1972 Honda SL70 Restoration

[petercscherer]

I thought I'd share my new project with y'all even though it's not a Datsun. I grew up riding this old bike and got in my fair share of scrapes and wrecks, and it was showing some wear; so when my dad asked if I could restore it for him, I jumped at the chance to put things right. I'll be doing a bit of a Resto-Mod restoration, where some colors and finishes may not be 100% factory correct, but it will all be in the spirit of the 1970's sport-bike era. 

Plans are to do a wild Candy Metal-Flake (not sure on color yet), custom exhaust, and reseal the original motor(it runs fine, why rebuild it?). I'll try and post a few update now and then as I get going on this project.

 

What I started with:

 

 

 

Teardown begins:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Start:

To totally stripped down:

 

In 5.5hrs...

 

Already have the frame mostly done in the blasting cabinet, will be spending awhile cleaning and prepping parts for paint, but should be in the paint booth later on this week or possibly next. 

I'll keep y'all updated!

~Peter

[DanielC]

So cool!

I had a Honda CT-70H for my first "minibike.  It had smaller tires a stamped steel frame, but the identical engine to your bike.  Most CT-70 Hondas were a three speed, with an automatic clutch, I insisted on getting one that had the four speed, and a manual clutch.

[petercscherer]

My brother rode a CT70 at the same time I was on this bike, still have that one bike too! I have to agree regarding the transmission, these Honda 4-speeds are just awesome gearboxes, you can even treat them like automatics and bang-shift them between gears (not that I ever did that...)  ;)

 

Once I finish this bike, I'll be building a more custom SL70 based pit bike. I recently picked up 3 SL/XL70 parts bikes and I'm looking to combine them all into one. So this build is really just a trial run to get my head back in the Mini-Bike game!

~Peter

[qwik510]

Very cool. I'm looking forward to following your build.

 

I had a Kawasaki 75 Dynamite as a kid and lots of friends had CT70s and SL70s.

 

I got the bug for a minibike again and picked this up back in November.

 

 

[q-tip]

Restoration? That thing looked in damn good shape as it sat.

[Dolomite]

^^^This! I thought it was already done. My first bike was a mini trail 50, it was slow but fun, damn thing would climb a tree if you wanted. I got a basket case '68 I'm fixing up to be my daughter's first bike. My old man gave me his all original '72 Husqvarna WR 450, my lil one will follow it just like I did as a kid.

[petercscherer]

Restoration? That thing looked in damn good shape as it sat.

Both fenders are torn, crushed and welded, the side covers are cracked, seat is split, exhaust is smashed, engine leaks, cables are stiff, and the frame is down to the metal in most places.

 

Yeah, it needed some help.

[q-tip]

Damn, sure looked good in the pictures. :lol:

[petercscherer]

Frame's blasted and ready to paint:

 

 

Primered and ready for basecoat:

 

 

 

In other news, built an engine stand so I can go through the engine and clean it without rolling it around on the bench like a wet puppy.

 

 

Overall, a pretty good day. :)

 

~Peter

[petercscherer]

Good progress today! Finished basecoat and clear on the frame:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still needs to be wetsanded and buffed, but I'll be letting it cure for a week before handling it. It's not quite Bass-Boat glittery, but quite a bit more than stock; and it will look WAY better when polished out.

 

Decided to restore the the handlebars and hardware as well...

Before:

 

 

 

 

 

After:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing how brilliant the original finish can be with some work! NOS grips, cables, and restored aluminum parts.

~Peter

[petercscherer]

Back in town, and back to work. Finished the cut/polish on the frame:

 

 

After painting the other silver pieces, I'm not quite satisfied with the "depth" of the clearcoat, so I may toss it back in the paint-booth for some more coats. 

 

 

 

 

As is often the case with SL70 bikes, the stock muffler was crushed from getting laid on it's side (not my fault, I swear!). So it needed to either be repaired or replaced. Now, there are several options for replacement: a.) Chinese reproduction or b.) NOS muffler. The reproductions are really poor quality and easy to spot because of their terrible seams and welds, and the NOS pieces are in the $850-1000 price range... 

So I was informed to try and save the original piece, if at all possible. 

 

 

Couldn't use Bondo because of the heat from the exhaust, and couldn't use Lead for the same reason... So that leaves welding and grinding. Oh joy!

 

 

Changed the angles in the rear to better finish the area out:

 

 

Some primer and sanding will follow once I get around to painting the black parts in the booth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plans for tomorrow will be applying the base coats for the tank,fenders, and side covers. Crazy paint incoming!

 

~Peter

[petercscherer]

Completed all the Silver Metallic pieces yesterday. Wound up going back and respraying and clearing the frame, for a better glossy finish.

 

Starting on the primary color parts now, sanded and primed the tank for starters:

 

 

 

Wrapped up the polishing as well:

 

 

 

Here's the redone frame, the clearcoat is much deeper than before, and the photos do not show the depth of the finish, but I'm satisfied and I'll be colorsanding and polishing all those parts today. 

