Why, you ask...

Good question. I've done this before* with other old Hondas and each time I tell myself it's the last. But, I do actually enjoy these projects and so far they haven't really cost much since I usually recover my monetary investment when I'm done. My time is a different matter entirely but one has to ask, just how much is my time worth since I'm retired and would likely be watching TV instead during the long (and getting longer all the time) winter months.

Soooo, there was this one advertised on CraigsList. For $300. Hmmm, maybe too much temptation. He said it had run poorly when he parked it and that the engine still turned over freely.

This one has been neglected for a while...

The engine did turn over but it wasn't about to start. And, it was supposed to be titled but when I got there to look at it we figured out that the previous owner had never registered it in his name and the title was in the name of the owner even before him. He actually went to the DMV to try register it but the title had been incorrectly signed two owners ago and no sales tax had been paid by him or the previous owner. Too many gaps! It appeared it was going to be painful and expensive to get this bike titled, if possible at all. He agreed to sell it to me for $100 and I told him that I would explore getting it titled thru Tennessee's lost title/vintage vehicle approach and that if I were able to do that, I'd give him another $100. I figured if nothing else it was worth more than $100 in parts. So, it followed me home along with a very nice aluminum loading ramp he threw in that would likely cost $75 or so. It came off the trailer at my house sadly looking like this:

Yeah, ya gotta love those cherry bomb mufflers and, of course, the classic Windjammer. The forks would only move about an inch even though he had the receipts from having paid to have them rebuilt. Turns out they were hydrolocked with about twice as much oil as specified by the manual. That was an easy fix but it took me several tries to get the springs and preload right and they don't leak at all. Not bad now but the bike desperately needs a fork brace. Can you believe 33mm forks?

The Windjammer had to go - gave that to a friend who is into old Suzuki touring bikes. And, since the headlight was part of that, I needed one. This lovely rectangular one was a spare DR350 part. It served the purpose for the time being though. The carbs were a mess of course. But after a thorough cleaning and replacement of some deteriorated rubber components, this ole hoss fired right up. I actually liked the way those cherry bombs sounded even though they look a little shade tree. The tank was seriously rusty inside and required about 2 weeks of soaking with a rust remover to be useable. No holes though.

And then there's the lovely molded plastic tail piece, the massive taillight and, of course, the, uhhh, sumptuous seat. I gotta say though they built them comfortable back then. I'm not a big fan of the tall, swept back handlebars but that big ole seat was comfortable. Ugly, really ugly, but comfy. The running issues were not yet behind me though. The bike would only pull to 5 or 6K rpms before skipping and spitting badly. That's a common problem with this model when the ignition triggers in stator fail. Thought that was my problem but days and days of diagnostics identified that the coils were breaking down. It has DR350 coils now (can you tell I have a large DR350 parts inventory?) and will rev cleanly to redline. Okay, it runs and doesn't make any strange or disturbing noises. I guess it's a keeper so time for some changes.

Oh yeah, the title. TN has a process by which a vintage (35+ years) vehicle can be "re-titled". I used that. I had to trailer the bike to the Sheriff's office and have them certify the VIN I was claiming was correct and search for any outstanding stolen vehicle alerts. Then I and the PO completed some affidavits. In the end, the history was clean so the DMV issued me a title and registration and the PO got another $100!

Looking better to me here with the shroud on the DR350 headlight, some lower profile handlebars, a pair of primo HD Sportster mufflers and the seat repaired with good ole gorilla tape. I had to spend a bit of time troubleshooting front brake issues. Seems the tiny tiny TINY return hole in the master cylinder was blocked. Cleared that and added a braided steel brake line from the spare parts bin vastly improving the brakes to the point that I'm not thrilled but am okay with the single rotor. I have ridden it about 1000 miles as seen here. It actually runs well although it's obvious there's only 500ccs thumping around down there. My intent is to keep the airbox and exhaust crossover (i.e. the "H" box) stock. I realize I could extract a tad more top end performance with intake and exhaust modifications but that opens up a large basket of worms to get it jetted correctly plus would likely increase fuel consumption - all for a relatively small improvement. It's certainly not a screamer but performance is adequate and doesn't overpower the chassis and brakes. It does have a nagging little oil leak at the rear end of the camshaft where the waterpump is located. Bummer, that's gonna require a partial engine disassembly to fix. I like sport bikes so I'm accustomed to more "sprightly" handling than the CX delivers at this point but I think that can definitely be improved. At the very least It needs some new stickier tires and that fork brace I mentioned earlier. A bit less steering "trail" would be better too I think. I've dropped the triple trees down on the fork tubes about an inch to quicken the steering some and if I ever replace the rear shocks, I'll likely go with some slightly longer ones to effectively reduce trail even more. I know this thing will never be a sport bike but it doesn't have to feel like a Winnebago either!

