Dating a CL72/77 frame and engine

swampyankee · Post by **swampyankee** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 1:58 pm

I picked up a CL from the family of a friend who died years ago. The bike has been badly stored and the plan was to sell it for parts to fund the restoration of the bike I really wanted - a '66 Benelli Sprite.
But I'm intrigued about this Scrambler, partly because I had one back in the day. At first I thought the fenders had been changed, but then I saw a thread here about someone restoring a CL72 and it has the same fenders. So I scraped and sanded a bit and managed to get the numbers off the frame - "CL72 - 4001451", and off the engine - "CL77 S 1000484".
I assume someone swapped a 305 engine into a 250 frame, but who knows.
Is there a good resource I can use to determine just what I have here?

sixtiescycle · Post by **sixtiescycle** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:15 pm

1964 CL72 with a 1965 CL77 engine. The engine number should read CL77E-1000484.

swampyankee · Post by **swampyankee** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:28 pm

Sounds about right. I swear it was an "s" after cl77 but I know the E is for electric start. Where do you get the dating from? Is there a list somewhere?

G-Man · Post by **G-Man** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 4:46 pm

I don't have the CL list but this is a CB version.

E does not stand for Electric start as CLs did not have electric starters!

More likely to be Engine......

G

LOUD MOUSE · Post by **LOUD MOUSE** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 7:22 pm

"E" is for the item it's on.
"ENGINE". .............lm

swampyankee wrote:Sounds about right. I swear it was an "s" after cl77 but I know the E is for electric start. Where do you get the dating from? Is there a list somewhere?

swampyankee · Post by **swampyankee** » Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:26 pm

E for engine in the engine number. Talk about stating the obvious eh.

There is a cover where a starter motor might go, which looks homemade. Upon looking at other CLs it looks like the same sort of cover is OE.

G-Man · Post by **G-Man** » Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:45 am

That plate is on all of them. No clearance within the CL frames for a starter.

Makes you wonder why the frame doesn't begin CL72F doesn't it? That's Honda for you. Always thinking (semi) logically.

G