And now begins the tedious process of cleaning EVERYTHING

Just started bead blasting all the little parts. Looking good so far, but this will take a while.

Hodaka power washed, ready for paint stripper

Got all my parts laid out on a table. Everything with paint gets stripped and blasted, any usable chrome gets polished or blasted and powdered. Engine will be cleaned and rebuilt. New parts on the way to replace all the unusable stuff. My lift is now cleaned and ready for my bonneville rebuild.



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Hodaka tear down.

I finally had a chance to tear into the Hodaka I picked up last week and it's been an adventure.

1st glance, the bike looks complete minus the gear shift side engine cover, tail light and coils. Heavy surface rust on most parts.

The surface rust on the forks came up withg a little WD-40 and some light buffing with steel wool.

Good enough for me, I want this to be a rider, not a show bike.

Aircraft stripper  applied to some of the first loose parts that will be repainted. I bought some "early Hodaka red" paint from Strictly Hodaka.

I powder coated the replacement tail light bracket I bought on ebay. So far so good.

Tail pipe had a fair amount of soot inside. I took the outside to the wire wheel to clean off the rust and then gave it a fresh coat of high temp flat black paint. Nice.

Headlight bucket and tabs have been stripped and bead blasted.

Bike is starting to make my garage smell like Parts Blaster. Lots of rusty nuts and bolts. I'm finding that most of these will need to be replaced since their so rusted. For every one bolt I remove successfully, two break.

 New engine cover arrived. Needs some cleaning but looks ok.

The battery must have leaked acid because everything in that area is rotted out. New Battery Box has been ordered.

Every time I tap the bike dirt and rust rain down from parts unknown. It seems like rust is whats holding most of this together.

Dead soldiers.

Tool box is rough, but clean replacements are scarce. I have an Idea for this, more on that later.

The seat cover is amazingly intact, but the foam is dry rotted underneath and part of the seat pan is rusted through. The seat cover is brittle and probably should be replaced with the foam. The pan I may try to repair. You can see one tab needs to be welded back on.

With a sharp blow from a mallet, I knocked the fork bolt (partially unscrewed and sticking up a half n inch) down to loosen the forks from the clamps. Looks like I need a new top clamp now as well. Doh.

Frame down to just the lower fork clamps. Need a special tool to remove those. Hopefully I'll come up with some other way to remove that part. I have to remind myself that there are loose bearings inside the fork neck. Can't lose those....

Engine needs a cleaning, but turns over and has compression, I'm hoping for the best but bracing for the worst.

More coming soon.

Winter project number TWO! 1970 HODAKA Ace 100

I've been wanting a Hodaka Ace 100 for quite some time, and finally a very reasonably priced 1970 bike came up on craigslist. It has the title and the engine is free. Some part were robbed and some are too rusty to use, but I ordered everything I need including the official Hodaka Red (more of an orange really) for the frame and the badges for the tank. I'm not looking for factory finish, just a well sorted motor in a clean body (patina intact). This bike WILL be ridden.

51 Speed Twin winter project.

After sorting out most of the issues with the BSA thunderbolt, I decided it was time to get into the 51 Speed Twin. The ugly seat had to go, so I ordered a vintage 60's era Bates Style solo seat and a repop pillion pad. I need to get the fender stays for the rear before that goes together. The front wheel was in bas shape, so I pulled that off and polished the rim before adding a new Dunlop k70 (3.5x19). The forks bottom out, so I dismantled them and found some pretty skanky fork oil inside. Waiting on some parts, but I'm trying to decide if I want to keep the 19" front wheel or go 21 with an Avon Speedmaster and drop the forks a couple of inches similar to the Salt Ghost. I need to play around with this for a bit.