Kiwi Canuck's 1981 Honda CT 110 Restore

[Kiwi Canuck]

We are now caught up in real time.

****

Just a quick update on my progress.

I was searching all craigslist ads using "Search Tempest" and found a nearly new CT fuel tank on the Portland Oregon Craigslist in Tahitian Red, it was reasonably priced and I purchased it.

Now that I've got the tank sorted, I still want to fix the one I've been working on for the last few weeks.

I went back into the auto store (Lordco) and was chatting with the same lady that I had scan the airbox and chain guard previously and she said maybe I should use the PPG sample colour kit.

They had this large soft sided suitacase kit from PPG with thousands of colour chips and maybe 100 different reds, she said for about $90.00 she could make up 1 pint of each of base coat, hardner and activator, I'm pretty sure I can find something pretty close in that set that will be a better match than the Colorite R23 I purchased earlier from DrATV.

They also showed me a spray kit made by a company called Preval, it's a kit that allows you to paint without buying all the gear, I've read a few reviews and they seem favourable so I'm going to give it a go, it's about $7.00 for a basic kit and extra cans of propellant air are $3.00 each.

http://www.preval.com/what-is-preval

Has anyone had any experience with these kits, comments?


I got the bike Registered today (Titled) and it cost about $40.00 including the registered letter I sent to the last registered owner and notary fees, plus $96.00 GST.

The total time took me just over 5 weeks from first contact with ICBC to receiving the paperwork today.

It was a pretty easy process and they sent me all the forms I needed, just an hour or so to take care of the documents and then I got them notarized, which is required, first time I've done that and it was easier than expected.

Cheers.

David

[GSX1000E]

I found this on the internet and thought that you could use the encouragement.

[Kiwi Canuck]

I found this on the internet and thought that you could use the encouragement.

Ha ha, actually I've just received a new batch of parts in and I'm almost finished the restore.

I got my new license plate installed, I love a good easy to remember plate number, just got to remember it's also easy for our friendly policeman as well, so no running from them, wait a sec, I'm on a CT110, never mind.




I cleaned up my sub fuel tank and re-installed it, I was surprised that the bolts holding the bracket on are only 6mm X 12mm long, with the washer installed it seems I'm only getting about 2-3 threads holding it on.

I double checked everything and checked the diagrams on the fiche and I have it installed correctly, I had some spare 6mm flange bolts but none were the right size, the Goldie locks syndrome.



So I took a couple of 20mm bolts and cut them down to 16mm, that feels much better as far as securing the bracket, just surprised that it comes with only 12mm bolts as there is room for 16mm bolts with no interference.




Tank cleaned up and installed, looks pretty good, but I still need to clean the inside.



As I have not got the main fuel tank and seat installed I had not sat on the bike and didn't notice that the speedo and the headlight bucket where all out of wack until I mocked it up today.

It took me a while to figure out what was wrong, I eventually disassembled the whole front end, seems the new CT110 left front fork ear I purchased is shorter than the 2 that were on the bike by about 5mm.

So the bucket was on an angle and every thing else was skewed.

Double checked the part I ordered and definitly it is the Ct 110 part, so I suspect the bike may have CT 90 fork ears to go along with the many other non CT110 parts.

So I have ordered another fork ear, right side this time, as I'm not willing to try and fix the old one.

Check out the picture, original one on the left showing the difference in height.




Fork me, 2 steps forward, one back, almost ready to ride.........., NOT .

[Kiwi Canuck]

New Parts Arrived

I finally got the shipments from my mailbox that had been waiting for over a month.

A slightly used new tank and a package from Beatrice Cycles with the new fork ear and a nice little package from Partzilla with a new Sub Fuel Tank, a new Headlight Bucket and a few other goodies.

This picture does not do the tank justice but it's a beauty, I'll take a few more pictures tomorrow and post them up.

I'm stoked and ready to get this bike completed.

Here's the used tank I got from Portland CL





A picture of the new Honda swag.

Starting on the right, a new Sub Fuel Tank, a set of Swing Arm Bushes, a new Seat and a new Head Light Bucket.

In the middle, new Fork Seals, Sub Fuel Tank Cap and Gasket.

Left side, Front fender Mud Flap and Mounting Bracket, (expensive for what it is but well made and totally worth it now that I see it.) OEM Tool pouch and O-Ring for back of Head Light Bucket.

And finally two sets of Brake Shoes instead of 2 screws for the mud flap, not sure how Beatrice messed that up but that's what they shipped, oh well and I don't even need them.

[Kiwi Canuck]

In with the New out with the Old

New and old, I just couldn't find the right black paint and it was not that expensive to buy a brand new headlight bucket, so I just ordered a new one, along with the Rubber O-Ring.

I hope to be able to source the the correct paint now and repaint the old one as a spare, or for my next rebuild.




New and old, here is the tank that has caused me so much grief and I've probably spent 8 hrs on it and $50 in materials/tools and it's still not done, well actually I've spent more than that but who's keeping score.

Nice to have the almost new tank and I can now either throw the old one off a bridge or maybe I'll get back on speaking terms with it and finish it properly.

