Frame and Cycle Parts

The bike is clearly in poor condition and pretty much needs to be stripped in order to be cleaned, checked, repainted and rebuilt. I started this cheerfully enough but sadly during the process I discovered serious cracking in the frame. I COULD weld it, but not being professional I dont think it would be safe and I'd never trust it. At that point this stopped being a repair job and I simply stripped the frame bare. I'll try to find a replacement to use for the rebuild.

 The Front Wheel

I didnt think that there was much wrong with the front wheel but it was always my intention to rebuild it... and as Im waiting for parts now seems like a good opportunity. This is a shot of the business side of the fr wheel- the brake plate with connections for speedo cable and brake cable. 15mm axle nut also visible althpuigh from this side its the bolt head, the nut is on the opposite side.

Disconnect the cables- loosen the brake adjuster and push the arm back against the spring until the barrel nipple can be slipped out of the arm fork.

Then pull the cover forward compresing the spring unti the cable can be slipped out of the hub boss.

The speedo cable is a push fit in the hub and held in place by a cross head screw (M4 16mm). This was my first problem as  it was very tight and the head was mashed. There is no point in drilling the head off as its the shaft f the screw that holds the cable so it has to be unscrewed properly.

I opted to wait until the brake plate was off as access would be better then. I could then Dremmel a groove, and use a flat head screwdriver to remove it.. Did cause some damage to the brakeplate but not much. Pic below shows... note this is out of sequence.

Groove dremmeled in screw so that it could be undone.

Unscrew the axle nuts with opposite spanners, mine were hellishly tight

Remove the nut from the lhs of the bike (no washer beneath). Note the oil seal collar between the hub and the leading link on the lhs.

.. and tap the wheel spindle out towards the rhs

The wheel will then drop out and can be finagled out of the forks. Note the bike may be unstable during this so support it properly--- in my case it fell over and broke the legshields (Blast).

Brake Plate

The brake plate can be pulled off the wheel. In my case it came away qith the speedo cable still in place (see above)

The brakes looked to be a mess. The shoes might be contaminated but I'll see if the grease is superficial or penetrating. They might be saveable as there's a lot of lining left and a new pair is expensive. Obviously not compromising on safety- if they don't work they'll be replaced.

The speedo drive gear is located inside the brakeplate with a large oil seal. See on for the role of this seal as the speedo drive seems to share grease with the wheel bearing on this side. The cable drive worm gear meshes with the wheel-driven gear to register the speed. However in my case the speedo appears to be in trouble. Firstly the  washer has lugs that engage with the hub and so turn it when the hub turns. This rotates the gear, which should be fixed to the washer, and thus the worm drive as well. However in my case the lugs themselves are badly damaged and I doubt could have engaged properly with the hub..  

Speedo drive note that the washer should have 2 clear lugs to drive it with the hub.. these are missing/badly worn. The washer itself should be a tight press fit onto the drive gear but it s loose and doesnt even fit onto the speedo gear lug. A clear space is visible to 12 O'clock. It should be tightly pressed on.

Secondly the washer is supposed to be pressed on tightly to the wheel-driven gear and the two are supplied by Honda as a unit. You can see that in my case the washer cut-out isn't quite in alignment with the driven gear boss. In fact this washer was loose and could be detached from the drive gear entirely! Id never tested the speedo on this bike as it was hard enough to push it, but it looks like it wouldn't have worked anyway.

Here the washer has been lifted away revealing the worm drive gear and drive gear.

The speedo drive unit can be lifted out although in my case it was clearly in 2 parts. Note the straight edges of the lug on the gear that should press tightly into the cutout. In my case the washer cutout appears to be too large, and the driving lugs at 12 and 6 O'clock are badly worn/damaged. Ideally I would replace the entire unit but these are no longer available so I will have to find a better repair.

Im going to park the speedo at this point as I'm going to need to chase some bits and rebuild it correctly. 

Brake shoes

In the meantime I'll remove the brake shoes. Unusually these shoes actually fit over a mounting pin on the barke plate- you can see this in the pic below. Usually shoes would simply be held by spring pressure and often can be removed by levering the shoes upwards and together. Not so in this case as the locating pin prevents any such movement. 

I had to lever up the spring which I did near the pin although I think it might be better over the shoes them selves.

Im going to have to recheck this process as the puicture seems to show a loose washer on between the speedo drive and the brake backplate that has been raised by the dislodged spring. This isnt shown in my parts book but it does seem that something is in this position in the diagrams for the USA bike shown on sites like CMSNL.  I don't have such a washer so I'll need to see if I've mislaid it.

Brake spring detached, note that it seems like there may be a washer displaced by the spring.. if so I think I've lost it!

