Just thought I’d post a line or two about what’s happening with the bikes around here.
1982 Honda Passport
On Saturday May 20th my little Street Cub project from my last post took a best in class award at the 2023 VJMC National Rally. We had a great time at the rally which was held in Eufuala Alabama this year.
A real Dream of mine.
A few months ago I finally got my hands on a nice early Honda Dream. This is a 1962 model CA77 It would actually start but wouldn’t idle or charge a battery. I went ahead and installed a VM22 Mikuni carburetor on it and got it running well. The original ignition switch fell apart so I rewired it with a modem switch and a solid state regulator – rectifier and now it’s extremely reliable. One day I plan to take care of the cosmetics but it’s fun to ride like it is. It’ll never be purely stock again but it will be very nice one day. I’ll tell you more when the time comes.
1983 Honda VF750F Interceptor
At the Fast Lane swap meet during Daytona bike week this year I snagged this ratty old Honda Interceptor to keep my Royal Enfield Interceptor company. It was dirt cheap because it had no title but after a thorough carburetor overhaul and a new fuel pump it ran good enough that it was worth it to go through the “barn find” title process. The paperwork finally came through this week so it’s time to get it safe and ready for the road.
A few years ago I found and restored a 1982 Honda Passport C70 to absolutely pristine condition. The only modification that I did was to change the paint color from Honda’s original Angel Blue to a slightly darker Ford blue. Everything else on it was pure stock and it was an excellent runner. I sold it to pay for my new shop air compressor and while I’m glad to have the compressor I sure did miss that C70 and kept my eyes open for another fixer upper.
Two or three years ago I caught up with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a while, like myself he’s a collector of projects and things to tinker with, and he just happened to have this Monza Red 1982 Honda Passport sitting in a shed behind his garage. It was crusty & neglected but the engine turned freely. As a bonus it even came with a title!
After cleaning the carburetor it would fire up as long as it was sprayed with carb cleaner or starter fluid. It had just enough compression to run and ride but not enough to start without some help. Time to get to work!
I started following several Southeast Asian Instagram accounts promoting the streetcub customs based on the Honda Cub, Super Cub, and Trail models. There’s so much creative craziness going on over there that it was inspiring. The vast majority of custom Cubs in the Orient are stripped down choppers with bobbed rear fenders and minimal bodywork, but there a lot of really cool looking full fender bikes too.
First step was to rebuild the tired old engine, this particular Passport had been abused as a moped for years before my buddy got it and then it spent a few years sitting in his shed. Restoration was not even contemplated for this old machine and I did want more power than could be had from the standard engine so I rebuilt it using an 88cc kit sold by CMS in the Netherlands.
Then using an AFR gauge I re-jetted the carburetor for maximum performance and installed a stainless steel exhaust from a Japanese company called Wirus Win. It has a great look and sound with decent performance now.
Some Paint & Bodywork
It was going to be red, there was never any doubt about that. There was also never any doubt that it would not be the original Monza Red because it just didn’t have the pop that I was looking for. The color chosen was Firethorn Red Pearl from TCP Global in a single stage urethane. I consider myself to be a decent painter but am especially proud of how this bike came out. This paint job has never been buffed and the shine you see here is how it laid down straight out of the gun.
The leg shield is a new aftermarket piece, for it I mixed a couple of spoons full of dry pearls into some urethane clear for a nice sheen to enhance the plain white plastic. A couple of different shades of rattle can gold highlight the engine & a few small parts here and there.
Bought a Few Cool Pieces
After the paint there are 2 other parts that really stand out; one is the brown custom seat, two are the chrome plated 72 spoke wire wheels, both of which came from Ebay. I also wanted to get rid the dangly eighties style turn signals and have old looking round signal lights mounted on the handlebars not hanging under them on the ungainly looking original stalks which are clearly an afterthought. The rear license plate & light bracket were modified to accept turnsignals from an old CB350 I had laying around. The taillight itself was new but I have no idea what it fit. I did have to 3d print a new gasket for it using a flexible material known as TPU95.
3D Printer Go Brrrr!
At the time I had just gotten my first 3d printer and I really wanted to do some cool stuff for this little motorcycle so I did. Almost all of the black rubber grommets and frame plugs were replaced with parts printed from black TPU95.
All of the fork, frame and swing arm plugs are of my own design and were printed out, painted & installed during final assembly. Side cover knobs were made to match the style of the frame plugs and look really cool. These little frame and for plugs on the original bikes don’t match each other and this has always irked me as it gave them the appearance of having been designed piecemeal.
The “StreetCub” emblem on the front was designed and printed in white plastic with the lettering & outlines highlighted with gold paint.
More Than The Sum of Its Parts
Overall the final product makes me very happy and last year it scored a first place trophy as best motorcycle at a large car truck & bike show that happens every year in my home town of Hartsville S.C. I’m convinced that a lot of people don’t realize just how heavily customized it is, but it always attracts favorable attention everywhere I take it even at Daytona Beach Bike Week.
