Category Archives: Motopsyco’s Project Bikes

Links directly post about the motorcycles that I have built!

SL100 Speedometer Restoration

Posted on by Motopsycho

We’ve all seen it before, maybe even on our own bikes, beautiful paint, shiny new chrome, highly polished aluminum and dull faded out hazy looking gauges. Granted for custom bikes it’s pretty easy just to swap in a new speedometer, heck it might even be cheaper than fixing your original. I decided to perform this speedometer restoration for 2 reasons; to keep the original correct low odometer reading on this bike and I had never attempted speedometer restoration before and really wanted to try it. Sure I did make a couple of mistakes along the way but overall I am very pleased with the results. Next time I do this it’ll be even better.

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration

Disassembly

On some instruments the bezel that surrounds the face and mechanism is crimped to the base with a metal ring that has to be carefully removed & re installed to access the inside of the gauge.  On this little Honda the bezel was a one piece plastic part that appeared to have been either over-molded onto or permanently glued around the base of the mechanism. The first step after removing the chrome trim on the bottom is to cut away the plastic that is folded over the metal part of the gauge. Cut it all the way around so that you can carefully pull the gauge straight out of the housing. Initially I just tried cutting it part of the way around thinking that it would make it easier to re-seal when I put it back together, big mistake as I bent the thin aluminum gauge face when I tried to pull it out and had to carefully straighten it out. Slice it loose all the way around pull the gauge straight out so you don’t damage it.

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration

After getting it apart, carefully grasp the needle where it’s attached to the shaft & pull it straight up and off then set it aside in a safe place. On this particular bike 2 screws held the face plate on to the speedometer. There are also 2 tubes that the neutral & high beam lights shine through that have little rubber boots that are glued to the back of the face plate, cut these away carefully.

Cosmetic improvements

For some more popular motorcycles speedometer restoration is easier because ready-made gauge faces are available for them, what I did for this one was to visit my local screen printing & graphics shop and had them scan the old face in and print me a new one on a vinyl decal that was stuck into place over my dirty faded speedometer.

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration
The extra one is for sale $18 shipped in North America.

Since the speedometer needle was very faded I gave it a quick shot of white paint. After the white paint dried a little bit of red was applied to the tip of the speedometer needle. One very important thing to remember especially with magnetic drive speedometers & tachometers is that too much paint will make the needle heavier causing it to be slower to respond and affect the accuracy of the gauge. Use the absolute bare minimum of paint necessary to make the needle look good again.

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration

The clear plastic lens on this one was a little hazy & had a lot of scratches on it so I spent about 15-20 minutes polishing it with toothpaste & a damp paper towel. This removed the haze & a lot of the scratches. It’s not perfect but it looks really good.

Reassembly

I assembled the face plate to the speedometer carefully lining up the light tubes to the back of their respective lenses sealing them in place with a small amount of my favorite adhesive/sealant, Automotive Goop. Since all of the existing nuts and washers were rusty they were replaced with new hardware at this time.

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration

With a little careful work, on the third try I was able to slide the speedometer needle back into place so that when viewed head on at rest the needle indicated exactly zero miles per hour. Just use a little patience and take your time when doing this and everything will be okay.

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration

Next I made sure everything was as clean & dust free as possible inside & out and dropped the speedometer into the bezel. When I cut it loose I left enough plastic so that it snapped back into place. Then I took a good look at it and since I was satisfied with the way everything looked it was time to pull the gauge back out of the bezel just enough so that I could run a thick bead of the Goop adhesive all the way around it and then snap it back into place for good, then it was time to reinstall the chrome beauty ring on the bottom.

Conclusion

Honda SL100 Speedometer Restoration

Here’s a picture of the finished assembly mounted on the bike. Even if you never plan to do speedometer restoration yourself at least you know how it can be done. There are a few specialist repair shops out there that do nothing but repair & rebuild gauges. In fact if your gauges are inoperable you should find one of them to do your repair & restoration for you. If they’re just faded & ugly you can do them yourself as I’ve shown here or you can send them to me and I’ll do it for you for a very reasonable price.