Making changes now and looking a little more "cafe-like". Here, I've "chopped" the rear fender and put the seat (which will be professionally recovered) on a rather serious diet. The little chrome rear fender was salvaged from a Yamaha RD350. These OEM rear shocks weren't great when Honda bolted them on 36 years ago and they haven't improved any with age. But, after thorough cleaning it appears they are not leaking and are still working more or less as designed so I'll keep 'em for now.

Penny-tech rearsets for the pegs. There's always lots of penny-tech in my low-budget projects. After all, I'm not building this thing for a TV show. It's mostly for my entertainment.

And a proper period-correct headlight (with an H4 bulb!) plus a reconfigured (lower and flatter) mounting bracket for the OEM instruments. The "idiot" light pod (hi-beam, oil-pressure, neutral, turn indicators) will be a custom bracket using small LEDs and mounted in the space between the instruments and handlebars. I have some little bar-end mirrors that I'll most likely install but that's a detail. The headpipes are pretty rusty and although I prefer chrome pipes I'll probably end up just wrapping these for appearance sake.

First pass on prepping the tank for paint. Got some small dents to be filled.

01/23/2014 - The seat is at the upholsterer's shop. The next step is to drop the engine and start working on the chassis and wheel painting. Plus, I need to pull the back off the engine to repair the leaky camshaft oil seal and eventually paint it. That will destroy the waterpump mechanical seal so I'll need to replace that too and I might find that I need to replace the cam chain when I'm in there.

And that leads me to REAL question. I haven't decided on a color scheme. I have several ideas rolling around in my head but at this point I'm not sure where that's going. Gotta decide soon tho. So now let the real fun begin...

01/26/2014 - Whats this? A pinch bolt on the driveshaft splines... REALLY? But, other than that this part went better than expected. The CX motor is pretty heavy for 500ccs but I was able to do this alone by just supporting it on a floor jack and rolling the jack forward until the driveshaft spines disengaged (after I figured out there was a pinch bolt, of course!). No big deal.

2/07/2014

How did the old TV ad go... Parts is Parts!

Got my seat back from the upholsterer. I LIKE it!

Did some serious polishing of the fork sliders and ordered a Tarozzi fork brace from Fast From the Past

Cleaned and painted the wheels

Baby's got new shoes

Ahh, and the paint. I dropped my tank and side covers off with a custom painter yesterday. I decided on candy apple yellow (REALLY REALLY YELLOW!) with a black/white checkered flag racing stripe. The frame, radiator, instruments and trim will be black.

02/09/14 Removed lots of rust and painted the frame with a lead-based primer followed by a polyurethane top coat

 
02/10/14 - BIG progress today - It rolls!

The Tarozzi fork brace is not as "polished" as the Superbrace components I've used before, but it should do the job
 

02/13/14 Picked up my painted parts today. GREAT paint job by Steve's Paint Shop - Greeneville, TN

I think I'm really gonna like this!

02/22/2014 - Pulled the rear cover off the engine a couple of days ago. I'm waiting on parts now - cam chain, oil seals, water pump mechanical seal, assorted o-rings and gaskets. Some of it has to come from the U.K. because Honda USA no longer has the parts.

Today I wrapped the head pipes and painted the exhaust collector with VHT paint

02/26/2014

More clear-coated shiney parts! There was significant "elbow grease" expended on these.

I finished the wiring and lights and polished the carbs today also.

My engine parts are all inbound and should be here by 3/01 - time for reassemble then. Countless hours in this thing. There'll be lots more hours before it's done.

03/02/2014

Big progress today. Completed the the engine reassembly and "hung" it in the frame.

03/3/2014

Alrighty then - motor mounts in place and the Intake side is complete. I'll be working on the radiator and electric cooling fan next. The original cooling fan was mechanical and mounted on the front end of the camshaft. That's not really a good design IMO since it runs slowly when it is needed most and fast when its not needed at all but I suppose it was the "state of the art" in 1978. So anyhow, I had an electric fan from a long gone Honda CBR600 that will replace it.

03/04/2014

The CBR fan and thermostatic controller installed on the radiator - It's really a tight fit between the radiator and the block but it does fit

03/06/2014 - Finished! More or less...

Post Script:

Still had a few rough spots at certain speeds and the carbs persisted in leaking fuel from the float bowls so I bought a nice set of '82 "pumper" carbs for it. It was a simple bolt-on. That provided a nice improvement in driveability and cured the fuel leaks.

A few thousand miles after completing the restoration the bike started missing again around 5-6K rpms. This time I was pretty sure the ignition energizing components in the stator had failed as it has in so many other early CX bikes. I bought an Ignitech CDI as part of a group buy on the CX/GL forum. This unit doesn't use the internal stator components to power the CDI. Instead it is powered directly from the bikes 12VDC electrical system and only uses the timing trigger from the stator. The Ignitech unit is programmable and came set up for the CX. It was plug and play and COMPLETELY eliminated all the gremlins.

*Other vintage restorations

• '83 Honda VT500FT Ascot
• '82 Honda FT500 Ascot