My wife, Kelly, showed me a post from a woman who was lamenting the "parts corner" her husband had created in their dining room - complete with pictures of various auto parts.  My wife just looked at me with her eyebrows up and gave me a little time to reflect on the very similar situation I had created in our own dining room. My first thoughts were that the woman doing the posting was probably pretty lucky. I bet her husband kept her car in tip top shape without her ever having to lift a finger.  Who wouldn't like that?  I knew my wife was not harboring similar thoughts.
     The hutch that we could have had in our dining room was instead displaced mainly by Kawasaki KX 60 parts, even though we sold our boys two KX 60's probably eight or ten years ago.  They were remarkably trouble-free bikes, but through various circumstances we ended up with a lot of extra parts for them! It started with the first one I bought which was a nice bike but didn't have a title. It was an old dirt bike - even then, so what did I care about a title? As it turns out, the state preserve where we would be riding required that each bike had a title. Thus, I found a titled frame and a few extra bits and switched everything from one bike to the other. 
     I liked this bike so much that I got another one for my other son.  But, I got one cheap that needed a little work...  It needed more than I thought and along the way, in addition to many new parts, ended up buying a parts bike to help finish getting it up and running.   Also during this time one of our neighbors' kids had taken an interest in the bikes and was telling my wife that his parents got him a bike, but it broke soon after and they weren't going to fix it.
     My wife felt bad for him and said he could take Tommy's bike for a ride if he'd like. Heck Ya!  He said he already knew all about riding, so after getting him a helmet and some gear my wife fired up the bike for him and told him to be careful and he could go up and down the street in our neighborhood a few times. I wasn't there, but the story I got was that he only got in a short ride.  Apparently, he put the bike in first gear and just held it pinned until he was well out of site.  Soon they could hear him coming back, apparently still in first gear and still pinned as motor came apart just as he was going past the house.  My wife went out to help him push the bike back to our garage and he told her that his bike had done the same thing.  I'll bet it did!  Anyway, more parts, with a few leftovers, to get that back up and running, and now to the present day. 
     In addition to the parts counter, there was the frame and exhaust hanging from the  ceiling in the garage.  There were also some plastics and grips hanging on the peg board out there, along with a few boxes that were supposed to be either RM125 or KX parts - I forget which, but somehow they were mixed together.  A lot of time and money could have been saved if I took an actual inventory of what I parts were not only there, but also good!  In my mind I had most of the parts and most of them were good.  
     I decided to start with the motor. I knew the cylinder would need to be repaired or replaced, but thought I had a complete bottom end. However, it seemed like it would be a good idea to replace the crank anyway and go through what I had to make sure this motor would be reliable when completed.  I ordered a complete, standard bore engine rebuild kit on ebay.  It was by Kalama, and included a new piston, crankshaft, crankshaft bearings and related parts and a complete set of seals. 
     Once I finally got started, I found that I actually had two cylinders!  One was beyond saving due to damage plus corrosion. The other was sent to PowerSeal in Phoenixville, PA where they repaired the gouge that was in it and replated it as well. I sent it with the piston from the Kalama kit that would be used (so the finished product would have the proper bore), and they did an awesome job! It came back with the piston that had been sent and the cylinder looking like new and right to spec. As an aside, I had previously sent a KX250 cylinder to them with the same great results!
     As I got into the bottom end, I saw that one of the engine cases was cracked. Although I know you're not supposed to, because they're a matched pair, I bought a replacement for just that side from ebay. I also noticed that the clutch basket was way too worn and grooved, and the water pump impellor bearing didn't feel so good, and the phillips screws that held the cases together were not in very good shape.  More purchases and more money.   Hmm, and the carb needed a rebuild kit and the carb holder was cracked. It looked like the cracks didn't go all the way through, but a new one was still in order. Hey, the reeds were good!
     The rear wheel has been and continues to be a fight! I had an Excel rim, stock hub, and a set of spokes from, uh, I don't know. There are 3 different spoke lengths that are use to lace up the wheel. I tried several times and just can't get all the spokes to sit as they should at the hub. The sprocket side is ok, but on the brake side there are some that just won't stay where they should. You can see that in the picture. I tried offsets that were not correct just to see if I could get the spokes to stay put, but that made no difference. Also took the wheel apart and tried switching up the spokes thinking that I had mixed up where they went (2 of the lengths are really close), but that wasn't the case.  Finally just decided to put the tire on and look for a stock wheel later - just trying to get this thing to roller status at this point.
     I had a brand new (unused) tire, tube, bead lock, and rim strip, except that they are all about 10 years old.  That tire was stiff! It did not want to go onto that rim! I left it in the sun to heat it up, but it didn't become at all pliable.  I did finally get it mounted and was pumping it up to seat the bead onto the rim. It was going fine until about 25 psi when I heard a muffled pop, along with a loss of air pressure, and knew that the tube had failed.  That was super depressing, and also when things started to really go downhill. 
     It was harder getting that tire back off the rim than it was putting it on! In fact, I couldn't get it off - at least not without beating up the rim. I tell myself that sometimes you just need to walk away. This was one of those times, and I knew it, but I didn't listen. I had decided by now that I wasn't going to put this tire back on regardless, so the death wheel came out and I cut the bead and scrapped the tire and the tube. Strangely, even the rim strip looked like it had been in the bike for years. It was just turning to powder!? More scrap!  That was a lot of time wasted and more parts that just weren't usable.   This is quickly becoming the KX 60 that might not be!
​     