[Kiwi Canuck]

After I got all of my new parts I was anxious to get at it this past weekend.

Saturday was a family day so almost nothing completed and on Sunday I decided to forgo my coffee meeting with the BCCMC guys and instead worked on the CT, as we had friends coming over for an early dinner and I was cooking ribs which take a while to do right.

My goal was to get the bike back together so I could at least move it and if possible test ride it.

So I installed the fork ears and new headlight bucket and when bolting it together I noticed that I was missing the left side bolt for the headlight.

I searched the floor and couldn't find it, so I broke out one of my new Costco 3 pack LED flashlights and starting looking behind boxes and under work benches in case it had been accidently kicked while my kids were getting their bikes out.

No luck finding it, so I found a new 10mm bolt from my stock and installed washers to match the original, but the head required a 17mm socket rather than a 14mm, it looked wrong so I replaced both of them to match, they were also about 30mm so a bit long but didn't cause any issues and fitted fine.

Once that was done I needed to reconnect the wiring in the head light bucket and I went to grab my flash light, but I couldn't find it, I went around my garage for a good 5 mins and double checked everwhere I'd been, nothing!!!

I pulled out my LED headlamp light and it didn't work, the batteries had leaked so I put that to the side to fix later and I finally realized it was probably a good time to take a break and go get a cup of tea and regroup.

I called my son in to help and took out flashlight #2 from my Costco 3 pack and we went ahead and worked through the wiring until we were complete, I was really impressed with his ability to read and follow the wiring diagram, pretty good for 11 years old.

He asked why I had 2 of the same flashlights, I said "what" and he had both of them in his hands, he found it on the work bench!!!!!!!!!! Stunned.

We completed cleaning out the fuel tank, it had a couple of small rust spots in the bottom, probably from draining the fuel and there must have been a little water left in there, I used some diesel and a hand full of screws, gave it a good shake around for a bit and then retrieved the screws with my telescopic magnetic pickup tool, it cleaned up nicely.

We didn't have time to fit the tank so we hooked up the aux fuel bottle and ran the bike to check if everything worked properly, took a little longer to warm up than expected but once it was warm it ran well and all the electrics functioned correctly.

We cleaned up and went inside to start preparing the dinner, while the ribs were cooking I jumped on the computer and was looking at a CT for sale and was looking it over when the penny dropped, the missing headlight bolt was hanging from the speedo cable with the cable guide still attached.

I now remember lowering to the bottom of the cable because I didn't want to disconnect the speedo at the time, what a rookie move on my part.

That's what happens when I pull something apart and don't get back to it for way too long, apparently way too long is now is only a month.

Hope you enjoyed this long winded story.

I got to laugh at myself anyway, and the ribs turned out really well.

Cheers.

[steve murdoch]

David, this has been a great resto to follow.
The headlight ear discrepancies remind me of the problems i had with the resto of my S90 and CB160. Honda changing parts from year to year and sometimes during the same production year. You are fortunate having Beatrice nearby.

[Kiwi Canuck]

David, this has been a great resto to follow.
The headlight ear discrepancies remind me of the problems i had with the resto of my S90 and CB160. Honda changing parts from year to year and sometimes during the same production year. You are fortunate having Beatrice nearby.

Steve, thanks for the response and the kind words, yes it's great that we have Beatrice Cycles and Western Hills Honda that make the effort to stock lots of older Honda parts.

That's one of the reasons I would take on another one of these bikes, the parts are reasonable and available.

I also used Partzilla for the items they have available as they offer about 25% discount on their parts, that's why I bought the seat, sub fuel tank and head light bucket from them (got them just before Honda increased all prices by about 6%) but they don't have anywhere near the same level of parts available as the other two shops mentioned.

Cheers,

David.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Well it's been a while since I started on the hunt for paint to match the Tahitian Red on this bike.

First I bought a can of paint from Beatrice Cycles made by Colorite that was suppose to match the Honda Colour R23 Tahitian Red, I really like the colour but was not close enough to the original for my liking, I used it on the front fender and fork ears anyway till I found something better.

So today I took my new fuel tank down to Lordco and went through their colour chips from PPG.

They have two sets, the big Delfleet suitcase and another smaller Delfleet colour kit just for Emergency Vehicles.








Opps sideways photos, (I need to remember to hold my iphone sideways not upright)

So first I went through a few stacks of Reds and found a few that were pretty close but I think the closest match I could find was in the Fire and Emergency Kit.

Here's a few of the packs available.







This looks pretty close,




Here is the Colour Code.



Photo does not show true colour but it's very close and I would have been happy with that but we then tried the colour scanner.

The scanner got a match with a factor of 3 which is apparently about as good as you can get, so I ordered the colour the scanner gave us.

It matched a Mack Truck Colour, Rojo #7 the PPG code is 76507, they did not have the colour chip to see how close it was to 707390, but I'm pretty sure it's very close.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Here is the paint I got.





I also got the Prevail Spray Kit, at less than $6.00 worth a try and the staff said they had great feedback from people who use it.