 

 

 

 

 

Bodywork and sanding is the plan for today, mostly on the fenders and tank, I want to start doing some practice runs on the primary color since I've never painted candy-metallics before.

 

 

 

~Peter

[petercscherer]

Installed a new drive-gear seal to stop a long-term leak and got the engine buttoned up ready to be degreased and cleaned.

 

~Peter

[petercscherer]

It has way more metallic in person, cell-phone cameras are terrible at picking it up. Really happy with it. There's a surprising amount of debris that got in the clearcoat, so I'll be sanding and polishing that tomorrow, but the color and depth is spot on!

~Peter

[petercscherer]

Minor sanding and polishing on the painted parts today. Had small debris from the booth settle on everything, a problem I fixed too late. So I got to spend 5 hours with an orbital buffer on the pieces...

 

 

Got them all back in the booth to finish the curing process for the next few days.

 

 

~Peter

[fisch]

Man I loved strolling through this and love your shop!!

[petercscherer]

Update! Lots of assembly has gotten accomplished in the past week, wrapped up the main harness, front forks and rear swing-arm. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Applied new decals to the side-panels, tank is still to come:

 

 

 

BIG NEWS! Got better lighting installed in my workstation! Way easier to work in there now, and really made a difference in being able to see details and work better.

 

 

Next on the docket is installing everything that's small and tucked away, like the battery box, brake linkage, headlight, etc... Also,  I still need to restore the wheels and tail-light; so those will get accomplished as well at some point. 

 

I'll keep updates coming as progress gets done!
~Peter

[petercscherer]

Not sure if anyone is even caring to hear about this at this point, but had a major snafu with the tank. When I was installing the Honda decals, the paint started shifting and it became apparent that the basecoat of Gold had released from the primer and it was pretty much toast...

 

SOOOO, I had to take the tank back down to bare metal, and apply Gold Basecoat:

 

 

Keen eyes will notice the tape on the center line, I decided to go a difference route on the paint this time:

 

 

A bit of Gold to breakup the Kandy Brandywine. It still needs to cure, and then be sanded and polished. Which reminds me to mention that I used Spray-Max House of Kolor Aerosol paint to coat the tank and I am NOT impressed with the quality of the products. I'll go ahead and list the issues I had:

1.) Even though there is 20% of the contents left in the can, you will NOT get anymore paint to spray out, just the solvent-aerosol.

2.) I got TONS of debris in the paint, I don't know why... I can paint with DupliColor Aerosols and get a show-quality finish with no final polish needed, but this stuff has bits of debris EVERYWHERE! I'll probably spend 6-7 hours on wet-sanding and polishing this tank just to get it presentable. 

3.) Cost was unbelievable for the paint! I wound up spending $165 on Kandy paint and 2k Clear-Coats for this bike and I'm confident I could've gotten similar results for around $60 at Walmart...

4.) This stuff is dangerous! The paint contains high levels of isocyanates which made me wear way more protection than I normally do, and I still feel like crap.

5.) Once you start using the paint, you only have 48hrs before it goes bad... Which means that if you want to go back later and do touch-ups or resprays you have to start with a brand-new can and throw the old stuff away!

 

Overall, I'll be doing another bike here in the next month or two, and I'll be experimenting with some different paint alternatives to save me some time and hassle.

~Peter

[Lockleaf]

That sucks about that expensive paint. I like what you are doing though. I've done a little playing on bike tanks, but I've used the dupli color color match line for touching up car paint.

 

Cb350 tank "Split personality"

 

 

Xj750

 

[q-tip]

Paint is looking good!

[petercscherer]

Alright, here's a little documentation of the sanding/polishing process I had to go through with all that crap in the paint. 

 

Wetsanding down with 2000grit...

 

Medium Polish removes most of the sanding marks:

 

 

I am having some custom decals made, should be getting them installed tomorrow or Saturday. 

 

~Peter

[petercscherer]

Alright then, got decals installed, and some more progress on the re-assembly!

 

 

 

 

Decals were custom made and applied locally, I'm quite impressed with the results!

 

 

 

 

 

Picked up an NOS tail-light assembly, and I'm starting to work on polishing the rims and getting new rubber installed. Otherwise, it's pretty darn close to starting up and getting sorted out.

 

~Peter

[DanielC]

The tail light on slightly earlier Hondas was a much smaller assembly.   Much greater chance of getting off the bike from the rear, without getting snagged on the tail light.

 

But the job you are doing looks fantastic!

[petercscherer]

Wrapped up some more assembly this week, and I had to roll it outside for some pics! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still need to wrap up the exhaust installation and some little bits, and then it's time to do systems checks and get it running again! 

~Peter

[datsunfreak]

That came out gorgeous!  :thumbup: