Nice. It's a late one from the tank and someone has done a delete on the 'German helmet' mudguards - they look like CB200 ones. Lots of CB175 & 200 parts will fit, as will bits from the old CD175 sloper - if you can find them. I built one on the dole in the mid '80s starting with a partially stripped one I gave £15 for. It ended up a mutant with a CB175 head, twin carbs, CB200 head lamp bowl and Cibie halogen headlight (in the bargain bin at Motorcycle City), CB200 gearbox internals, 12v electrics (CB175 stator and reg/rectifier and battery box) Piranha ignition (CB200 again from a bargain bin), valve springs and thicker oil in the forks and Konis on the back and a CB175 twin leading shoe brake and 18" rim on the front. I kept the full chaincase and the 'German helmet' guards were the ABS ones from a CD sloper. It had a reversed rear steel clutch plate and an extra fibre plate and CB200 gearbox internals for the extra gear and the higher 'top'. It had a single CB200 silencer (bargain bin) with home-welded siamesed standard downpipes (yes you can) and the rear baffle de-restricted with a big drill. Paint was standard blue colour out of rattle cans. It revved like a Flymo and went very well, handled okay and I put over 50k miles on it with no problems. My Dad rode it after me for years as a ride-to-work until he lunched it on a roundabout and did himself a proper mischief. If you put it on the road, one thing you must do is regular 1500 mile oil changes and clean out the centrifugal oil filter every second change. Search on the Common Motorcycle collective in the US if you need info on how to - it's a simple job, but back in the day, people seemed not to do it. If you neglect the oil, it will knacker the cam and bearing caps. I've seen these with bright blue points end on the cam, worn down cams and followers, cam chain worn through to the tensioner pushrod bore, blown mains, seized pistons, you name it. And you're not the first guy to snap the kicker shaft, it used to happen quite a lot. And I've seen them twisted, return springs broken and seen them broken through the rear of the crank cases. Good luck.
@anemone104 yeah they weren't one of Hondas better bikes. Poor design and cheap metal. When I first started looking at bikes an old guy I knew who fixed bikes told me never to go near a cd175. I never knew why he said that to me but now I know why. 🤣. It's running now. Took it for a spin yesterday but it started dicking around on me when it heated up. Not sure what it is yet. Carbs clean and petcock so it's not fuel related. There was a bit of oil leaking from the bottom of the barrell which is a bit of a worry. I'm looking for an original set of mudgards but theyr very hard to find
@@damo690 They were designed down to a price - commuters don't want to pay more than they really have to. If used as a commuter, they were okay and a bit more able to live with traffic than a C50 plop. But if you tried to go fast a lot, you'd quickly come up against the limitations of the handling (no oil in rear shocks) brakes and 4 speed box. Honda did worse later (CD185 and 200 Benlys - again commuter bikes - and the CJ250 which was a grenade/lemon. The earlier sloper CD had a completely pressed steel frame and was a smaller, lighter bike with better handling, more 'go' and lasted better. They'd outlast and outperform any Brit of a similar size including Triumph 350s. I thrashed my R reg CD everywhere and put a ton of miles on it, but it was a mutant. Look at the auto advance for hot running issues. I had one that cracked where the central spindle meets the backplate. The bob-weight springs can go weak and the bob weights can go floppy on their little pivots due to long-term lack of lube. Might not be that, but it is a good place to look. Mudguards rot at the bridge for the fronts and on the bolt housings (spot welded) for the rears. Road dirt accumulates and stays wet and there was never much paint under there. I used the sloper guards that were ABS and excellent quality, but very rare. Those huge plastic side panels were thin and went brittle due to exposure to UV light. They're over 40 years old now so will be very frail. I used CB200 side panels, but I had twin carbs and CB200 air boxes. Plastic headlamp bowl is also very frail. Blue plastic lasted better than red. Alloy was fine. But like all Jap bikes of the period, those X-head (JIS) bolts went in dry in the factory. So UK wet and salt, plus steel in alloy meant electrolytic corrosion. Use a smear of grease when replacing and they were fine. In my experience, your old boy would have been right back in the day because the CBs were better all round and when old and used were only slightly more money. I liked my mutant CD. I learned a lot and it took me all over the southern half of the UK at a time when I was one of Maggie's millions.
