New Project: 1986 Honda Nighthawk 700 S

[tigger]

Do the bags move around without the stock turn signal stalks?

 

[Spectre]

Nope, I've got them fastened to each other through the license plate bracket.

 

[Spectre]

Update: Installed "new" custom saddle, with more/better padding - raised the seat an inch or two.

 

[Spectre]

I bought a parts bike to supply spare parts - basically I paid $200 for a spare gas tank and got an entire 1985 700S (with a blown second gear) thrown in for free!

(Former owner in background.)

 

[freeferrarisdonotexist]

I bought a parts bike to supply spare parts - basically I paid $200 for a spare gas tank and got an entire 1985 700S (with a blown second gear) thrown in for free!

(Former owner in background.)

Where do you find such cheap parts bikes? The cheapest I've seen on craigslist, ebay etc for both Texas and the UK is about $500+ for something in that condition (most all of the parts but one major failure). I'd love to restore a bike in about that condition.

 

[Spectre]

I got this one off Craigslist, actually. I'm really good at searching, especially a technique I call "off-axis searching".

Same thing with my Series III - I got it for $800 off eBay.

I got the PacCoast off Craigslist, too - here's the ad: http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/mcy/1246430559.html

 

[freeferrarisdonotexist]

I got this one off Craigslist, actually. I'm really good at searching, especially a technique I call "off-axis searching".

Same thing with my Series III - I got it for $800 off eBay.

I got the PacCoast off Craigslist, too - here's the ad: http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/mcy/1246430559.html

Those are very very good deals... makes it tempting to get one while here in Texas ( I do have to return the old BMW when I leave after all...)

Since you've had experience doing serious restoration on bikes, what would be a good candidate? An old Honda Nighthawk or CB comes to mind (cheap, simple and easy to find parts for). Suggestions?

(Not trying to hijack the thread, by the way. If I get serious about this I'll have a separate one).

 

[Spectre]

Those are very very good deals... makes it tempting to get one while here in Texas ( I do have to return the old BMW when I leave after all...)

Since you've had experience doing serious restoration on bikes, what would be a good candidate? An old Honda Nighthawk or CB comes to mind (cheap, simple and easy to find parts for). Suggestions?

(Not trying to hijack the thread, by the way. If I get serious about this I'll have a separate one).

Well, what do you intend to do with the bike when it's done? There's plenty of small and middleweight Hondas that are fun and easy to restore, but you wouldn't want to ride it on the freeway.

Probably the easiest to find and restore is going to be the 750/4 SOHC Hondas. Definitely big enough to get on the freeway, parts are commonly available, they made millions of them and Honda still stocks most of them in their warehouses. Then you get into the 80s Nighthawks, Sabres, Magnas, Interceptors and Hurricanes, all are good choices. The V4s are more difficult to work on, but they are fun to ride.


Thing about Hondas is that unless you have a very low production model or one that was built more than 40 years ago, it's not usually a huge challenge to restore them. There's tons of support and pretty much every popular Honda model after the original 750 is going to have parts available on the market.

While other brands do have somewhat spotty support for their vintage bikes, Honda has excellent support. With other brands, you'll get to learn three little letters as the bane of your existence - N.L.A., as in No Longer Available.

 

[Spectre]

I love Honda motorcycle engineering. You can go from this:

To this:

In less than 30 minutes. There are no electronic modules or control boxes left on that thing at this point. It's ready to go to the shop for the messy job of removing the engine, since I've mostly stripped it.

 

[Spectre]

And after spending much of what other people call 'winter' deadlined for maintenance, the CB700SC is back in service. I had taken it down because both the master cylinders were leaking not just from the seals but also from the sight glasses, then life got in the way.

Well, two completely overhauled masters including new sight glass replacement kits from New River Cycle later, plus other work, it's back up again and it's brought some new toys to the party.

First, the Nighthawk now has all-LED auxiliary lighting. I replaced all the dashboard lights with white LEDs and it not only eliminated the heat that slowly destroys the instrument backings and needles, it also vastly improved the night visibility of the instruments. The only incandescent/halogen left is the headlight itself.

