'65 Honda Trail 90 Rebuild

45 years after it left the showroom, a 1965 Honda CT200 just might ride again.

New points, a clean chamber, and a stuck valve

Spent a little time in the garage with Dad tonight before the UFC PPV fight. Was good to have a second set of hands to help loosen the screws holding the ignition points. They were very easy to replace with a much cleaner set that I bought. The new ones theoretically have only a few dozen miles on them. Here are the old, and then the new.

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Cleaning the creosote off the interior of the cylinder was easier than I expected. I used brake parts cleaner based upon a recommendation from John Ryland over at Classified Moto.  Great recommendation, as it cuts right through most anything. Here's a before and after of the top of the chamber with just a few minutes' work. 

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I'll finish that cleaning tomorrow. Good news is that I found a complete new gasket set that I forgot having bought, so I can get the head back onto the motor quickly. The bad news is that when I went to test the valves, the intake actuates OK, but the exhaust seemed stuck. I'll work on that a bit tomorrow too, but I was optimistically hoping to not have to deal with stuck valves. With 25 years passing since the last time this motor fired, I shouldn't be surprised with a stuck valve.

The Trail 90 is cool enough to hang with Don Draper.

In today's world of liter+ hyperbikes, Harleys that cost more that average cars, and custom choppers that cost more than some homes, it's fair to ask whether 90cc 1960s Hondas are cool enough to merit restoration.

Obviously, I think they are.

Today I got a bit of reinforcement courtesy of Mad Men. I love the show, and have been catching up on the back seasons. It's worth watching... just get on Xbox LIVE and say, "Xbox, Bing Mad Men," and it'll take you right to it. 

Today I watched season 4, episode 5, "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword." It's set in 1965, and who approaches Sterling/Cooper/Draper/Pryce as a potential account but Honda of America. A product they want to push is the good ol' 1965 Honda CT200...

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Don Draper is one of the coolest characters on television. The fact that he's wheeling around a CT200 validates that it's worth restoring. 

Now back to the garage.

A year gone by, time to get back at it.

It's hard to believe that I let over a year go by since doing anythign on this project. My last post was back in October of 2010, and that was the first in months. So what's the hold up? In a word: work. I'm rejoined the ranks of a team and project that I love (Xbox), so it's easy to let all of my extra time that doesn't go to family funnel into work. While that may sound like a bad thing, I actually consider myself incredibly lucky to work on a project that I love with people that I enjoy working with.

Balance is important, though, and hobbies like this project are an important thing to balance in. With the holiday coming up, I'm hoping to get back into the project more regularly. Ideally, I'd like to have the motor running by January. That's a stretch, but we'll see. 

To start toward that, I began some general cleanup on the exterior of the crankcase. The cylinder is still pulled and all oil drained. I'll flush the crankcase when I'm done. Here's how the crankcase looks with 40+ years worth of gunk on it:

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I spent about an hour just cleaning it off. Haven't used any solvents other than elbow grease, but it is beginning to clean up pretty well:

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Next weekend, I'll try to get the crankcase thoroughly cleaned and get the cylinder and head back on. That shoudl be easy provided I can figure out a gasket. After that, this poins have to be replaced:

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I already have a new set, but am shopping for a cover for them. All of the ones on eBay are pretty beat up and I haven't seen any NOS anywhere yet. I'm hoping beyond hope that I don't need to dissamble the crankcase. It looks to be in good shape as-is and it'd save me a lot of time to leave it in tact.