adventureduo
Dave Druck [KI6LBB]
So, about 9 months ago a few of us came up with this silly idea that we could ride the famous LA-Barstow to Vegas ride on 90cc bikes. Our thought was, anyone can do it a real bike... let's make it a challenge. It's only 450-500 miles off road in two days starting in Palmdale CA and ending in Las Vegas Nevada. What could go wrong?
If you've never heard of the LA-B to V... it's about as oldschool as it gets and used to be wide open across the desert.
More information here: http://www.labarstowvegas.com/
If you're not familiar with the Honda Trail90, it's basically a small trail bike that offered a low range drive kit that basically let the bike climb like a goat over very technical and steep terrain. Hunters used them and they were big in the RV world, hauling them on the back bumper and such. Also, most people remember learning how to ride a 2wheel moto on these when they were a kid. I don't know many people that don't point when you're out putting around on one.
Some of you know that Yoshi has her 1978 CT90, but as prestine as it is she'd absolutely kill me if i tore it through the desert and beat it to death. So the craigslist hunt was on for a cheap bike that i wouldn't feel bad about tearing up a bit. My thought was, get something somewhat cheap.. running or not, rebuild it, run it and then sell it afterwards.
For $300 I found this. A 1969 k1-b. No paperwork and no longer in the CA DMV system.
It was a non-runner and missing quite a bit of small misc parts, but it was a solid platform. Besides, the rebuild was the fun part!
The '69.5 was also the First half year of the Telescoping fork - a must have, since the suspension already is terrible for what we're doing. The springer type front would not cut it for what we were trying to accomplish. Additionally, the engine air intake was moved to be "out of the way", on the left side of the frame, below the seat. However, this lowered the height of the air intake, thus restricting the ability of the CT to cross deep streams.
The kid we picked it up from was working on it as a project bike to take him back and forth to school. He ended up giving up as he ran out of time before the school year supposedly started. To me, i think he may have gotten in over his head as we would later find out the top end was seized.
It was time to get it in the shop and get it running. First order of business was, i needed it to "roll". The front tube was flat and the tire seemed to be at least 20 years old. So i yanked that first and replaced both.
The front wheel received a new rim strap too. The old one was done.
Next on the list is to chase the sketchy wiring harness and see if i can even get the electrical to work, afterall, if i can't get that set straight it doesn't matter if the motor is mint. It's not running without ignition. After robbing peter to pay paul and using Yosh's battery to test, a bit of tracking down schematics and chasing 30+ year old wiring i got the wiring figured out. I was happy to see everything work how it should. I also, forgot to mention that the bike didn't come with any keys. So that would have to be ordered next.
I found this place online, hondakeys.com. They actually have NOS cut original keys in stock. Only certain model years, but i was lucky. All i needed to do was send them in the tumbler id number and within about a week i had a key that worked.
The battery was missing and so was the the holder and cover. So i figured i'd order up some parts from dratv.com, somehow i knew it wasn't going to be the last
It was amazing to see just how many genuine Honda parts that are still available out there.
The battery hold down bracket arrived and it was a later model year. All you can get these days. So i had to grind and modify it to work.
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