One of the big selling points of Honda Cubs & Passport was their practicality and relative comfort. I think I killed that with that with this one. The seats not very well padded, the exhaust is nearly loud enough to be annoying and without the luggage rack you can’t haul your groceries home with it. But it’s got miles of style and when we were eating supper at the campground in Florida I looked up and saw the evening sun sparkling on the gold pearl in the paint and the chrome gleaming I knew that I had done the right thing with this little 1982 Honda Passport. Originally its form followed its function but now form is the most important thing and its main function is looking good.
Author’s Note; Emblem & Badge Refurbishment originally appeared in the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle magazine earlier in 2017.
There are quite a few different methods you can use to restore motorcycle emblems that have paint that needs refinishing. You can repaint them by hand using small artist’s brushes. I have even spray painted tank badges using a solvent soaked rag on a sanding block to remove the paint from the high points of the lettering after spraying on the paint. Of course masking off the different colored areas was a pain.
Recently I learned of a much easier way to quickly and inexpensively refresh your tired looking motorcycle emblems & badges. To give credit where credit is due, I learned of this technique in a post to the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club’s Facebook page by Toby Jones in which he spoke of using paint markers from a welding supply house and posted a couple of examples that looked really good. I’d like to say thank you Toby for sharing.
For this article I’m using the front cover badge of my C70 Passport as a Guinea pig to try this technique. The chrome on this part stilled looked good, but the long exposure to the elements had resulted in the paint flaking out of the lettering and accent lines.
C70 badges before
Start by gathering up your supplies, you’ll need oil paint markers, a couple of shop towels, and little bit of odorless paint thinner. For this job I used artist paint markers but you can also get them from welding supply houses. My reason for using odorless paint thinner is that I did this in the house but if you’re working outside you can use whatever paint thinner you have.
Open up the marker and color in the areas that need paint just as if you were a kid playing with a coloring book. Have a shop towel handy with a small amount of thinner on it, not soaking wet, and every minute or so stop and wipe off any paint that has stuck to the chrome outside of the lettering. Be sure to wipe frequently because it will make the paint harder to remove from the wrong places if you let it dry.
When completed, let it dry, and them wipe over the whole thing with a clean shop rag and reinstall it on your bike and enjoy the vast improvement in its looks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
<1982 Honda Passport
<1982 Honda Passport
I have the best assistant!
tap bolt holes after painting for better grounds
clean up your bolts too
kept this sticker as is for shits & giggles
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.
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.
It all started out innocently enough, a guy I know just happened to post a picture of a dilapidated 1982 Honda Passport for sale on Facebook, and I thought that would make a great pit bike to putt around on at giant events like the Barber Vintage Motorsports Festival. So we worked out a trade and I dragged it home one night and with the help of my beautiful assistant got it running. Little did I know that it was just the first step to developing Scooter Mania.
We got it going and got all the paperwork straight and made it safe for the road so it could be thoroughly checked out. With my 230 pound self in the saddle it topped out at 41 mph, just a little above moped territory. Once it was determined that it was in great condition for the long haul, this little Honda C70 became a full blown restoration project. Here’s a shot of how it looks right now as I type this.
Next step to Scooter Mania came as a Honda Helix 250…
A short time later, the second more serious stage of Scooter Mania snuck up on me without warning. It started out innocently enough, with me listing my Suzuki TS185 for sale on Craigslist. Almost immediately, I got a message from someone offering to trade me a 2001 Honda Helix 250 for it. My initial reply was let me think about it a few days. Another scooter was not what I had in mind, in fact cash was the objective, partially to finance the restoration of the Passport but mainly so that I could purchase this cool 1/8 scale Redcat Racing RC dune buggy and mount my video camera to it for a future project that I have in mind.
After 3 or 4 day of irritating low ball offers and what seemed like a thousand scammers posing as U.S. military personnel, I sent the Helix owner a message & told him that I’d trade & we agreed to meet at a public location between his place & mine. The plan was never to keep the Helix, but to try and flip it on Ebay, but I made two mistakes. Mistake number one was that I rode it. Mistake number two was taking Mrs. Psyco out for a nice long ride on it. When we got back home she said that it is far more comfortable than any of my motorcycles. So I replied, “I guess we should make this one a long term adoption,” to which she replied yes. Now it’s sitting in the shop on brand new tires, and I’m waiting for the Ram mounts for the camera & GPS to get here. In the past it had crossed my mine that a maxi-scooter would make a fine touring rig, but a 650 Burgman or a Silverwing was what I was thinking of, not a Helix. Scooter Mania strikes again!
I hope this is not the start of another collection.
Of course the only downside is that scooter riders get no respect around here even though the Helix is larger and longer than most motorcycles, the first words out of every idiots mouth is moped. They don’t have a clue that there’s a whole lot more to the world of scooters than 50cc Chinese whiskey cycles. What’s really fun is when you are passing someone on a four lane highway and see the look on their faces as they realize that you are on a scooter. The really great thing about being the age I am now is that I no longer give a shit what anyone else thinks of what I ride, but am still young enough to enjoy it.
The Helix is bigger than a CB650
This doe not mean that Motopsyco’s Asylum will become a scooter blog, fine vintage motorcycles will always be my first love, late model stuff and ATVs will continue to be covered as well, just think of the scooters as one more cool thing we can have fun with! Just watch out, Scooter Mania can be very contagious.
Welcome to the Asylum 