All posts by andrew

New Arrival – 1971 Honda C50

March 7, 2025Honda C50-1971andrew

A friend put me onto this Trademe listing for a C50. It was just up the road and was a good price so I pressed the buy now button and here we go again 😀

2k Clear coat bonnet repair

December 29, 2023Random Stuffandrew

The clear coat has been peeling on my car’s bonnet pretty much ever since I got it.
I had about 400ml of 2k clear left over from doing the coffee table and the weather was spot on.
It’s not quite as good as it looks in the pictures but is pretty darned good. I’ll let it fully cure and after a wet sand I think it will be fine.

CG110/125 5 speed transmission conversion

December 17, 2023Honda CG125/CG110-1980-Goldie, MotorbikesHonda CG110, Honda CG125 5 speed conversionandrew

I’ve struggled for ages to get used to the 4 speed all down shift pattern on my CG110.

A couple of years ago I bought a 5 speed transmission from AliExpress. Today I tried it in some spare cases I have. It looks like it’s going to work.

Front fork swap done

August 26, 2023Harley Davidson SX 175, Motorbikesandrew

I swapped the stantions from the donor roller “easy rider” bike this week. Drained the oil and refilled with ATF. There was a lot of water and gunk in them. Flushed them out before refilling.

Crankcase washout

August 13, 2023Harley Davidson SX 175, Motorbikesandrew

The SX175 rustoration continues. We’ve got the transmission shifting. We got all the water out of it and then filled it to the top with a mix of diesel, turps and petrol (our parts washer brew). Worked it free, seems ok.
Today we worked on getting the water out of the crankcase. Getting the cylinder off was a challenge, there was a lot of packed in dirt around the cylinder retaining nuts. Genuine Queensland red dirt that had set like cement.
After we got the cylinder off we put our small parts washer under the bike and piped the fluid into the crankcase to flush out the mayonnaise.
Piston ring gap is 1.6mm 😂 but the cylinder looks have little wear and came up good enough after a light hone. Piston will do, it’s not terrible.
We’re definitely going to need some new piston rings.

New Project Harley Davidson SX 175

July 28, 2023Harley Davidson SX 175, MotorbikesHarley Davison 2 Stroke, Harley Davison restoration, Harley Davison SX 175, Vintage Harley Davisonandrew

Winter is our slowest period for service work so my boss Richard has brought his Harley Davison SX 175 in for some work. We’re going to keep the patina, going for a rustoration. I’ve already cleaned upthe clutch side components. It doesn’t want to shift gears (unsurprising as the transmission only had water in it instead of oil) so next steps will be to fill the transmission with diesel and try and free it up. The crankshaft and cylinder and piston seem ok 😀

Hydraulic Work bench improvements

June 2, 2023Random Stuffandrew

I managed to disable some of the safety systems in our repurposed wheel chair lift, they’re not required as we are not using it for its original intended purpose.

I added a 2 way joystick control which is much easier to use than the double toggle switches it came with.

Next step is to fabricate a frame to hold the front wheel of a motorcycle 🙂