1966 Honda CT200 Trail 90- Rode hard and put up with no compression

Because I need another project bike like I need another hole in my head, I happened to scoop up this local CT200 Trail from a barn a couple hours away from me. It's mostly complete and needs everything at the same time. I paid only a couple hundred bucks and the goal isn't a restoration but just a bare bones "repair what is broken" operation. They only made about 500 billion Honda Trails but the 64-66 pushrod motors are a little bit hard to find stuff for. It has zero compression, brazing done on the fuel tank which may or may not leak, cables frozen, side case broken. These are the kinds of projects that add up fast but I'm hoping I can do most of my shopping from eBay. Nothing needs to be pretty but just needs to be there and functioning.

These both have 3900 miles on them but their life paths have been drastically different. 

I would like to find another one of these plastic pieces and the little metal horn cover since this one is pretty hammered. These came in red and yellow and virtually all of the red ones have faded to this orange except for the plastic bits.

Ouch. This was repaired with bondo at some point. I haven't inspected the break too closely but hopefully it's just isolated to one piece I can replace.

Fuel tank ground and brazed and hopefully doesn't leak. Not holding my breath.

Missing the connector for the front brake arm.

90% of these don't have the original air intake tubes and that is really what sold me on it. 

This heat shield and the rear section of the exhaust has been cut up a little and the factory exhaust is expensive. I'll see what I can do with it. I also justified adding a 4th bike to the mix because this one is tiny and takes up little room.

Next up is a deep cleaning and making an inventory. Since stuff is 56 years old, I'm going to do my best not spending more money than the CBX getting this thing going.  This one is actually going to be slow going only receiving $50 at a time until it's done. 

Cool 240Z

Sweet Honda 6 cylinder bike 

Now this?

Don't you know that you're my hero?  You are the wind beneath my wings....

I'll bet you could use a Nighthawk 250 or Twinstar barrel to reconnect the brake.

Yeah, brake barrel could likely come off anything. I'd pull the cables and start soaking them. I bet they'll free up. 

That spark plug wire, though...

Really cool bike. If push comes to shove, a Chinese knock off OHC engine could be sweet. Is it the dual range?

This looks fun. I need to get back to my 74 Trail 90 Lifan swap. I realized the other day that it hasn't run since I moved into my current house 5 years ago and I should change that. 

wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) said:

Yeah, brake barrel could likely come off anything. I'd pull the cables and start soaking them. I bet they'll free up. 

That spark plug wire, though...

Really cool bike. If push comes to shove, a Chinese knock off OHC engine could be sweet. Is it the dual range?

 

Cables will start being soaked today and yeah that plug wire will be addressed eventually. I'd rather keep this 100% ratty ass Honda than do the Lifan swap though.

This is dual range but not how you are thinking. The selectable hi-lo transmissions came out a year later. This model does it with a big ass sprocket you have to swap the chain to (Not mine below):

That's awesome. I didn't know they came larger than 110cc.

Are you going to keep the mileages in sync? Taking the CBX out for a afternoon trip means you're going to be  doing a day trip soon on the CT.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

It's mostly complete and needs everything at the same time.

Another in the growing list of reasons why i love this site - most everyone here reading the above sentence immediately understands it and can relate to it.

I'm intrigued by the bike. It's like a moped started hitting the gym.

Run_Away said:

That's awesome. I didn't know they came larger than 110cc.

 

Are you going to keep the mileages in sync? Taking the CBX out for a afternoon trip means you're going to be  doing a day trip soon on the CT.

It's actually a 90cc as well. They called them CT200s then in 66 just went to CT90 probably because everybody thought they were larger. 

And I think the CT would likely need a weekend camping trip in order to rack up 30 + miles. Haha!

Queue the garage music:

Degreasing, de-mildewing, de-rusting (within reason) and making an inventory:

Gross:

I pulled the covers to inspect the wiring situation and it still all looks there so that's nice.

De-spiderizing the side covers:

After some WD40 and Bar Keeper's Friend it's at least clean and a 20 footer. 

After closer inspection, I really need to look at just buying new cables probably since the coverings are crumbling away. It clicks in to all the gears and the suspension actually still works well.

I found the side cover I need for 50% of the bike's purchase price. These bikes are weird. To the guy who is restoring one and needs this one piece they may pay for it but for every guy like that, there are 1000 of these buried in the woods somewhere with that exact part growing mildew.

I'll keep looking around and if anybody comes across 64-66 Trail 90 parts let me know.

http://dratv.com/

If you didn't know it already, this is your go-to for horizontal Honda stuff.  Also there was a place out of Indonesia (!) that I ordered stuff from when I had my Passport project years ago; prices were really good but the shipping took forever.  I'll see if I can find it again.

psteav (Forum Supporter) said:

http://dratv.com/

If you didn't know it already, this is your go-to for horizontal Honda stuff.  Also there was a place out of Indonesia (!) that I ordered stuff from when I had my Passport project years ago; prices were really good but the shipping took forever.  I'll see if I can find it again.

Yes sir. dratv.com is an excellent shop with workarounds built in to parts that are NLA that tell you what to do to make them work. I love old shops like that. 

I had a S-90 for High school , and later a pushrod trail 90 , then ATC 90 and ATC 110 overhead cam 

The modern bikes as pretty close to the same motor and 125cc

check out C-90 adventures on YouTube where he travels the world on a C-90 , Asia to Europe , Alaska to Argentina etc.....

Batteries are only $25 so I figured I'd throw one on tonight and see where I've got the electricity flowing.
 

