Diligence

Wow. It's been a bit since the last post. Here's what's happening. Getting the wheels torn down was high on my priority list. It's one of the areas that needs a bit of work and replacement parts. New spokes, bearings, and paint are all on the agenda, but first the bearing retainers needed to come out. The front wheel retainer needed a special tool from Honda to remove, but since I didn't have one, a hammer and punch would have to do the trick. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work, so I recruited the help Tony from work. He brought it home and worked some kind of magic on it. In order to be able to use a more standardized tool in the future, it needs the grooves to be widened out, so that has been started, but is still on the to do list.

How such a small piece of aluminum could cause such a fuss...

Once that was out I sprayed down the rim with PB and let it sit overnight before starting to de-lace it. There wasn't a ton of rust, but I could tell it was going to give me a hard time. They came apart without much of a struggle, but it just took forever. I can tell that putting new spokes on is going to take a long time.

Rusty spokes. Mmm.

The rear wheel was next, and the retainer, though different from the front, was quite a hassle. After about 30 min of wrestling with it, I finally got it out and tore the wheel down.

The Devil.

There's so much cleaning to do on this bike, it's hard to keep it all in order. Since I was working on the wheels, I figured that's what I would work on cleaning next. The wire brush, grinding wheel, and Mother's metal polish did most of the damage. Here are some before and afters.

Front hub before.

Front hub after.

Wheels. Clean and not clean.

There's still a lot of prep work to do on the wheels and hubs since they're going to get painted. I also got really ambitious with the alternator cover. It looked like shit and I just couldn't take it anymore. So I cleaned it up and painted the Honda logo. I'm probably going to strip that paint out and hand paint it with the black auto paint that I'm doing the frame with, but I just wanted to see what it would look like. I like it.

That's all the photographic evidence that I have for now. Since there are parts spread all over the garage, and the frame and tank are somewhere else, I've been having trouble visualizing how I actually want this bike to look when its done and what needs to happen to get it there. I suppose that the priorities are the service related parts. Today I compiled a list of the items that I need to acquire. Well, I guess I don't NEED to get everything on the list, but I would feel better about the finished product with all of these parts in place.

Steering stem bearings

Front wheel bearings/seals

Rear wheel bearings/seals

Chrome spoke set

Fork dust covers

Front sprocket

Rear sprocket

Front tire tube

Engine hardware kit (allen bolt style- no more philips)

Engine gasket set

Petcock seal

Kickstart shaft

Headlight bracket

Turn signals

Brake light/plate bracket

Rear sets

Mufflers

Brake pads

Brake shoes

Air filters

My next step should be chopping the extra tabs and inner fender off the frame and working out where I'm going to mount the foot pegs, rear fender, and work on seat design. Then sand and prime the frame.  I though about trying to clean all the parts before starting to rebuild, but I don't think I have the patience for that. We'll see. 

If at first you don't succeed, switch to powertools.

It's been a handful of days since the last post, so I've got some ground to cover. Please bear with me. At the end of the last post, I was going to have a second attempt at removing the drain plug so that I could drain the oil and get the engine out of the frame. Well here it is.

Soaking it in PB overnight definitely helped, but it was still a hernia-inducing removal. And that was before I tried to get the motor out of the frame. If anyone has read one of those non-OEM service manuals, they'll understand that when it says "lift and slide the engine out the left side of the frame", it actually means "Stand over the bike and strain to lift and wiggle the 100 lb, awkwardly-shaped metal object until you can wrangle it around the 12 different tabs and bolt that are in your way.  There won't be enough clearance with the drain plug in, so remove it with your right hand while balancing the right side of the motor on the left side of the frame with your left hand. Once the remaining oil from the engine has poured out all over the floor, you will be able to force the engine the rest of the way out of the frame. You can then heave it onto the milk crate that you have set aside just for this occasion. Undoubtedly, the one of the previous owners of the motorcycle will have sprayed silver paint all over one side of the engine, which will now be all over your arms. Have a drink to celebrate!"

I did have some time to clean up the garage, which was looking like a tornado has run through it. Once organized, I wanted to throw the new tank on it to get an idea of how its going to look. I've decided that the paint is nice enough that I'll leave the stock paint intact, buy I might re-clear it just for some added protection.

The next task was to remove the swingarm, rear wheel, center stand, and brake pedal. Both the swingarm pin and rear axle must have been put on by the same sasquatch that did the drain bolt, because they were a bitch to get off. I could understand tightening hardware to that extent if this was a Harley, but it's a 200cc Honda. It's not going to vibrate so badly that it all falls apart.

