Thursday 8 August 2013

Restoration Virgin

I bought this Honda PC50E-D for £120 off Ebay. The bike was originally supplied by R.O Clarke Motorcycles & Scooters of Norwich and first registered in April 1976.

It was in the worst state you could possibly imagine, you've never seen so much rust and muck, well, it's been stood outside on a Norfolk Farm since 1987 when it's Road Tax ran out. That said it is my first attempt at restoring something and i think it will prove to be a good learning tool for future restorations. 


I had the engine running within a couple of days after cleaning the carb, yes, it really does sound like a sewing machine as well, and at the moment i am down to the frame, everything else is in boxes dry stored - i've 'WD40'd' everything and pretty much di-assembled the thing without damaging anything. The pictures here show the bike in a reasonable state, you can see from the pictures lower down just how bad the bike was.


 


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Now i have a blue primer on the frame and for demonstration part re-assembled cleaned mudguards to show the huge contrast in condition so far.. 

The bike will have a final coat of its near original colour as can still be seen on the air cover and shock absorbers above.





Nice Blue final coat now applied!



As you can now see i have a topcoat and the detail work continues with stripping down the headlight for prepping to paint - I have the fuel tank already prepared. 

I'm still trying to obtain some flange bushes for the front suspension - the tail light bracket/numberplate bracket is already cleaned and painted, as is the luggage rack which are stored. The bottom photo shows its last recorded mileage with the speedometer removed from the headlight bucket.