And finally (for this post) is this neat little add on, called a 'scopewatch'. It's a clock and thermometer unit originally intended for hunters to mount on their rifle scopes, but the company has since started selling them as motorcycle clocks. It claims to be waterproof and vibration resistant and it was really cheap on eBay. A good solution to the bike's lack of a clock - at least in theory. I'll be testing this through the year and I'll let you all know how it works out.

 

[Rossco]

Hey this is great, I'm thinking about going LED on my bike. Especially since all the instrument lights are burned out anyway. Does that handlebar clock work on it's own battery power, or does it plug into the bike's wiring?

 

[Spectre]

It works off it's own battery.

 

[Spectre]

Just managed to track down the very last US set of new original Hondaline engine guards/crash bars for the 700S in Honda dealer inventory. At the same time, an unused set in private hands popped up on eBay:

My set cost less than the $96 the auction set went for and it'll be here tomorrow - where I will promptly haul it over to a local powdercoater, have the chrome stripped and a black semigloss powdercoat applied to match the rest of the bike.

Edit: Forgot to mention; in order to track this down, I first had to track down an original Hondaline parts listing/catalog page that listed the part numbers of all of the original accessories offered back in 84-86. Found one on eBay a while back for a couple of bucks and it paid for itself right away.

From a later Hondaline brochure, this is what the 86 looked like when kitted out with every Hondaline accessory, save that it's carrying the soft saddlebags instead of the hard ones. (Yes, I've recently found and fitted an original set of the original air intake covers that make it look like it has velocity stacks). The other option not pictured on the RWB bike is the big 'seat trunk' or helmet box, which is pictured on the ROB 700S in the inset picture.

I am considering tracking down a tail rack, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother as that might date the bike quite severely and it's rather vestigial anyway.

 

[Spectre]

Here's the bits, just back from powdercoat:

And here it is installed.

I think that pretty much finished off the project stage for now. Everything from here on out is likely to be simple maintenance.

 

[Spectre]

Okay, to pick up from here, I've gone ahead and had a temporary replacement lens sent in from Houston.

Unfortunately, it was the best one I could find that would get here before my upcoming trip to Houston - while not opaque, it was translucent from oxidation and aging.

I took some Meguiar's PlastX to it (I have their headlight 'repair kit' that comes with a drill-powered polishing pad) and about an hour (and half a small bottle) later, I had gotten enough of the oxidation off that the lens was useful again.

There's still some on there and it'll annoy me until I get the real replacement in for it, but at least it's usable - and I'm out of time for messing with it.

 

[EyeMWing]

Personally, I would've gone with stickytape, but that's me.

Not a bad cleanup job. Your bike is gaining some... Interesting pedigree accumulating last-of-its-kind parts.

 

[Spectre]

Heh, I suppose it is - but that's not unusual around here.

 

[Spectre]

Well, my 700 has been sitting in this state for months while I collected parts and waited to get some time to reassemble the front end. (The signals on the floor belong to CrazyJeeper's Nighthawk 750.)

Recently I began to have some time to work on this again and the last of the parts arrived. After helping CrazyJeeper reassemble his CB750 (to get more room in the Volcano), I turned my attention to my own beast. This was a couple of days ago; I had to Dremel out the old lower bearing race (which turned out to have been installed incorrectly by that idiot mechanic) as there didn't seem to be any other way to get it out.

Tonight, after pretending we were British and standing around a brazier for a while, we got to work.

This was the end result - old gas pumped out of the tank, steering head assembled with new bearings and seals fitted.

Tomorrow, I fit the rebuilt front forks, Hel brake lines, Galfer clutch line and reassemble the rest of the front end. If I have time, I will also fit new ignition wires and NGK spark plug caps.

 

[Carmen's Revenge]

Great stuff! I learned how to ride a motorcycle on my late Dad's Nighthawk.

He bought me a Yamaha 2-stroke as my first bike and I went "grrr, I want a Honda!". 5 years later I got a little '03 chopper that's made in Thailand and it's proving to be a fantastic city bike that needs minimal maintenence. Much tinier cc than your Nighthawk but it gives 100mpg in compensation.

Love the simple mechanical design, that enables me to learn the art of DIYing. (Rare in this side of the world)

 

[Spectre]

Assembly is proceeding slowly, thanks to an idiot supplier who screwed up their specs for the clutch hose. I've got the replacement for that and will be able to continue tomorrow. I also scored a spare correct tank and instrument pod.