a previous owner and was destined for a stock resto.  Thankfully, Anthony rescued her and put her on the path to Cafe goodness! And what a sweet job he did…way to go Anthony! Can’t wait to see the next bikes to come out of your stable. Your commitment to excellence and detail strikes a chord with the Dime City motto, Nil Satis Nisi Optimum, nothing but the best is good enough.

And here’s a little bit about the build from Anthony:

This CB360 had spent the last 20 years in a climate controlled warehouse. The previous owner had slowly been restoring the bike but said he knew he would never finish it. I have always done original restorations but wanted to build a cafe racer for a while and knew this was the prefect bike for the task.

All parts for the conversion were purchased from Dime City. It has new tires, x-ring chain, wheels bearings, steering stem bearings, cables, headlight, every bulb has been replaced, nos fuel petcock, brake shoes, fork seals, handlebar grips/levers, tach/speedo and a lot more! This build took me 5 months to complete working on the bike almost every day.

The tank, seat and fenders were painted by a local body shop and color matched to Light Ruby Red. The old HONDA emblem was shaved off the tank and all the decals were painted on. I polished just about any piece of aluminum I could find. The seat is the Roccity’s Fastback and is mounted on the stock hinges.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the turn and neutral indicator lights but ended up mounting them in the empty handlebar holes of the upper tripple tree.The carbs have been re-jetted with original Keihin jets! As for the exhaust I tried everything from 2-2, 2-1 but could not properly clear the rearsets. Finally my inspiration came while browsing some cafe pictures of a cl350. I found a set of CL360 pipes, shaved all the mounting brackets, wrapped the headers and threw on Dime City’s 12″ shorty mufflers. The wrap keeps the pipes cool, no rearset clearance issues and those mufflers make this bike sound like a racer!

A HUGE thanks to Dime City for making this build happen!