Thought I would repost the thread to document the Ody I have been building for my daughter. I bought this thing back in October from a neighbor of mine. It had been sitting in their backyard for years with a locked up Engine. I tried to buy this thing 2 years ago when i was first looking for an Ody for myself, but they refused to sell it to me and gave me the same response I have got many times when trying to buy classic cars over the years.... "we are going to restore it someday".

Upon getting it home I was anxious to find out what had happened, so I quickly removed the Engine and tore it down to find a 78.5 piston with a broken skirt that was lodged between the crank and both damaged cases.

The cylinder looked good with no major gouges so after a short search for a ART piston I gave up and located a 80mm Weisco piston kit on feebay for 100 bucks. When hoser came though to ride on his vacation he was kind enough to take the cylinder and piston with him for the bore.

Next I tore it down to the bare frame and replaced a bent front lower piece of tubing the protects the steering..

Next my daughter & I sanded the frame and spot primed anywhere there was bare metal and then rattle canned it with Sunrise Red

Started on the assembly.. Cleaned and painted the trailing arms, & shocks and lubed all the heim joints.

pressed in new rear bearings and seals, and installed new rear brake pads...

Next up was the front suspension. everything was disassembled, cleaned, painted and greased. The front hubs got new wheel bearings and I replaced one ball joint boot and one wheel cylinder.

During the process of doing the front suspension I built a new front bumper..
I used my other 350 ody to get an idea of how I wanted to bend the tube and the distance i wanted it sticking out in front..

Next up was the foot tub, steering column, front fenders, and steering wheel. I painted the face plate of the steering wheel because it was very sun faded.

next up i replaced both site windows in the master cylinder and bled the front & rear brakes..

I ditched the tail light scoop so I would have more room for my pre filter and welded the tail light bracket to the cage & then painted & installed it..

Assembled the bottom end of the Engine with all new bearings, seals & cases. also did the balancer mod while I was at it..

more pics

I did electrolysis for 3 days per Bigheads advise to remove all the rust from the gas tank. It worked really well.

Built my Pre filter

Steve sold me a nice clean Ody seat, I pop riveted the one salvageable rear fender back together and found another on feebay for the other side to use until I can up with some better rear fenders. I also picked up a nice clean set of Pilot seat belts for it on feebay. I disassembled the Quik Shift clutch I bought on feebay and cleaned, painted and lubed it. I picked up a rebuilt kit for the fuel pump, a new belt, and uni filter.

That about sums up where it is as of now, shouldn't be long and it will be a running machine.

Looks sweet...showroom...Need to find some orginal stickers or have some made up...

I look on YouTube daily. Waiting for restoration part 6. Awesome ride! Very lucky young lady to have a dad that would do that.

Like you work and attention to detail.

Thank you for the kind words guys.

is there a write up somewhere on the tank rust removal? ive got a bad pilot tank in need of that

I saw his video on youtube and follow his instructions..

I skipped his coke step and just sloshed a bit of muratic acid around in it for a minute or two after the electrolysis and went onto the POR15 steps. I think it turned out really good and would do it again in the future if I have a rusty tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCpJRI1m ... plpp_video"

Very nice work Rarerat and a great step by step writeup. I love these type threads.

Thank you