At any rate, the swingarm pin had no lubrication on it what-so-ever. Good start. The rear axle was quite similar. With the rear wheel and swingarm off, the center stand and brake pedal were next on the hit list. There is a hollow axle/pin that runs through the pedal and center stand. Once I took the cotter pin and bolt off the end, I started to tap it out. It move a bit and then froze. Then I hit it harder. No dice. It seems that many years of sitting on the center stand had bent the pin just enough to make it not want to come out.

To keep it short, there was a lot of hammering involved. I got in far enough that I could get the brake pedal off, but I still had a long way to go for the center stand. After a while, I needed a break from that area, so I moved on to the front end.

I had already removed the front end once, so it wasn't a big deal the second time. I wanted to take the triple tree off this time. I had intended on changing the stem bearings anyway, but this only enforced my decision.

I wanted to try and clean up the frame a bit, since I'm going to be painting it first. It looks like it had a bunch of spots painted with a brown paint a one point. Probably to cover up some rust spots. There are a lot of areas that are going to need some serious sanding.

The tires were going to have to come off so that I can replace the spokes and paint the wheels, so I removed the rear sprocket, brake assembly, and one of the bearings.

The other bearing isn't going to be as easy to remove. There is some kind of dust cover that goes over it that is going to have to be removed before I can knock it out. There isn't any instruction for removing wheel bearings in the service manual ("you'll never have to change those..."), so rather than just try and force it out, I'm going to leave it for now and do some interweb research.

The front wheel has a similar situation, only I can tell that the dust cover needs to be unscrewed. It looks like I need some kind of specific tool to take care of it. Hopefully I can locate a tool that will do the job.

Yesterday, I got back to the center stand with a new strategy.

Killin' is my business. And business is...well, slow. This is a recession after all.

I bow to no sponsors, but my Rockwell SoniCrafter really kicks ass. Whether you're cutting through steel pins or buffing aluminum, it has the power and the versatility to get the job done. Dear Rockwell, please send me as many free accessories as possible.

Once that was over with, brought the frame to the shop to pressure wash the frame and dismount the tires from the rims. At this point, I had made a royal mess of my workspace again, but I really didn't feel like cleaning up. Onward.

Organization is the key to success.

I wanted to make some things shiny, so I took a few minutes (maybe it was an hour) to use the wire wheel on some parts. Its amazing what that thing will do to aluminum and rusty steel. I hit one of the forks, front sprocket cover, and top triple clamp. Amazing.

Still pitted, but not rusty.

Krylon touch paint job. Gone.

Why they painted that silver, I have no idea.

One of the parts that I had originally intended on changing was the kick starter. I REALLY wanted that to be functional since that's one of my favorite parts about these old bikes. It's an internal part, so I wasn't going to get into it yet. However, I found a used kick start assembly on Ebay (the first I've seen so far) so I though I'd look into it.

All the screws on the engine case were loosened already since they're being replaced (no more stripped-out philips head screws), so I started in on the motor. Again, there are no specific instructions in the manual for replacing the kick start (I'm starting to think I should get a Honda service manual), so I just started taking things apart.

Now I can add gaskets to my list of parts to buy.

The left side came off much easier than the right. Once both sides were off, I quickly realized that in order to get into the kick start mechanism, I would have to completely disassemble the motor. The motor is not something that I had originally intended on taking apart. External parts are one thing, but internal components are kind of a handful. Granted, if I'm going to do it, a nice small motor like this is probably the one to do it on. But I wanted to get this done in a relatively quick fashion, and an engine rebuild is not the way to do that.

So that's where I'm at. Decisions, decisions. More to come.

Electric mayhem, Frozen Nuts, and Homebrew.

I've managed to tear down quite a bit more over the past two days. Exhaust, wiring harness, foot pegs, kick stand, carburetors, and front forks.

Saturday

I really wanted to get the engine out before removing the forks, but the drain bolt is frozen solid, so I couldn't drain the oil. I gave it a good PB bath, hit it with a hammer, swore at it, and even tried to use a wrench.

My arch enemy.

I think that an impact gun would most likely get the job done, but that is not on my list of current tools, so I moved on.

The wiring harness was starting to drive me nuts, so that was next to go. Unlike most never bikes, the headlight bucket is the Grand Central Station of wiring. Everything meets up in there. It's horrifying.

I managed to feed the wiring harness from the back through the frame and disconnected the clutch and tach cables. Now I'm left with a giant mess of wires and components that includes the headlight, switch housings, and gauge cluster, but at least I can stuff it in the corner and forget about it for a while.