​      (to be continued...) (11/26/24)
        

Both Honda 450 twins, both 1982, but you'd never know they were brothers - let alone twins!  One is a Honda CM450A (Hondamatic).  The other is a CB450T (Hawk).  What both bikes share is the 450cc parallel twin.  This is a good thing.  These motors are rugged and simple to maintain.  They also have enough power to keep things interesting.  The valves are very easy to keep adjusted and oil changes are simple.  One of the neat features of these motors is the integrated oil cooler.

I never experienced these bikes when they were new, and they're far from that now!  Both of these bikes were fairly complete, but had just been sitting in storage for a number of years.  They needed the usual basics to get them back up and running - carburetor and fuel system cleaning, tires, and brake system renewal.  Beyond that, pretty much every bike is different as far as additional areas that may need maintenance and the level of cosmetic restoration or modification that you have planned.

Both of these bikes needed new steering bearings.  The hondamatic steering bearings were particularly bad.  When I was rolling that bike around by hand it felt like it had a flat tire when turning the handlebars.  I looked down and the tire didn't look flat, and it ultimately turned out to be the steering bearings.  The steering wasn't "notchy" as is usually the case (and was the case with the CB450T), but it was just difficult to turn throughout the entire range.  When it was finally taken apart, the ball bearings were just totally rusty and looked as though they could be crushed into powder.  A set of tapered bearing and races from "All Balls" fixed the problem.  In addition, this bike needed some fork seals and they were replaced at the same time.

To take a couple of steps back to the initial purchase of this bike (Hondamatic), I initially responded to a Craig's List ad that showed pictures of a bike that looked like new and said that the owner had stored this bike in his living room - "literally!" It said the carbs had been cleaned and the bike ran and would only need a little TLC to get it back on the road - particularly a "weak" front brake needing attention and some tires.  The price was right, so I called and asked some questions about it, and decided I wanted to go check it out.  

It was about two and a half hours away, and I had a picture in my mind of what I expected to see when I got there.  The owner seemed very nice on the phone, and turned out to be very nice in person, too.  He gave me his address and we set up a time.  When I got close I called to let him know, and he said he was running an errand and would be a few minutes late in meeting me, but the bike was in the carport and I was welcome to check it out until he arrived.  Very trusting soul!

I was pretty disappointed.  The bike was pretty nice, but the best days of the chrome fenders on the bike were long gone.  There was a lot of surface corrosion, and also some small dings that weren't visible in the pictures. The gas tank was pretty good, but also had some fairly good sized paint chips, and some surface rust had started in those areas.  In person, the carbs also looked very corroded or oxidized.  It may have literally been in someone's living room for some portion of its existence, but it obviously had spent some time outdoors (in a carport?) as well.

I was on the verge of calling the owner and saying it just wasn't the bike for me, but started noting some of the positives and factoring those in with the asking price that had seemed almost like a bargain, but now seemed more in line with this bike or maybe even a little optimistic for the condition it was in.  The forks were perfect - no corrosion at all.  The chrome handlebars were in nice shape, and the seat was very nice, too.   The chrome pipes looked pretty good, although it looked like the gasket material between the header pipe and the megaphone/muffler was coming out on the right side - unless it was some kind of a patch.... It was hard to tell for sure.  Other positives included the fact that all of the lights were there and were in nice shape as well as both chrome mirrors.  It also still had its center stand.  He said it had good tires on it, and they did look good as far as the tread, but the front one was definitely quite old with a lot of cracking in the sidewall.

