The ’65 Honda Benly is at the paint shop, in the care of my nephew Eric. The painting is scheduled to be done June 26, so until then, I cleaned the few parts that still needed attention.
The center stand was the most rusted part on the bike. I spent an hour at the wire wheel to remove the heaviest rust, then soaked the center stand in Metal Rescue to dissolve the remaining rust. I coated it with Valspar Tractor and Implement paint, which is a super-durable paint.
The front suspension gave me a few minutes of grief. When the crusty dirt and grease was removed, I realized that a grease fitting from one side was missing. These original grease fittings were pressed in, and unfortunately, were a bit smaller than modern grease fittings, so newer grease guns don’t fit the old fittings well. I decided to pull the remaining grease fitting, tap some metric threads into the holes, then screw in modern zerk fittings. After successfully tapping one hole, I broke the tap flush with second hole. With a bit of emergency ‘engineering’, I was able to back out the broken tap and preserve the threads. After cleaning the front suspension parts, I reassembled them with new grease fittings.
The rubber pads on the old passenger foot pegs were cracked in a few places, so I ordered replacement pegs. These weren’t as nice as the originals, and lacked the ‘Honda’ logo, but they’re clean looking. I won’t have passengers on this little bike anyway, but at least the foot pegs will look nice. The original Honda foot pegs will go into the archive box.
The kick starter and shifter lever also needed attention. There was pitting in the chrome, and the original rubber pads were in bad condition. The old rubber was cut away, then the levers were cleaned up with the wire wheel. This was enough to clean up the kick starter, but the shifter chrome was peeling away and looked bad. I decided to paint the shifter lever with aluminum engine paint to clean it up. Each lever got new rubber pads, and both look much better now.
I’m nearly ready to reassemble this old motorcycle. I just need to get the parts back from the painter.
Looking good Kevin. Seems like your game plan is working. You have everything under control. All your hard work is paying off and it won’t be long before you’ll have it all put back together and riding it all over up north. It’s been interesting reading your progress on each stage you’ve completed. Looking forward to the day you turn the key and take this bike for a nice ride around Alden and the back roads. Everything is downhill now Kevin. Keep up the good work. Soon you’ll be able to look back and say “I KICKED ASS AGAIN”.