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring

Posted on by Motopsycho

A lot of old motorcycles like my old 1972 Honda SL100K2 have their switch gear wiring inside of the handlebars for a nice neat clean appearance. I was actually able to locate a couple of sets of genuine Honda new old stock handlebars but the cheapest set I saw was over $150. Plus a lot of the NOS parts I find tend to have some shelf wear or corrosion on them so I just went ahead & bought a set of nice new reproduction bars without the wiring holes for $50. So this post is going to be about drilling handlebars for wiring. Whether you are try to do an authentic restoration or a sleek custom the basic procedure is the same

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring

The first step is to determine where the holes & slots should be. These Thailand sourced bars had holes pre-drilled for the switch housing locating pins but they were in the wrong place. Since I was replacing the old but non-original bars I taped them together wile I measured and marked the locations for the new holes and slots. Pay attention to detail while doing this so that you don’t make any mistakes or remove excess metal from your handlebars. A prime example of this is visible on my old handlebars. The left side only needed a hole large enough for the single horn wire but whoever installed them cut a large slot instead. Watch for little things like that.

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring

I like to put a couple of layers or masking tape & duct tape on the areas to be slotted out. This does two things, it makes marking the hole & slot locations easier and protects the handlebar from inadvertent tool marks while you are cutting & grinding the slots.

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring

After you get it all laid out & are certain of where you need to drill be sure you use a center punch, otherwise it is nearly impossible to drill a hole straight into a piece of round tubing. For the slots drill a hole of the correct size at each end of the slot & then use a rotary tool or a die grinder with a cut off wheel to cut out the center section. Once that has been done put a small grinding stone or sanding drum on your tool to finish shaping and smoothing the slot. Don’t remove the tape until this step is complete.

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring

Now it’s time to remove the tape, clean up the tape residue & get all of the shavings out of the handlebar. Grab a small file that will fit into your cut outs and go over them one more time to be sure that all burrs & sharp edges that could damage the wires are removed.

In these next two pictures you can see how I slotted & drilled the left and right ends of the bars.

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring
Right end
Drilling Handlebars for Wiring
left end

Before you pull the wiring through, if you have one piece clutch & brake lever perches be sure to put them back on first. I like to put a piece of string through the bars & tape the wire to it as it is much easier to feed the wiring through if you pull it and push it at the same time. Nonabrasive hand cleaner makes a great lubricant for pulling a thick bundle of wires through a small tube with multiple bends in it. The hand cleaner wipes off easily when you get done.

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring

Once you have it a done, reinstall the bars on your bike and admire your handiwork for a minute or two before you get back to work on the rest of your build. If you have ever thought about drilling handlebars for wiring now you have an idea of what is involved. Just work slowly and carefully so that when you finish it will be a job that you’re proud to say, “I did that myself.”

Drilling Handlebars for Wiring
Pardon the messy shop.

Handlebar switch restoration

Posted on by Motopsycho

If you look at a lot of restored vintage bikes, you may notice that even some very nicely restored bikes have switch gear that looks okay but you can tell that the switches were not fully refurbished to the same level as the rest of the bike. I plead guilty to doing this myself because the switches are full of little tiny springs, detent balls, delicate soldered connections etc. and if a single piece gets lost or broken your switches are ruined. Since I am putting so much effort into my current 1972 Honda SL100 project I could not settle for anything less than a full on handlebar switch restoration to make the whole bike look as new as possible. If something had gone wrong I was prepared to spend the money on a set of new old stock switches to replace them.

Handlebar Switch Restoration

Before beginning your handlebar switch restoration clean off your workbench and the floor around it & under it, so that if any of the tiny parts fall out or go flying you at least have a chance of finding them.  Keep a magnet close by in case you need it. Also remember that sometimes the old plastic knobs & buttons often become fragile with age so be careful handling them.

Handlebar Switch Restoration

Take a few minutes to study how the wires & switches are placed & secured in the housing, and then remove the retaining screws & plates. You should also look at and remember how any tape or sleeves are applied to the wires in the housing to protect them from chafing.

In the picture below you can see a detent ball sitting on top of the black slider for the headlight controls, there is a spring under this ball that can (and did) send it flying so use caution to be sure you don’t lose any parts.

Handlebar Switch Restoration

Once I pulled the e-clip off of it, the engine stop switch and its wiring could be removed through the top of the housing. Go ahead and completely remove all of the switches, wiring, & clips from the housings.

Handlebar Switch Restoration

If you have any damaged threads or broken screws in the housings now is the time to deal with that. In this case the throttle stop screw was snapped off in the bottom of the housing so I had to drill it out and tap the hole. You’ll notice that there are magnetic rubber vise jaws attached to my vise. These are an absolute necessity for doing this kind of work without damaging your parts.