The exhaust was simple to remove, though I still need to disconnect the mufflers from the head pipes. The mufflers are rusted through in a few spots on the bottom, but someone with a welder could probably fix them well enough. I've got lots of rust to remove on the headers, though. They'll probably end up getting painted black since there's no way to restore the original finish.

 

Saturday's handiwork.

Sunday

Today consisted of removing the tool kit, driver pegs, kick stand, and front forks. I was surprised at how much of a pain the tool kit was to remove. It's only two bolts, but the sit inside the frame where you only can fit a small 10mm wrench and move it about 1" at a time. Once it's gone, it really frees up a lot of space. 

The foot pegs and kick stand weren't a big deal other than the fact that they are covered in grease, oil, and dirt. They'll clean up nicely. It was time to move on to the front end.

For starters, I've got to get a stopper tab welded back onto the lower triple clamp because one it broken off. So now the forks swing all the way to the left and will hit the tank if left that way. The forks were covered with rubber boots and the headlight clamps, and the rust stains on the fork lowers made me nervous for what I would find when I took them off. 

Sure enough, there was plenty of rust to go around. Fortunately, not on anywhere that really matters. Once the forks were pulled, I decided that I should drain them. I'm pretty sure that one of them had water in it. There wasn't much fluid in either, and it did not look very healthy. New fork seals and fresh oil will be very nice for them. 

Fresh Honey Cream Ale. Yum.

30 year old fork oil. Not yum.

Rusty forks. 

I've started to do some polishing and cleaning to see what is salvageable. Some of the chrome parts will be getting painted anyway, so I'm not too worried them. The rear shocks will clean up nicely (I'll post pics later). Tomorrow I'm going to give the oil plug another shot. 

In the beginning...

1974 Honda CB200T Rebuild

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog. I will be using this space to document and share my experiences during the process of rebuilding a 1974 Honda CB200T motorcycle. This is my first time tearing a bike down to the frame and rebuilding it, so it should be a lot of fun. The point is not to restore the bike to its original factory condition, but to transform it into a nice little cafe racer. Its been on my to-do list for a while now, so I'm excited to get started!

A Little History

There's really not much to tell about the history of the bike. I purchased it from a woman in Hampton, NH  a few weeks ago. She had rescued it from a barn somewhere and gotten it running again. It was her first bike, and she used it mainly to run around town with it. 

Condition

The bike is in pretty good condition to start with. It has it's share of rust and corrosion, but has good bones. The main areas of concern are the gas tank, the exhaust, and the wheels. 

Aside from the cosmetic condition of the tank, it has some rust in it. Not a huge deal, but something that needs to be taken care of. Since I have not yet had the pleasure of de-rusting the interior of a tank, I wanted to try and find one that was already in good shape that I could get to work with immediately. That would allow me to take my time with the original one, do it right, and just sell it later. I was able to find a beautiful, rust-free tank on eBay for $165.

My plan is to replace the mufflers with a set of up swept megaphones, so the fact that both of the pipes have holes in the bottoms really doesn't matter too much. The difficulty will be adapting a set of universal mufflers to work properly. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a decent set for about $100. 

The wheels aren't bent, which is a good place to start. They do have a good amount of rust and corrosion, and the spokes are pretty well rusted. My plan is to replace the spokes and paint the wheels black, which I think will look pretty good. 

 

The Tear Down

I had my first tear-down session the other night, and things went pretty well. There are a handful of parts that will NOT be going back on the bike, such as the huge turn signals, brake light assembly, side covers, mirrors, passenger pegs, and seat. I'll clean those items up and put them up on eBay so that I can help pay for some of the new parts. If anyone is interested in those items, feel free to contact me. 

Though I have a service manual for the bike, I'll be taking a ton of photos so that I can figure out how to put this thing back together. My main concern is the electrical, even though there isn't much of it. 

I gave most of the bolts a good dousing of PB Blaster, since I just assume that they're all going to give me a hard time. I've been mostly right so far. At this point, I still have a very limited amount of tools at my disposal, but hopefully I will continue to acquire more as the project continues. At this point, I've mainly been using 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm sockets and wrenches. I guess that's one of the nice things about these older bikes. 

The seat and rear fender came off without too much trouble. The battery box and assorted electrical components was slightly more time consuming. 

I was also able to get to working on the front end a bit, but mainly just removing the handlebars. Next time around, I'll be posting my progress on removing the tank, rear shocks, front fender, and controls/cables. Stay tuned!