Fixing Up A Barn Bike

[turtle racer]

A couple of years ago my father-in-law calls and tells me his buddy has an old motorcycle in his barn and if I’m interested he will bring it over. He did not know the make, model, or year. In the back of my brain I was imagining some rare vintage motorcycle that been hermetically preserved, so I said “I’ll take it”.
When my father-in-law showed up I recognized the bike as a Honda Dream, but I was having a hard time telling where the crud stopped and the bike started. The engine was not seized, but the back wheel wouldn’t roll. It was one of those “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” situations.
After hosing it off and identifying it as a 1964 CA77, it sat my shed for about a year, while I tackled some household repairs.

YOU CAN ONLY SEE THE PICTURES IF YOU ARE LOGGED IN.

[turtle racer]

About 18 months ago my son and I completely disassembled the bike. It was/is in rough shape with a lot of pitting, dents, crack, and missing parts but structurally it seemed repairable. The deciding factor as to attempt reassembly was the condition of the cylinders and pistons. They were perfect. In hindsight, looking at the starting condition of CA77s that have been restored and ones that have been parted out, this bike leans (falls over) in the direction of a parts bike.
During dissemble my son and I deduced that about 25-30 years ago someone attempted to refresh the engine and used what looked like household window silicon sealer during reassembly. They must have managed to get it running and used it as a trail bike, riding it through cow pastures and mud trails before it broke down. The bike was stuffed in a barn, apparently without cleaning it, and has been sitting there with the same gas and oil in it since then. A family of mice had made a home in the air box, chickens liked it as a roost. Something that may have been a snake or a piece of rope got into the tank along with, what I think was at one time, gas (I really don’t want to know what was in the tank).

Getting it ready for the road has involved:
Finding new wheels and learning how to lace them. Borrowing some hammers and dollies and learning how to pound out dents. I got better at welding/repairing sheet metal. Learning about and how to refresh a 305 engine and a PW22 carb. Dealt with the rust by having the sheet metal blasted. I botched sealing the tank so I’m redoing it. I rewired the bike to accept a new key switch, handlebar switches, and blinkers. I made a solo seat pan and will stitch a cover for it. I ditched the starter and blanked off the engine opening. With the original throttle missing and the speedometer frozen I see it as an opportunity to try a different throttle, handle bars, and speedometer (new cables for the controls are in the works).

[turtle racer]

What it looks like now.

[sarals]

That's an incredible transformation! You've done some great work on that bike. By the way, I REALLY like the matt finish - it gives it a proper "sinister" look! It goes very well with the lines of the bike. The red panels on the tank set the black off perfectly.

More, more!

[turtle racer]

I finished rewiring the CA77, mounted all the blinkers, re-coated the tank, installed new clutch brake and throttle cables, a new throttle, and a new speedometer and cable. I thought the bike might need a little more grunt, so I am running a 15 tooth front sprocket. I still need to cover the seat and there's just one more small thing I need to do, GET THE BIKE TO RUN

There's NO SPARK.

The extent of my testing has been to plug a spark plug into the cable ground it against the engine and watch for a spark as I kick it over. I also check the resistance of the coil. The coil is .5 ohm between the wires that feed into the coil. I read that it needs to be 3 ohm and that any early Honda coil should work so I put a SOHC CB750 coil on order.

Either I bought the wrong coil or when I first rewired the bike, I had the wires going to the coil switched, resulting in smoke coming from the black coil wirer as the insulation started to melt/burn. The coil has a black wirer and a white wirer, I had the black coil wirer connected to the green condenser wirer. Could that have toasted the coil?

I'm also worried that the condenser may be bad. I'm having trouble finding a new condenser, any suggestions of where I can order one for a CA77?

Its a good thing that when I had the bike apart I made a bracket to remounted the condenser to the cam chain tension adjuster.

Here Some Pictures of the Bike. Info about the speedometer is in a separate post.

As always, all help is appreciated
Turtle

[turtle racer]

New coil came in today. I made sure to connect it correctly and there was spark.

As it sat there in my yard, tank and covers off, and a bottled shaped aux test gas tank hanging from a plant hanger/hook it looked like a patient with an IV plugged into it (I guess you had to be there).

It took a little bit to work to get it started and to and get the idle adjusted, but once it warmed up it idled well and continuously. Oil was going to the places it needed to go like the cam and no place else.

I took it for a little ride, it shifted well, it was light, nimble, and fun.

After a quarter mile it started to miss and died. after a half a minute it started right up and idled fine, but after another quarter mile the same thing happen. This continued to happen, also when I gave it the gas it accelerated fine at first but then it started to miss and die. I'm thinking its the fuel/carb. I remember reading about someone else on this forum having a similar problem. Time for me to do some research.

A 50 year old motorcycle that been sitting on a barn for probably 25 years is now running.

Turtle

[Goodysnap]

Thanks for taking the time to share your story and photos.

Very cool, way to think outside the box.

It tough getting on it and actually riding, then going back to the garage again for hours. Especially after all the wrench time already. I feel your almost there.

Good Luck with it.

Goody