Handlebar Switch Restoration
click here for padded jaws for your vise

With your switch housings stripped bare & all repairs made now is the time to clean them up. I use my vapor blasting machine because no other method I know can restore a factory new appearance to old aluminum the way vapor blasting can. If you don’t have access to a vapor blaster you can send your parts to me & I can do it for you. See my vapor blasting page for rates & information.

vapor blasting & Handlebar Switch Restoration

After everything was repaired & cleaned I painted the stop switch with a little spray paint and used an oil paint marker to paint the red lettering & dots as you can see below. For more information on this technique click this link to see my previous post on emblem & badge refurbishment.

Handlebar Switch Restoration
Handlebar Switch Restoration

Now that everything is clean & new looking gather up the supplies & tools you need for reassembly. At the least you’ll need some new wire sleeves, tape to match the sleeve, JIS screwdriver, a small pick, some grease, the finest point needlenose pliers that you own, some tweezers, a sharp knife and a multimeter. Depending on what you are working on you may need more or less tools than these, for example if you have a broken wire connection a soldering iron might be needed.

tools for Handlebar Switch Restoration

Carefully reinstall all of the parts in reverse of the order you removed them. Take time to tape & sleeve wires as needed because you might not be able to after everything is back together. Be sure to watch out for flying springs etc. during reassembly, it’d be a shame to get this far and lose a critical part. Work slowly & stay as relaxed as possible when doing delicate work like this.

Handlebar Switch Restoration

The final step of handlebar switch restoration is to test the function of all of the switches using either the ohmmeter or diode tester function of your multimeter.  If everything is working great you are ready to reinstall the switch gear to your motorcycle. If not, it’s a whole lot easier to fix it now than after putting the bike back together.  This is especially if the wires are going to be inside of the handlebars.

test the Handlebar Switch Restoration

I hope that you’ve enjoyed following along while I completed my handlebar switch restoration. The next post that I have planned will show how I measured & drilled the holes in my handlebars for the wiring to pass through.

completed Handlebar Switch Restoration
Ready to install!

Until then, Peace Y’all

Playing in the snow on a Baja Warrior

Posted on by Motopsycho

Quick Update this has been SOLD.

This video is of a Baja Warrior Minibike that I have for sale. It’s equipped with a 212cc Predator clone engine and a Torque converter. It’s priced at 250 bucks absolutely 100% firm picked up here in Hartsville S.C. I’ve had a blast with it and now it is for a new owner to enjoy it!

Baja Warrior for sale

1970 Honda CT90 Junkyard Dog

Posted on by Motopsycho

It all started like so many bad ideas with an Ebay auction, followed by a six hour car ride the day after the auction ended. I had been sort of casually looking for a Honda CT90 or CT110, not to restore but just to get running and ride it around on the farm and at bike shows. At last years AMCA Southern National swap meet in Denton N.C. I missed 2 of them that were in my price range by just a matter of minutes. In fact when I spotted one of them and started walking towards it another gentleman had who was much closer walked up and handed the seller cash and they were filling out the paperwork by the time I got there. Since I’m always scanning online sales sites, backyards, junkyards, and trash piles for interesting stuff, I knew sooner or later a Honda CT90 or 110 would cross my path for the right dollar amount.

Honda CT90 Junkyard Dog

This one popped up on Ebay down in Ladson S.C., it was not running and missing a lot of parts, but I bid what I thought it was worth and was pleasantly surprised when it actually sold for what it was worth and didn’t run up to a stupid price like things do on Ebay sometimes.

Rough Honda CT90

I’m going to confess that I staged the rest of these pictures the next day after work, but the surroundings seem to work really well and you really can almost imagine stumbling across something like this abandoned in the woods.

1970 Honda CT90 Speedometer

She hasn’t traveled far in 47 years, only 3,353 mile on the odometer.

Honda CT90 missing parts

The muffler and battery box are gone, and the wiring harness is a bit of a mess, but the engine still turns free.

1970 Honda CT90 left rear view

One of the coolest features of the early Honda Trail bikes like the CT90 was the rotating handlebar mounts designed to make them easier to transport on bumper mounted motorcycle carriers. You pulled up on the big lever in the center of the bars and then you could turn the bars sideways for more room.