When the owner arrived, he started it up for me.  It fired right up and idled nice.  It sounded like the valves might need to be adjusted, but nothing major, and the bike had over 19,000 miles on it.  All of the lights worked as they should, and he told me to go ahead and take it for a ride.  He reminded me about the front brake, and that's when he also mentioned that although he had cleaned the carbs to get it running, he couldn't get it to go above about 25 miles per hour.   Hmm, a little more bad news about the bike, but the motor seemed healthy, so I figured it was still a carb issue.  It was at this point when I took the bike off the center stand that I noticed the steering issue that at the time I thought was from low front tire air pressure.  At that point I told him I'd actually rather not take it for a ride.

As it turned out, the bike had been his father-in-laws, and he got it after his passing. He rode it some for a while, but then the bike just sat.  We talked a little more about it and I made sure not to say anything directly negative about the bike, just that it wasn't quite what I'd expected and I'd probably have to pass.  I told him I didn't want to offend him with an offer of what I'd be willing to pay for it - which was about $400 to $500 less that what he was asking.  

I figured that would be the end of it, but he said go ahead and make the offer.  I wasn't kidding when I told him I didn't want to offend him, so I offered $300 less that what he was asking, and was kinda hoping he'd say no.   However, without a second's hesitation, he agreed!  Hmm...  

When I got the bike home, I was going to take it around our neighborhood. It's a 1 mile loop with a 30 MPH speed limit.  Perfect for low speed test rides.  I knew I needed to check the tire pressure first. The back tire was at 45 psi - wow.  At least it was wow until I got to the front, which was at 60 psi - Dang!  Ok, steering bearings it is!  Those were ordered, along with a front tire and some fork seals as fork oil began to leak as soon as the bike was cinched down in the back of my truck.

I too could only get 25 to 30 mph out of the bike and took the carbs off to check/clean them.  Right away I noticed that the seal ring under the top cover of each carb had been put on upside down.  I switched them and put the carbs back on the bike.  I thought that might solve the problem. It didn't, but it did help. Top speed was now about 40 mph.  It turns out the carbs needed a more thorough cleaning and some of the jets were still plugged or partially plugged.  Once that was done, it ran great.  I also adjusted the valves.   

As for the front brake, I got lazy and ordered a new front master cylinder off of ebay.  It was about the same price as a rebuild kit for the original and looks like it belongs on the bike anyway.  I called Galfer for a brake line as I couldn't find one listed on their site for this bike.  They said it uses the same line as the earlier 400 cc Hondamatics and I ordered one of those.  It turns out that's not the case.  It was a little too short, and I ended up reusing the stock line.  The Galfer line is hanging in my garage next to the GaIfer GPz lines that didn't fit my GPz - although I bought those from an ebay seller.  In that case, I called Galfer and they sent me the correct lines.  I really like their products!  They are always friendly and helpful on the phone, and I'm sure if I told them about the line for the 400 not working on the 450 they would have taken care of it.  Again, I just got lazy...  I had also ordered a rebuild kit for the front brake caliper.  However, upon taking it apart I found that both brake pistons were fairly badly cracked and I ordered a pair from BrakeCrafters.  They fit and worked great!   All that being said, I now have about $200 in just the front brake, but that's how it goes sometimes!

The purchase of the CB400T was somewhat similar, but that bike was in a storage unit that wasn't very convenient for either me or the seller to get to. It was about an hour and a half trip for each of us from opposite directions.  When I saw that bike, I looked it over for a few minutes and offered the seller $100 for his troubles, but told him it wasn't anything I was interested in.  It turns out, he was pretty eager to make a sale as this wasn't the first time he'd made this trip, but he was hoping to make it his last!  He told me to just make a ridiculous offer, so I did.   I offered him half of what he was asking, and he thought about it, but asked if I could do any better.  I upped the ante by $100, and the bike was mine.  For the second time in as many weeks, I was on my way home wondering what the heck I had just done!  Ya, I got it pretty cheap, but it was probably going to cost more than the original asking price just to get it to the bike I expected to show up and see in the first place. (Front brake pads - Kevlar by Volar motorsport - mfg. part #VBP015-F-2), purchased on ebay from D2Moto).   As I continued to drive home, I went over in my mind the list of known issues with this bike: (Current sprockets on the CB450T: 17/36)

(Test) Ran too lean. Changed main jet from 170 to 180. Still too lean. Changed main jet to 190 - close. Moved clip down one groove on main needle (one above the bottom groove - now it's good!