Getting Bike on the Road

dmg422 wrote:

Any help would need appreciated.[img][/img]

Drugs might help.... other wise...Now its unsiezed you can wheel it back in the back of the garage for another 24 years.

They were a liability when they were new; Well fettled and set up, they were a pretty competent machine for the day; but as soon as they got a bit sloppy, they were bludy awful.

They had a habbit of the cam-chains snapping as soon as the warranty ran out, mashing the 16 valves into pistons, and destroying the notoriously weak cam chain tensioner.

Meanwhile, the inboard disc brakes were great as long as they were in adjustment, other wise a right royal pain in the arse, especially as they float around on a multi linkage that actuates the anti-dive mechanism; again, great when it worked, a right fucking nightmare when it was out of adjustment, and everything was a right royal pain in the arse to work on.

I was given one in 1989, that that came in card-board boxes; a lot of them with Honda logo on them and never opened; I just had to go collect the engine from the Honda mechanic who had rebuilt it over winter... two years earlier... and put it all together, with the new bits in the boxes, when its original owner had completely lost patience with it. Thoroughly 'sorted' it was an OK bike until the slop set in... and shortly after it was merciful stolen, saving me a lot of grief!

I would NOT have another. And I was looking at a CX650 Turbo 'project' the other night and almost half deluded myself it was a half sensible idea to try tackling!

Thirty years on? Well, a really well restored or absolutely original example might stir a little interest at a classic meet... mostly comments along the lines of "Oh my Gawd! I didn't think there were any of them left! Thought they'd all blown up long long ago!"

But, even in concourse condition, its not a bike that would be worth enough to justify restoring one. It would have to be a labour of love... and a lot of labour, and a lot of love.

Personally I wouldn't have even wasted the release oil on the thing, it's the tip of a very slippery ice-burg slope. BUT, if you have nothing better to do on long arctic winter nights? Get a Clymar manual for it; stock up on bourbon, and prepare to spend a lot of time, looking at the parts book, trying to identify and track down obscure bushes, pins and shims, and where many are now NLA in the Honda catalogue, trying to work out how to reclaim the ones you have, or find or make substitutions.

Tip; don't waste ANY money on stuff like new indicators, seat cover, paint, or equipment until you have made sure that you CAN make the brakes and suspension serviceable, AND the engine's not going to mash its valves before the first post renovation oil-change. Or you could end up with a very expensive pile of pretty painted scrap, rather than just a pile of siezed and corroded scrap.
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