Rotate Handlebars Honda CT70

Another great feature that was introduced in the middle of the 1967 model year was a dual range transmission giving you a total of 8 forward gears. Low range was for serious off road work and the high range was for normal trail and road use. A lot of people swap Lifan engines into them for more power and reliability but my plan is to keep the original engine just so that it will still have the dual range transmission.

Honda CT90 in the woods

Honda CT90 in the woods!

That’s it for now, I’m going to check it out further and will keep you informed on the progress as it happens. I also have another antique motorcycle project going that I haven’t shown on this blog yet but it has been all over my Facebook page & Instagram if you want to check those out.

Peace Y’all

 

1982 Honda Passport C70 For Sale

Posted on by Motopsycho

This motorcycle has been sold!

1982 Honda Passport C70 For Sale

1982 Honda Passport C70 For Sale

I have greatly enjoyed this little Passport over the last year and a half that I’ve owned but it is time to let it move on to someone who will love it and enjoy it for what it is. It has been completely refurbished. It’s not a true restoration, as the paint is Ford blue rather than the original Angel blue. All of the plastic parts except for the sidecovers are new aftermarket parts. It has new Michelin Gazelles, with all new tubes, rim strips, wheel bearings, and brake shoes. The muffler is a new replica. The carb has been cleaned and tuned. The fuel lines are new, and there are a pair of filters installed under the tank. It has a Shorai lithium battery, and an aftermarket headlight assembly with a replaceable bulb. Being a 1982 model it has a factory 12 volt charging system and CDI ignition.  It runs better than it looks, and it looks pretty good. The mileage is correct at 3352 miles but may go up as I will ride it occasionally to keep it running correctly.

1982 Honda Passport C70 For Sale

My price on it is $1400 firm but I may consider interesting trades for certain project bikes. I am located in Eastern South Carolina and would be willing to assist your shipper or meet you at a safe public location within 150 miles of my place.

1982 Honda Passport C70 For Sale

Contact me at motopsyco@motopsyco.com if you’re interested, but please be patient with me as I am still operating on batteries due to the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew so please allow up to 24 hours for a response.

1982 Honda Passport Restoration Part 3

Posted on by Motopsycho

As mentioned before I had a request from a reader to share more of my pictures from my 1982 Honda Passport restoration So here are some of the repainting & reassembly process. Due to all the rust and pitting I sandblasted the entire exterior of the frame and them primed it with a green zinc primer. and refinished a few other small parts by various means. For the cadmium plated parts click here to see how I handled those. Although not shown here I had the front rack redone with chrome powder coat.

 

 

At the time I was taking these pictures the rear rack was simply sprayed with that horrible looking chrome paint so that I could get the bike back together and ride it, recently I removed it and had it powder coated chrome also. The wheels are still all original with just the best cleaning that I could give them at the time. Since then they have been thoroughly vapor blasted and clear coated, followed by a careful painting of the hubs & spokes.  Some of the pictures may seem kind of random but hopefully this will be of some use to someone out there trying to restore their own 1982 Honda Passport. Sorry but there are no engine rebuild pictures because there was no need for an engine rebuild, just the usual carburetor & crankcase screen cleaning, followed by a valve adjustment and a new spark plug. In the near future I’ll do a post on the trials & tribulations of dealing with aftermarket body parts for these things.

1982 Honda Passport Restoration Part 2

Posted on by Motopsycho

Cody, this post about my 1982 Honda Passport Restoration is for you!

I finally have my 1982 Honda Passport Restoration 99.5% done, at this point all I’m waiting on is some custom made decals. Apparently the tank decals for the blue paint version were a one year only special and are completely unobtainable as N.O.S or reproduction parts. Yes I’ve checked every supplier in North America, Europe, and the Orient, so unless you actually have a set in your hand to sell don’t bother telling me to check with so and so because I already have.

A reader named Cody picked up one of these in boxes and is putting it back together and asked me to share the detailed pile of photos that I took as I disassembled & reassembled this bike so I’m going to put them into a gallery here for all to see. In addition to gleaning all of the free information available on the internet you really should get a service manual. I use the Clymer Repair Manual M310-13 because it covers every small Honda with the horizontal engines up to 1999. Keep in mind as you peruse this gallery of wiring harness connector images that this is a factory 12 volt model with electric start. 1981 and older models are all 6 volt and may be different .

This is all of the pictures that I took as I was tearing it down, I frequently referred to these and the service manual as I was re assembling this little Honda Passport Restoration project. I’ll post the pictures I took when putting it all back together next.