Nice one Damo 👍
Nice. It's a late one from the tank and someone has done a delete on the 'German helmet' mudguards - they look like CB200 ones. Lots of CB175 & 200 parts will fit, as will bits from the old CD175 sloper - if you can find them. I built one on the dole in the mid '80s starting with a partially stripped one I gave £15 for. It ended up a mutant with a CB175 head, twin carbs, CB200 head lamp bowl and Cibie halogen headlight (in the bargain bin at Motorcycle City), CB200 gearbox internals, 12v electrics (CB175 stator and reg/rectifier and battery box) Piranha ignition (CB200 again from a bargain bin), valve springs and thicker oil in the forks and Konis on the back and a CB175 twin leading shoe brake and 18" rim on the front. I kept the full chaincase and the 'German helmet' guards were the ABS ones from a CD sloper. It had a reversed rear steel clutch plate and an extra fibre plate and CB200 gearbox internals for the extra gear and the higher 'top'. It had a single CB200 silencer (bargain bin) with home-welded siamesed standard downpipes (yes you can) and the rear baffle de-restricted with a big drill. Paint was standard blue colour out of rattle cans. It revved like a Flymo and went very well, handled okay and I put over 50k miles on it with no problems. My Dad rode it after me for years as a ride-to-work until he lunched it on a roundabout and did himself a proper mischief.
If you put it on the road, one thing you must do is regular 1500 mile oil changes and clean out the centrifugal oil filter every second change. Search on the Common Motorcycle collective in the US if you need info on how to - it's a simple job, but back in the day, people seemed not to do it. If you neglect the oil, it will knacker the cam and bearing caps. I've seen these with bright blue points end on the cam, worn down cams and followers, cam chain worn through to the tensioner pushrod bore, blown mains, seized pistons, you name it. And you're not the first guy to snap the kicker shaft, it used to happen quite a lot. And I've seen them twisted, return springs broken and seen them broken through the rear of the crank cases. Good luck.
@anemone104 yeah they weren't one of Hondas better bikes. Poor design and cheap metal. When I first started looking at bikes an old guy I knew who fixed bikes told me never to go near a cd175. I never knew why he said that to me but now I know why. 🤣. It's running now. Took it for a spin yesterday but it started dicking around on me when it heated up. Not sure what it is yet. Carbs clean and petcock so it's not fuel related. There was a bit of oil leaking from the bottom of the barrell which is a bit of a worry. I'm looking for an original set of mudgards but theyr very hard to find
@@damo690 They were designed down to a price - commuters don't want to pay more than they really have to. If used as a commuter, they were okay and a bit more able to live with traffic than a C50 plop. But if you tried to go fast a lot, you'd quickly come up against the limitations of the handling (no oil in rear shocks) brakes and 4 speed box. Honda did worse later (CD185 and 200 Benlys - again commuter bikes - and the CJ250 which was a grenade/lemon. The earlier sloper CD had a completely pressed steel frame and was a smaller, lighter bike with better handling, more 'go' and lasted better. They'd outlast and outperform any Brit of a similar size including Triumph 350s. I thrashed my R reg CD everywhere and put a ton of miles on it, but it was a mutant.
Look at the auto advance for hot running issues. I had one that cracked where the central spindle meets the backplate. The bob-weight springs can go weak and the bob weights can go floppy on their little pivots due to long-term lack of lube. Might not be that, but it is a good place to look.
Mudguards rot at the bridge for the fronts and on the bolt housings (spot welded) for the rears. Road dirt accumulates and stays wet and there was never much paint under there. I used the sloper guards that were ABS and excellent quality, but very rare. Those huge plastic side panels were thin and went brittle due to exposure to UV light. They're over 40 years old now so will be very frail. I used CB200 side panels, but I had twin carbs and CB200 air boxes. Plastic headlamp bowl is also very frail. Blue plastic lasted better than red.
Alloy was fine. But like all Jap bikes of the period, those X-head (JIS) bolts went in dry in the factory. So UK wet and salt, plus steel in alloy meant electrolytic corrosion. Use a smear of grease when replacing and they were fine.
In my experience, your old boy would have been right back in the day because the CBs were better all round and when old and used were only slightly more money. I liked my mutant CD. I learned a lot and it took me all over the southern half of the UK at a time when I was one of Maggie's millions.