Pulled out all the battery bracketry, soaked it in evaporust, and sprayed it black.

After some soldering and connecting obvious broken wires that previous owners didn't care about, I have a taillight and the saddest horn ever. No spark but that plug wire is garbage and I'll be on the look out for a new coil/plug lead.

I've ordered a few bits on eBay that I'm waiting on to dig in to other areas. So far this thing is really enjoyable to tinker on after work.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

After some soldering and connecting obvious broken wires that previous owners didn't care about, I have a taillight and the saddest horn ever. No spark but that plug wire is garbage and I'll be on the look out for a new coil/plug lead.

I would wrap the new lead in electrical tape to keep up the ratty old Honda vibe, I think bikes that look like they are held together with ingenuity and hope are cool. 

$100 goes a decent way when buying either other people's junk or ebay things from Indonesia.

$12 got me a new used front brake cable with all the hardware I needed:

Now I have working front brakes:

I pulled the tank to soak with Evaporust:

After a day or so of shaking some washers around with the Evaporust mix, the heavy scale was gone and I was able to rinse it out (Into a clean trash bag to reuse it until it's all black). 

Redkote liner goes in and just letting it bleed out in to a clean trash bag to reuse the rest of it.

Once the tank is off, I was able to get in to remove the coil and it's an original Denso that is falling apart in multiple places:

New coil is on order and should be in shortly. On the other side of the bike, the broken chain cover drove me nuts. Looking down at rocks and trash sitting on the front sprocket was too much. I picked up a replacement on ebay that had been on there for a bit and Im sure I was the only person that kept watching it. I asked about it and they dropped the price so I scooped it up.

Maybe it was never changed because a few screws holding it on were totally stripped. The easy out was victorious and I'm super pumped about that. I have terrible luck with those things typically.

After cleaning the 56 years of sludge, rocks, and a dead mouse carcass I could see the sprocket again.

The average person would still look at this bike and not be able to tell that any amount of improvement had been made but *I* know I swapped that cover out. 

Once that eyesore was replaced, I pulled the broken plastic front headlight cover. Lots of trash in there and a busted 6v bulb that nobody has in stock. I found a replacement aftermarket cover on ebay (that costs more in shipping than the actual piece) and another little oem metal horn cover that is well used but is no longer absent.

I was going to paint it but once I shimmy it in and remove the tape on the headlight, I kind of like how it looks. If you've seen my Datsun, you'll know I also just like mismatching paint sometimes. 

Once the coil comes in, I'll start looking more at ignition and see if I can get a spark.

Message sent with free parts offer.

Looking good! I love old Hondas.

 If you haven't already seen it the RevZilla Alaska adventure and substituent restoration of the bike is a good watch and very relevant to this thread!

Following for my love of old clapped bikes. 

bgkast said:

Looking good! I love old Hondas.

 

 If you haven't already seen it the RevZilla Alaska adventure and substituent restoration of the bike is a good watch and very relevant to this thread!

 

 

Yes sir! I saw them pass through while at Hatcher Pass. Well I saw two Honda trails from a distance while on top of a mountain hiking near the Summit lake actually. I didn't recognize them as RevZilla since who would expect them to be there at all. After I saw the episode I thought "What were the chances of that?" and I wish I could have said hello. 

Lots of people ride or drive through Alaska on crazy trips from Argentina or Germany or wherever and sometimes I can follow along with progress if I hear about it ahead of time which is kind of fun. I believe the YouTuber Itchy Boots - Dutch lady is in Panama headed to AK now and her videos are great.

I also keep an eye open for roached out Honda Trails and of course once I saw that video it made me want one even more. Of course this one is way crustier, 10 years older, and will never go to the North Slope. 

Still waiting on the new coil and rectifier but I did pick up this little piece of history to throw on the back. When I first got my 240z, I had 4 sets of wheels before it had brakes. When I first got my H1, it got registered and insured before I knew if it ran. I do stuff out of order sometimes but I just like goofy parts of the process.
 

Also an old Honda poster for inside the house flair:

This is more fun than having compression. 

The new coil and rectifier arrived from eBay and DrAtv respectively.

Maybe the spark plug wire had self esteem issues as a kid

Not my best wiring job but it's all connected:

Defintely going to get points and condenser next since I still have nothing at the plug. This whole assembly is pretty gross:

Since could put the tank back on, I ran the fuel lines with inline filters:

I'm thinking I'll just try to find a complete all new points plate to replace as many parts in there that are corroded. Back to eBay I go.

Using my all time favorite fuel lines. 

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

Using my all time favorite fuel lines. 

Motion Pro Tygon. One and done. I'm so tired of fuel line getting brittle after a season so even though this stuff is expensive for what it is, it is what I have started switching everything over to it. 

I was able to find a NOS points plate in Japan that is being shipped out so I can replace that whole assembly as one unit in a couple of weeks when it arrives. Picture for part numbers in case somebody needs it in the future:

After some additional usage of the extractors, I swapped in the new points plate. 

The timing is definitely off and I ran out of time before putting a light to it but we have spark now. For fun, I sprayed it with a touch of brake cleaner and it gave me a few pops and bangs.Still virtually no compression so I'm not expecting much. Still it's good to see electricity from the battery through my wiring (yikes) the coil and to the plug. 

A little more fiddling with timing and replacing m5 .80 thread screws that have weird sizes and then hopefully I can move on to carburetor. 

Awesome. I love vintage NOS parts, they just give such an impression of quality. Very satisfying.

Are you going to bother will diagnosing the compression or just tearing it apart for rings/hone/valve lapping?