Old Motorcycle Repair

[Art Shirk]

Before my good friend bolted down to the St. Croix for an extended work bout, he left me his 1967 Honda motorcycle. At the time, it barely run, sputtering and hicupping. It had run well previously, and my friend thought it just needed a tune up, i.e. something in the carb department, and just a good system flush.

That was a year ago, and now my buddy is coming back to town to stay. His birthday is coming up in a month or so and I figured I would see if I could get this thing running. I have moderate automotive technical ability, but have never worked on a motorcycle, nor one this old.

Anyone in the Seattle area want to make some money helping me fix this thing? I may be overly optimistic but I think I need to clean the carb, dial it in, get a few new tires, maybe flush the fuel and make sure the damn brake lines are working. Of course, I will pay for all parts, will supply the garage and tools, will get you as drunk as you want, and will pay a good wage.

If I get no bites, can anyone in Seattle recommend a shop that may take on such a specific task?

[Crystal_Mt_Dreamin]

Damn, wish I was in town again this weekend to help out, love working on bikes even if I'm not the greatest at it. May want to add checking the gas tank for rust to your list. One thing I discovered (and you'll probably soon discover...) when I had an older bike was that NOBODY wanted to touch it, fortunately we have a local traveling mechanic that will work on older bikes here in the Bay area.

[SuperChief]

Drain gas from carb remove and take to a shop with a hydrosonic cleaner.

Change airfilter, fuel filter, sparkplug, oil, oil filter.
bleed brakes or flush lines and replace fluid.
check drum brake shoes
Check fuel tank for rust.
New Battery.
lube speedo cable
get shop to do tires, they suck w/o the right levers.

If you have the tools you can do this.

[Art Shirk]

Drain gas from carb remove and take to a shop with a hydrosonic cleaner.

Change airfilter, fuel filter, sparkplug, oil, oil filter.
bleed brakes or flush lines and replace fluid.
check drum brake shoes
Check fuel tank for rust.
New Battery.
lube speedo cable
get shop to do tires, they suck w/o the right levers.

If you have the tools you can do this.

Thanks guys. I figurd I would be able to do the job, but the risk v. reward is pretty high if my buddy is hoofing it down Aurora and his brakes fail I do have a line now on a shop in town that takes care of this sort of thing but it looks cost prohibitive.

BUMP for any other Seattlites who may be able to review my "work."

[Badger]

Sorry man, I'm a former Seattleite stuck here in god's country.

I do, however, have a 1967 Honda CL77 Scrambler (which is sweeeeet), and a Clymers manual for the same.

So, any easy questions I can answer. More technical stuff, check out http://www.honda305.com.

In particular, there's a tuning procedure for the Honda 77 series on there that is absolutely bulletproof: http://www.honda305.com/fr/cb77_F11.htm

Follow that to the letter and anything that can be tuned will be tuned. It's pretty simple, really, no special tools required.

Someone on there can probably point you to a mechanic in Puget Sound, too. Another good site is http://www.vjmc.org - that one gets more traffic, but there's less Honda expertise.

Good luck. If you pull it off, you'll be a great friend.

[Art Shirk]

Badger, thanks much for all the great info. Really appreciate it.

[Bud]

Southend Cycles in South Seattle/White Center does good work on older bikes. I got an old XS650 (my cafe racer project) overhauled there last fall and was real happy with the job they did.

[bedoe]

Before you bother to do any of that, take off the gas cap and run you finger around the inside of the tank and see if there is much rust. if there is you have to address this first, if not it will undo all the good work you want to do for your friend. Cool thing to do for him, if for some reason I find myself coming that way this weekend I would love to check it out for you and let you need to know what it is you need to do for it.

[Art Shirk]

Thanks for the recco bud, I will call them as well.

And bedoe, thanks for the pointer. I fear there may be some rust...but we will take it one step at a time. Shoot me a PM if you are coming to this side of the mountains...beers on me.