Once the spring was removed the shoes lift out easily and I put them to clean in brake cleaner and clean all components in the sonicator.

Bearings

Both of these are are pressed into the hub, not the brake plate.  i started by levering out the oil seal on the outside of the hub.

Oil seal removed, bearing below covered in grease.


and here, cleaned.


Normally I would tap the bearings out from the oppositie side usin a sharp drify to engage with thew junction between ionternal spacer and the bearing itself, In this case I can't because the spacer actually penetrates the bearing so there is no join ridge to target. You have to tap on the spacer end itself and for this really to need a stepped drift that fits perfectly... I don't have one so used the closest drift I have which did mess up the ends of the spacer which I then had to ream back to round so that the spindle could pass through.

spacer and bearings removed.
I could then tap the new bearings in... I used double shielded bearings to reduce the amount of grease needed and increase the environmental protection since the bearing is now protected by both oil seal and bearing shield. However there is an issue on the right hand side where the parts list shows a second oil seal... however this wasnt present when dismantled, and  on fitting the bearing, there is no space to then add an oil seal. I conclude that this is an error in the parts book and instead of its own seal, this side seems to rely on the large oil seal that contains the grease for the speedo drive.

I marked the brake lever and brake cam shadt to aid in realignment.

Loosened the arm nut

And levered the splitin the arm apart to release the splines

I could then remove the brake cam spindle, clean it and its housing before lightly greasing with copperplate and refitting everyone.

I have the oil seal for the hub now but I'm still stymied on the speedometer drive so I'll continue with the wheel later.

The Front suspension

I was hoping that the leading link fr suspension would be in good condition  but sadly there proved to be a lot of play. In extremis I coukd make up the parts but its a lot of work but luckily the bushes are still (just) available as a set so I ordered one. This doesnt come with the bush "seals" of which I will need 8 and these are no longerxavailBe as a set . The odd single is around for appx £7 which is far too much. Anyay I removed and cleaned the cushion parts which were filthy.

I needed to remove the wheel and since the bike now had none I laid it on its side. Gebeal view of exterior of suspension mount.

Sice 

The large vulnerable us 15mm and passes hriuh the fork leg I a metal sleeve and a bush.

The shock absorber (cushion) is held in the leg by a single 10mm nut.. its awkward but easily removed.

I'm working on the lowermost leg in this attitude so pix are looking down on the inside of the leg.

Remove the 15mm nut and push the bilt through. This also retains the legshield and tax disc holder if present

The leading link and shock absorber come out as a unit. The through bolt was tight so I held it in the vice to unscrew. Make sure you unscrew the nut first as its essentially a lock nut... the shock absorber fork is also threaded and the bolt is screwed into that.i held the bolt head in the vice to unscrew the nut.

The shock is now as far apart as I want to take it. I could see the rubber stop inside the spring, if necessary the spring will unscrew from both the lower fork and upper mount but I didn't need to do that so  a good clean is in order.

Looking at the leading link it's clear all bushes have disintegrated and all will need replacing. The 15mm bolt is also loose in its sleeve and luckily these are included in the new kit. The smaller 19mm bolt has no sleeve and is not included but I think it will be reusable.

OOOPS Sadly during my working  discovered that the worn centre stand mounting wasn't actually a worn mounting at all; but a cracked and split frame. Sadly this isn't repairable so I'm going to have to cut my losses. I'm not sure at present whether to buy another frame and rebuild on that, or whether to simply sell the usable components. This will probably depend on the state of the motor once I get into it. If its not rebuildable then using another frame is a non-starter. In any event, the frame I have needs stripping, so I may as well get on with that whilst I consider further.

I removed the pedals, pedal shaft and frame bushes before I remembered to take photos! 

The following are a few pre-strip shots to remind me what was where. The bike is upside down in these pics.

Chainguard attaching screws (removed for storage.

I removed things in no particular order, the bicycle chain tensioner I held by 2 10mm bolts, a bracket is attached to the rearward, I think for the exhaust mounting.

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The the centre stand... Remove the spring by levering it off (its under tension).

Withdraw the split pin from the shaft, remove the washer beneath and tap the shaft out through the mounting bracket. 

centre stand shaft being removed.

I removed the rear mudguard, this is  attached to the number plate holder at the rear by 2 bolts through the holder, mudguard and into a bracket inside (one missing in my case). 

Plate inside mudguard- one screw missing, one rusted.

A further bolt at the bottom of the number plate holder is fitted through the mudguard but pulled through in my case, I will need to fit a plate if/when I reassemble. There is one final bolt on the top of the mudguard to a bracket below the saddle. 