Peace Y’all

Honda C70 Passport Restoration Part 1

Posted on by Motopsycho

Honda C70 Passport Restoration The Beginning

It all started out innocently enough with me picking up this little diamond in the rough. It obviously hadn’t run in a while and was very weather beaten. Initially I had no plans to do a complete Honda C70 Passport Restoration but you know how these things tend to snowball.

Dilapidated Honda C70

With a little help from my beautiful assistant it was soon running like a top.

Pretty lady spinning wrenches Honda C70 Passport Restoration

Initially I had no plans to do a complete Honda C70 Passport Restoration but you know how these things tend to snowball. Let me go ahead and be perfectly clear from the start, this is not intended to be a 100 point purely stock restoration. The goal here is to produce a very nice looking scooter to use for transportation at larger events like the Barber Vintage Motorsports Festival or the Destination Eustis Motorcycle show & swap meet.

After cleaning the carbs, adjusting the valves, changing the oil etc. I took the little thing out for few a test runs and am very pleased with how it runs & drives despite the fact that it had dry rotted and mismatched tires on it. So I started ordering the pieces it was missing such as the chain cases. Where the original equipment stuff is available for a reasonable price I’ll use that, when not there are plenty of reproduction parts available on the internet from Thailand and other countries. The quality of the reproduction parts is all over the map, so be prepared to ship some things back or tweak them to get everything working and looking good.

C70 reproduction Chain case

Then one evening a few days ago I lit a fire in the heater and started pulling it apart.

In My Happy Place

One of my favorite things to do as I am pulling a bike apart is to take lots of pictures. Thanks to digital photography it is now easily affordable to document every nut & bolt that you remove if you want to. On older bikes like this that use a lot of bullet connectors it is a great idea record every single wiring connection. Sometimes there are different colored wires that attach to each other that you may not remember otherwise. There are also incorrect wiring diagrams in some service manuals for some machines so every bit of extra information helps. Plus when you put it all back together & it works right the first time, your friends will think you’re a genius!

Yes I really do use Shorai batteries for damn near everything, They’re especially great for motorcycle collectors who often let their bikes sit without running and there’s no acid to boil over and ruin your shiny new paint job. Last year I wrote an article for the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Magazine detailing the pros & cons of using lithium batteries in motorcycles, that article will probably show up here on the blog in the near future.

Motopsyco sandblasting a Honda Passport C70 Restoration

Since there was quite a but of surface rust & some light pitting the frame & forks were taken down to bare metal by sandblasting. Since I did not remove the fork from the frame I very carefully sealed off the bearing cup areas to keep the sand out.

zinc dichromate primer

After it was completely stripped, it received a few coats of zinc phosphate primer for maximum rust protection.

Ford blue engine paint

Since this is to be a parts runner and not a show bike instead of buying an expensive urethane paint in the original Honda Angel Blue I opted for 3 cans of Duplicolor ceramic engine paint in Ford blue. These paints are very durable & hold up quite well to gas and oil spillage.

Honda C70 Passport Restoration Starting the Assembly

Motopsyco Honda Passport C70 restoration

After getting all of the little bits painted it was time to move on to reassembly.

Wiring Honda Passport C70 restoration

All of those pictures I’ve taken are really coming in handy to reroute the wiring harness.

fake cad plate

Figured out how to create a reasonable looking fake cadmium plate using spray paint, will do a step by step post at a later date.

engine kill switch

The switch gear was scrubbed clean and the taped off so the kill switch and starter button could be painted red again. All of the black buttons & switches still looked good so those were left alone.

rebuilding my C70

I had stopped at this point to do some much needed body repairs to my truck and should be getting back to it next week, so be sure to subscribe below to receive regular updates.

1981Suzuki TS185 Finished!

Posted on by Motopsycho

Well, I got it finished! The entire build is chronicled from start to finish in the 23 minute video. I started out with a little bit of step by step video, but quickly realized that with the time constraints, that would not be possible so I morphed it into an overview video. The last few minutes is me taking it out of the yard and down the road for it’s first test ride.

It ran and handled fairly well, but the stock suspension is too light for a big guy like me to do any serious off-roading with it. I just have a couple more little things to tweak, and then if I can’t find  reasonably priced suspension upgrades, I’ll probably put it up for sale after I return from the VJMC National Rally.