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| I bought this bike in 1996 from an elderly guy
who had carried it through france on the back of his
mobile home for a couple of years. It had 2,400 km on the
clock and was in a beautiful condition - from a technical
point of view. The paint was in no good condition and there was some
rust on the black painted parts. I did not like the "new look" of
this model with ugly matte-black exhaust, black braking
and shifting lever, black painted clutch and flywheel
cover, big ugly plastic rear fender and taillight. I
wanted my bike to look like a model from the early 70s. |
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| So I went to my local
Honda-dealer and was lucky. Most of the parts I needed
were still available (that was in 1997/98 It has become
much more difficult to get new parts for the 1970s models
today !): A brand-new "old" seat, a new
old-style chrome exhaust, an old-style taillight-bracket
complete with the round taillight unit and a nice new
old-style footpeg assy with side stand instead of the big
and ugly main stand. A few parts came from Thomas Geisler
from Unterwoessen/Bavaria: chrome brake pedal,
kickstart-lever, shift lever, chromed rear shock
absorbers and nice little Kitaco flashers. The
flywheel-cover was sandblasted and polished. The red
painted front and rear fenders were replaced with the
K0-style chrome fenders from the U.S.-model. I removed
the comic-style main body decals and replaced them by the
original black & white Honda Decals. That may sound
easy, but in fact replacing the decals was a 2 hour-job.
I have never been so sweaty applying a sticker... Finally
I bought new chrome wheel rims and new tires and had a
little job done with the engine and that was it. At least it it does look a little bit better
than before, doesnīt it ?
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Seat: You canīt simply take an old seat from the
1970s model and screw it onto a new model. At least you
canīt do so with the model sold over her in Germany. The
seats of the newer models have a lock which is operated
with the ignition key. On the underside of the seat are
two locking bolts that fit into corresponding holes in
the bikes frame. The 1970s models did not have these
bolts and a simple locking mechanism without a key. But
there was a small tool compartment on the underside of
the old-style seats that was omitted on the new models. .
Solution: The tool compartment
has to be cut out.
Then unsrew the locking bolts from the new-style seat.
Find the position on the old-style seat where the bolts
should be screwed in. Drill holes into the seat pan which
are big enough to put a nut flush in them. Take the
MIG/MAG-Welder and weld the nuts into the holes, be
careful not to burn the seat foam. Now you can screw the
locking bolts into these nuts.
The result is a mucher better looking old-style seat on a
new frame.
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Tool compartment removed and
locking bolts in position (above)
Nuts welded into the seat pan to take up the locking
bolts (below) |
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Đ Michael Kugler
2001 |