Top fastening rear mudguard under saddle

The rear light and no plate carrier were removed next, I'd already released the bracket inside the rear mudguard but there were 2 other bolts to the tank frame below the toolkit box which unscrewed easily, revealing two brown wires. The stump of the screw I had drilled out inside the mudguard was still present. Sadly I didn't realise how this was fitted and tried to screw it through the holder... wrong way! In the end I had to drill the stud out and this also destroyed the weld nut on the plate carrier... I will need to replace in order to refit.

two screws to tank rear unfastened.

Finally there are two electrical connections to the rear light... a brown wire that passes up the tank support leg.. 

... and a second that earths the light to the frame just below the tank.

 

Earth wire--tatty bare wire connection.

I removed both and the number plate holder/rear light was free.

I removed the front mudguard (2 bolts to the front fork above the mudguard) and the stays... which were already free in my case as I'd removed the suspension links and shocks already.

Front mudguard forward mounting screws The chain tensioner The tensioner had already been removed. It was stiff and choked in hardened grease and fibres (grass?).  I cleaned it up in the sonicator, the chain guide wheel was very worn with flattened teeth and was wobbling on its mount. The nut holding the guide wheel spindle was very tight so  gripped the rivet end in the vice and unscrewed the nut. This released the chain guide itself which could slide out from beneath the rivet head and the nut on the opposite side as its forked at the end. The spindle was dismantled. And then the components of the guide wheel were separated. Finally the guide wheel spindle was separated revealing the central bolt and sleeve that passes through the wheel. All components were cleaned again. Fortunately a 10T guide wheel is as used in many bicycles and a new wheel was easily obtained for rebuilding the tensioner. Final stripping At this stage most of the ancilliaries had been removed but several cables and the wiring loom remained in the frame and the forks/headlight horn were still attached and the handlebars in place. Rear brake cable extends from the lever through the frame to the rear frame. The cable passes up inside the frame. It attaches at this frame bracket for adjustment Loosen the locknuts an the adjusted comes free. The handlebar end of the cable emerges through the grommet shared with the decompression cable Cable lever attachments shown below. The grommets lever out so that the cables could be withdrawn. The decompression cable will require a new inner, the rear brake cable needs repair to the outer. The front brake was already disconnected at the wheel since the wheel had been removed. The front brake will need a little attention to the outer. The wiring loom is disconnected at the headlamp union... it is a series of colour coded wire bullet connections. These all unclip. Loom emerges from frame and connects to headlamp. Wiring connections inside headlight. Unclip the bullets to the horn- again colour coded. Once unclipped the loom can be pulled through towards the front of the bike. Wiring to the horn and button push remains on the handlebars. The speedo is a push fit in the nacelle. Its quite tight so do not lever the rim from the top as it will brake. It can be progressively tapped out by supporting the nacelle and using a socket and extn bar over the speedo cable connectioon. Handlebars removed as in a normal bicycle.. loosen the clamp rod top nut and the tap it downwards to release the taper. The bars and any remaining horn/wiring can be pulled out. I removed the fuel tap although the fuel tank itself is useless and rusted through.. I removed the rear tank steady stays (2 off, 10 mm nuts) I will disconnect the forks later. Final stripping involved removing the number (stamped on the centre stand bracket). I just cut this off with a grinder, don't think I'll need it but I might?. There are two fram infill brackets in the top and bottom forward cones of the rear frame triangle. I e heard that these are mot always present in all frames and are even shown as separate pieces on the parts diagram. I'll remove these and store in case I find I need them later. In my frame both are just spotwelded on Nd we're easily removed with spotweld dri ll bits. I but the number bracket and the two frame brackets to derust in citric. Lower rear triangle bracket Centre-stand bracket showing frame number. Removing the forks. As the bars were off removing the forks was straightforward.  Firstly undo the top stem nut. It was cutouts that shouksxaccept a hook spanner altjough in my case they were too small and didn't fit so I raped the nut round with a punch. Tapping the top stem nut Removing the top stem nut exposed the lower stem nut which includes the upper section of the top race. This unscrewed with the C spanner and then easily by hand.   This exposed the upper race bearings...sadly there was little if any grease remaining here. I removed and disposed of the balls. The forks now slide out of the frame, shedding balls from the lower race as they do so. The lower race remains as 1 part in the frame steering tube and one part on top of the forks themselves. Fork lower race, lower section on top of the forks themselves cleandafter the balls were removed The other races remain in the frame steering tube and are simply tapped off on case the new frame doesn't come with the races Races tapped out. Final stage was to remove the air filter box Nd contents plus its cover. The other side of the housing has an aluminised Honda sticker which I removed with a hot air gun. I slso removed the Honda holographic label un the same way. Site of holographic label removed with Heat gun.