What I see anytime I see an old Japanese classic left to rot…

Here we go again, I knew this old Honda was bad news the first time I saw it. Years of abandonment & sitting out in the weather had taken a severe toll on every single piece of it, how often do you see a rust hole in the top of a gas tank?

To make matters worse it is a 1980 model the first year Honda started using that sway backed horse looking frame designed to get the seat closer to the ground in hopes of getting more people into riding and thus increasing sales. And yet here it is sitting on my lift as I am evaluating its potential as a custom possibly a cafe racer. The S.C. inspection sticker on the fork is dated 1988, and this was probably the last time it was on the road as S.C. did away with inspections soon after. The carb float bowls were completely gummed up and one slide was frozen in its bore. But the residue cleaned out okay and corrosion was minimal leading me to suspect that it was pre-ethanol gasoline in the carburetors!. It actually fired up and ran after a fast & furious carb cleaning. Heck I even wire brushed the original spark plugs and stuck them back in as they all 4 spit great big blue sparks during my initial testing.

It actually was kind of anticlimactic, this ancient corroded cobweb covered corpse fired right up and ran like a Honda. I felt like some  necromancer in a fantasy story that had prepared a powerful magic spell to reanimate the dried bones of a dead dragon only to have it sit up, yawn and say, “well that was a nice little nap,” before I could cast my spell.

It did smoke a little but there were no strange noises, not even a cam chain rattle. Since the engine is very rough looking cosmetically and I like to be as close to 100% sure about my motorcycles as possible,the next step in this evaluation is to pull the engine from the frame & take the head off and have a look inside. If all looks fixable I start renewing this bike in earnest beginning with an engine overhaul.

Although I try to kid myself that I am still evaluating this thing, I did purchase a set of wire wheels that I spotted on Ebay at a good price, & to crank it up I bought a new Shorai LFX battery for it. Experience tells me that I should wind up with around 3-4 thousand dollars in a motorcycle that might be worth 2 grand at the most. :O

Shorai LFX the best motorcycle battery money can buy.

Help here I go again 🙂