{"id":1717,"date":"2012-06-16T20:38:16","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T00:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.50.23\/wordpress\/blog\/?p=1717"},"modified":"2018-04-07T17:00:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T21:00:26","slug":"getting-ready-for-reassembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forths.com\/index.php\/2012\/06\/16\/getting-ready-for-reassembly\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Ready for Reassembly"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ’65 Honda Benly is at the paint shop<\/a>, in the care of my nephew Eric. \u00a0The painting is scheduled to be done June 26, so until then, I cleaned the few parts that still needed attention.<\/p>\n

The center stand was the most rusted part on the bike. \u00a0I spent an hour at the wire wheel to remove the heaviest rust, then soaked the center stand in Metal Rescue<\/a> to dissolve the remaining rust. \u00a0I coated it with Valspar Tractor and Implement paint<\/a>, which is a super-durable paint.<\/p>\n

The front suspension gave me a few minutes of grief. \u00a0When the crusty dirt and grease was removed, I realized that a grease fitting from one side was missing. \u00a0These 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. \u00a0I decided to pull the remaining grease fitting, tap some metric threads into the holes, then screw in modern zerk fittings. \u00a0After successfully tapping one hole, I broke the tap flush with second hole. \u00a0With a bit of emergency ‘engineering’, I was able to back out the broken tap and preserve the threads. \u00a0After cleaning the front suspension parts, I reassembled them with new grease fittings.<\/p>\n

The rubber pads on the old passenger foot pegs were cracked in a few places, so I ordered replacement pegs. \u00a0These weren’t as nice as the originals, and lacked the ‘Honda’ logo, but they’re clean looking. \u00a0I won’t have passengers on this little bike anyway, but at least the foot pegs will look nice. \u00a0The original Honda foot pegs will go into the archive box.<\/p>\n

The kick starter and shifter lever also needed attention. \u00a0There was pitting in the chrome, and the original rubber pads were in bad condition. \u00a0The old rubber was cut away, then the levers were cleaned up with the wire wheel. \u00a0This was enough to clean up the kick starter, but the shifter chrome was peeling away and looked bad. \u00a0I decided to paint the shifter lever with aluminum engine paint to clean it up. \u00a0Each lever got new rubber pads, and both look much better now.<\/p>\n

I’m nearly ready to reassemble this old motorcycle. \u00a0I just need to get the parts back from the painter.<\/p>\n