Getting close to the end.....

[Bloop2]

Greetings everyone.....thought I would post some pictures of my 68 Cobra restoration. I'm really close to finishing this off, this has been a long 3 years with many delays along the way. Sometimes nothing was done for 6 months, things just got in the way. It just requires final assembly, I have all the bits and pieces to finish it off. This bike started out as a barn find, originally bought it because it had the air pump on it. The front off this bike had fire damage from a shed that burned down beside it, don't have the original picture of it, lost that in a HD crash in my laptop. This bike also came with a 74 and 76 basket cases, all for $300.00. In my quest for finding parts like good fenders, I ended up with another 1 1/2 Cobras. There are enough bits and pieces left to build another one. Here are some pics:










Just finished up wiring the headlight to the main harness today, had t get a NOS harness as the original was totally melted from the fire.



New gauges, NOS Speedo and rebuilt tach, originals fried in the fire.




New rims, replated spokes, lots of time spent polishing.....




Original hard to find turn signals with the clamp on shell, flat back and short stem, only had 2 to start with, managed to liberate some from my brother and ended up making 1 stem. This pic is for Ian, did you ever find any for yours?








Completely rebuilt motor, oil dam installed, new crank seals and first over pistons.







Looking forward to finally getting this done!

Cheers....Fred

[GT750Battleship]

Stunning,I love the dedication,thanks for the photos,I'll show them to my T500 mates !! for inspiration
Cheers.
Roger
GT750A

[Craig380]

Wow, looking good!

[rngdng]

Nice work.



Lane

[Bloop2]

A few more bits added, pipes are on

[Eddie]

just wanted to say it looks awesome ! great work!,,,the 1st bike I restored was a 1963cbm72 thought it would be easy compared to a car,,,wow was I wrong! it took longer! and that was before the internet which made everything harder,,,your bike looks great,,,,,,,,and for people that have done a full restoration know how much work and time goes into it,,,i seriously doubt I could do that again because my wife would divorce me , the bike is taking to much of our time bla blah blah

[sbaugz]

Good lord that is sure nice looking! Nice job.

[Alan H]

Gorgeous.

[Coyote]

Obviously not a daily rider. What are your plans for the bike?

[Bloop2]

Won't be a daily rider, I have my Vstrom for that and I use my B100P for puttering around town. But it will be ridden, I don't do trailer queens. My GS650G also gets exercised every year. This winters project will be a 70 T500, which I did ride but now needs some TLC. It won't receive as much funding as this one did and will be more of a daily rider. A lot of people have asked if I'll sell it after completion, but this one is kind of special to me.

Cheers....Fred

[Drewski]

Great work

Do you have any pictures of how it started off?

[ukfan4sure]

Great work

Do you have any pictures of how it started off?

I believe he stated in his initial post he lost all of his original pictures of the bike in a Hard Drive failure.

[Bloop2]

I managed to find the only picture I have of what it looked like when I bought it, it was a print out and have scanned it, not a great pic but it will give you an idea of what I started with. The front end suffered fire damage, gauges melted, wiring harness melted, etc.....



Here is the current status, still waiting for the tank badges and side cover badges, still have issues with the seat cover, have another one on the way. Other than that, it's pretty well done.

[johnakay]

lovely looking bike ,you certainly did a good job considering ther state it was in. well done.
did you make the grab rail yourself?

[Bloop2]

The grab rail came from another Cobra I purchased, just replated.