1984 Honda Elite: How long have I wanted this? I still have the original brochure!

Woody said:

Well, the Stupid Magazine motivated me to reopen the Scooteria and spend a sweltering afternoon in the garage working on this thing.

It's still not running, but I have some ideas. There's an electrical component on the carb called the Auto Bystarter. I don't know exactly what that is or what it does, but it's probably worth investigating. It's not serviceable, but it is testable, just a simple measurement of resistance will tell me if it needs to be replaced. That will happen tomorrow.

At the very least, the pile of parts has gotten smaller and it's starting to look like a complete machine again.

 

 

A quick Google search seems to indicate that the Auto Bystarter is the choke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PXd0pootTQ

This could very well be your starting issue.

And yes, it was damned sweltering yesterday. I mowed the lawn and nearly died.

In reply to Woody :

Google tells me that it's about 3500 miles. The route will add some, so lets go with 4500 to be pessimists. Average 50mph would give you 90 hours or 10 hours a day. Start at 6:00 am and have a sit down dinner every night. 

Get your scooter running, I'll hit CL and we can totally do it. 

There were a few minor developments today.

First off:

No, I still have it, but my wife can park in the garage again. It is now 99% reassembled and I've moved it to another part of the garage.

I say 99% reassembled because the only part that I didn't put on was the airbox assembly.

Two reasons: One, I still need to address the fuel delivery situation, and B, I'm missing the back half of the airbox. I'll have to track one down.

Anybody here have several disassembled Honda Elites in their backyard?

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I respect your enthusiasm, but I don't see myself making that particular journey.

So, with all the reassembly and move to the other side of the garage, does is kind of run?  Did you get some combustion at some point? 

Details please.

Woody said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I respect your enthusiasm, but I don't see myself making that particular journey.

And...I actually gave myself a Thumbs Down for that one.^

In reply to Samebutdifferent :

In the course of reassembly, I investigated the Auto Bystarter situation. According to the factory shop manual, it should have a maximum resistance of 10 ohms across the leads. If resistance exceeds 10 ohms, the Auto Bystarter should be replaced. Mine measures a solid 15 ohms.

So, while I'm not 100% sure that the Auto Bystarter is 100% responsible for this thing's failure to Auto Bystart, it certainly gives me someplace to direct my attention.

Now I just need to see if I can find a replacement.

Thanks for the update and persevering during these difficult times...

There is a nifty air scoop hiding behind the louvres that feeds the radiator. 

A while back I started another thread asking if Krazy Glue would work on ABS plastic. Someone here suggested trying ABS cement from Home Depot. 

Well, duh...I hadn’t thought of that. Many thanks for the smack in the head. The stuff worked great. 

I don't have any action shots of this part, but while the taillight lens was in great shape, when I went to snap it back into the housing, I discovered that it didn't originally snap into the housing. It was glued, and I must have popped it apart during disassembly.

I spent way too much time scraping away the dry-but-gummy old glue out of the narrow channel in the housing, Then I filled most of that channel (minus the weep holes) with a thin bead of clear silicone, and very carefully set the lens into place.

Perfect!

If you pull that bystarter out and apply 12 volts to it, you'll see that all it does is the pointed needle moves slightly in and out which either covers or uncovers a passsageway in the carb. In other words, it works like a choke...automatically. After a certain amount of time (can't remember how long 15-30 secs maybe) it reverts to its non choke position. Try it and see with your own eyes!

In reply to nedc :

Thanks. I’ll give that a try this weekend. 

I'm assuming when the bystarter fails it fails in the open position? If that is the case, can't you just put your hand or something over the carb inlet while cranking to simulate the choke and get it to pull some gas into the chamber and see if it burps? Or perhaps it failed in the closed position and it's running super rich and flooding? Can you see it when you look into the carb throat so you can verify if it's in the open or closed position?

In reply to bashr52 :

Unfortunately, the carb is kind of buried up in the frame under the battery. I’ll get a better look at it this weekend. 

Very cool build Woody, hang in there.  I almost bought a Helix once, the Elite's big sister.

Harvey said:

 

A quick Google search seems to indicate that the Auto Bystarter is the choke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PXd0pootTQ

This could very well be your starting issue.

 

Thanks for the link to that video. I now wish that I had the time to watch it a few days ago. I learned what the auto bystarter is, and then my next step was to go on eBay, where I hit the Easy Button.

For $27.50 shipped, I'll have a brand new Chinese carb with a new auto bystarter at my door by Thursday. For that amount of money, it's not even worth messing with the old one.

That is amazing.  You will be back in business in no time.

I bought a new fuel filter, and a gallon of Evapo-Rust for the fuel tank at Tractor Supply, and found the missing half of the air box for $20 on eBay. I’m hoping that all I need now is a new air filter and a few inches of fuel line to make this thing run. 

I love it when a plan comes together!

My $27.50 carburetor arrived today, and it's even more beautiful than I could have possibly imagined!

Plus, it was only $27.50...

Even better than the jack???

Woody said:

The airbox part arrived a few days ago, and I finally got around to mating the parts up.

Hey, not so fast...

I didn't notice it at the time, but my new used part came equipped with two screws that were frozen into the screw inserts that had pulled out of its original main housing.

I was initially annoyed, but it didn't take long to get them removed.

Upon closer examination of the front half of the original airbox that came with the scooter, I discovered that part of the housing had broken and there was a missing screw insert.

So I found myself with one broken part with a missing piece, and a replacement for a missing part that came with some extra pieces.

Enter my old friend JB Stik...

In order to have better access to replace the carb, I removed the fuel tank. It didn't look too bad inside, and the gas still smelled like gas, but I decided that it wasn't worth risking my nice new carb with nasty old fuel.

The original plan was to drain it through a coffee filter, mix it with some fresh gas and burn it in my lawnmower. Unfortunately, the old stuff was so nasty that it wouldn't even pass through the filter. It looked like the kind of unpasteurized apple cider that you buy at the farm.

I couldn't, in good conscious, reuse the tank without taking care of the crud inside.

With the cap and valve removed, I let the empty tank sit in the hot sun for a few hours to dry out. Later, I flushed it with water several times. Then I used a small extension magnet to pull a bunch of rusty chunks out of the bottom of the tank.