Motorcycle Repair: 1975 hondacb200t, honda motorcycles, triple clamps

Question
i know your ad says 60's but im dying to get more info on my bike. I want to know what bikes have compatible parts, ex. rear wheels, heads, and exhaust. You seem to know your stuff. MY bike is a honda cb200t 1975 with under 4k and i want to start small(and the bike was free) in making it my own. ANY info would help and would be greatly appreciated. thank you very much.   

-Jeff

Answer
Jeff, The CB and CL200T motorcycles were only sold for a couple of years and many of the parts are completely unique to this series. Even stock parts are rare and expensive. The engines were somewhat related to the previous CB/CL/SL175 machines, but you would have to compare parts books to see if anything is actually interchangeable with the 200s. I know they changed the wrist pin diameters, so the other pistons don't fit.
There are no "interchange manuals" available for Honda motorcycles. You have to know the product code of your bike and compare any parts in the lists to that or in relationship to other small twins from the 1960-70s. You can usually find parts lists on Ebay. Honda still sells microfiche, if you have access to a viewer.

The following bikes: CM185, CM200T, CM250 and CMX Rebels seem similar but had a differently designed engine, internally. You would have to take your measuring tape and calipers to a junk yard and start measuring stuff to see what might interchange if you are planning some large-scale modifications. If you start changing wheel sizes, that will change the relationship of the wheels to the centerstand height. One change can domino into a series of necessary changes when you want to make just one modification sometimes. You really have to think this stuff out in advance.

CB200Ts had a unique cable-operated front disc brake that was only used on that bike, with a smaller verion of it on the CB125 and MT125R roadracers. You can check to see if the Rebel front end tubes would fit the 200 triple clamps to give you a hydraulic disc front brake. You would have to switch ALL the parts over to complete the conversion. Hopefully, you can find more free bikes of that size to mix and match with, but you are probably better off leaving it as it is, dollar-wise.

If you know how to weld and have a machine shop at your disposal, you can do just about anything with it... just takes time and $$$$!

Bill Silver