C95 project

[Geoff Hastings]

Wheels are in, chain and cover fitted and the loom laid in. Took me a while to figure out the location of the coil and flasher unit as the bike was totally stripped when I bought it. Another oversight on my part was the alloy rear indicator housings, I’d not noticed two screws were snapped off, it would have been better to try extracting them on the bench. I’ll try my left handed drill bits but if that fails I’ll have to remove the rear shocks and the alloy castings and see what I can do then.

[Geoff Hastings]

The little Honda nears completion, a bit more wiring to sort out and the exhaust mounting/footrest/rear brake pedal is giving me a bit of grief. I managed to remove the snapped off screws holding the rear indicator lenses, I’ve ordered new screws and hope the thread pitch is correct. I’ve had to order different hand grips as I originally toyed with the idea of spraying the bike yellow and bought some yellow grips but they would clash with the red! Once the battery arrives and the wiring is finished I’ll have a go at starting it.

[Geoff Hastings]

Well, I finished the last bit of the wiring, fitted the battery, all ok. Checked for sparks, no sparks! Cleaned the points, now we have sparks. Put some fuel in, pushed the button and away it went. Great! Next morning I gave it a little buzz round the cul de sac and noticed a leak from the tap, or so I thought. Drained the tank, took the tap off, all seemed ok but cleaned the mating surface and fitted another o-ring and refitted the tap. In went some more fuel and still a leak. Got myself a mirror and a bright light and there it was, a bloody pinhole. The inside of the tank was mint, no rust at all so I hadn’t tested it before spraying it. Anyway, drain the tank again and stick the airline in it and blast any remaining vapour out, this I did several times till I was convinced it was safe to fire up the blow torch. A couple of minutes later and the hole was soldered up. I then pressure tested the repair before repainting the damaged area, luckily it was just the area around the tap so I just brush painted the area, not ideal but I couldn’t face having to respray the whole tank.

[Geoff Hastings]

Now ready to join its big brother. At first glance they look almost identical but side by side you can see almost everything is different.

[Muddy]

Great job - looks awesome!

[Geoff Hastings]

Cheers Muddy, it wasn’t top of my list of bikes to own but it came along at the right time and was nearly complete which make a change.

[Geoff Hastings]

I can’t believe it, the DVLA finally returned my reg document, I added the bike to the insurance, rode it to the garage to fill the tank and within a couple of miles the tank sprung another leak. This time on the other side of the tank so not the original leak. The strange thing is the tank is really clean inside which is why the pin holes are a bit of a surprise. I had a bit of a nervous ride home with fuel dripping onto the hot engine but no disasters occurred. Drain the tank again, put the airline in it to disperse the fumes, give it a while then blast the inside again and then fire up the blow torch. No Big Bang so I guess I got all the fumes out before soldering up the pin hole. Pressure test the repair and use some soapy water on all the seams just in case. All seemed ok again so I dried off the repair before hand painting the bottom of the tank. I looked at the previous repair and the hand painting is really not too bad, it seems to have settled to a reasonable finish. I just need this bloody weather to improve before the next test ride.