Aug

It’s a runner

Posted by Published in Hemmings

A while back I posted about the 1964 Honda C110 I secured in a trade for a Kawasaki LTD 454. by the final month, I’ve been cleaning and scrubbing, ordering parts and checking to see whether everything was ready to go.

I sent a money order to Ohio Cycle for a bunch of NOS and reproduction parts, including a new oil plug, new footpeg rubbers, and most importantly, the rubber tube within the carburetor and the curved intake manifold. Only I screwed the order up, and ended up getting a new intake, instead of the rubber part.

I’m going to have to re-order the rubber tube that week, but I got impatient and picked up a section of chemical-resistant vinyl tubing, just to see whether the bike would run. I put fresh oil in the crankcase, fresh gas in the tank, and treated the bike to a fresh

NGK sparkplug. I’m still lost the kickstart, so I jammed it in moment gear and rolled down my driveway. I let off the clutch and…nothing.

I forgot to turn the key on. D’oh!!

With the key on, the bike roared…well, “ringding’ed” I guess…to life. I’ve got some investigating to do, considering the bike won’t hold an idle, and it’s got little potential at the low end. Up top, it ran great, as soon as I figured out that the shift sample was one up, four down, and not the way I’m used to. A “race sample,” is it were.