The Honda XL (and other vintage singles) thread!

They work great. I use them ALL the time (I teach small engine repair to middle school students... ). Once helicoiled, you don't have to worry about them anymore. Unless, of course, you have middle school students working on them.

Pretty easy to install- just follow the instructions. Kits are kinda expensive up front, but once you have it alls you need in the future are more of the coils.

'72-73 2.1 US Gallons
'74-75 2.2 US Gallons

Thanks again skorpioskorpio!

Woot woot!! Replaced the Yamaha DT tailight with a Honda Elite one with a wee rack on it. Fixed sticking rear brake. Even brought my $8.00 a quart pennsoil in the tankbag. Spit the left upper shock bolt out on this ride and spent the long ride home with the seat pan tapping out Morse code on my hemi. Horizontal, thanks for the kind words. Have you an XL?

We're kinna in the same boat with stipped heads. I just pulled a CT110 head that has both exhaust studs broken. The former owner had a go at replacing the exhaust pipe.

Hard pickin' which bike is sweeter, this XL or the Maxxim in the background!! Love me sum barn fresh bikes. Don't wash it!!!!

OK, thanks. Looks like one of my bolt sockets stripped when I was fixing the oil leak in my valve cover head, making things needlessly more interesting. I'm thinking I'll have to drop the engine simply to give a drill proper access to the top; otherwise, replacing the valve cover can be done with the engine in the bike on a 250cc.

Next I'll go into town and see what kits I can find.

Yup. Here's my ride, currently ailing, along with my GF's 84 Honda Aero 125cc:



What method are you gonna use to fix yours?

Looking good!!! Nice Honda CH Elite as well. I have a CH 150 Deluxe that I use as a parts runner. Rode it to San Jose once........

I had a go at the studs when the head was still on the bike. Torch and vicegrips didn't budge them. One is snapped clean off. There wasn't much left of the studs when I had a go. I'm going to use the ole drop head off at machine shop method on this one. I'm no stranger to extracting broken fastners as I've been cleaning up after entry level technicians for over 30 years. 3M also makes a product called " Form a thread " it may or may not work for you.

BTW. Did I meet you and your XL at Betty Burger on 41st???? Was Valentines day of last year.

Nice trade, even got a super trapp exhaust!

No, that wasn't me. Still haven't been to Betty's Burgers yet. We always seem to end up at Pizza My Heart.

Thanks for the "Form A Thread" tip; I'm going into town tomorrow and ask the guys at Andy's what they think before proceeding. BTW, That's the NH125, not the CH125. Both were offered in 1984 by Honda for that year only, then the Aero was dropped and the Elite kept going, in North America at least. The Aero is a two stroke whereas the Elite is a four stroke. Consequently, we're finding out that parts are much harder to locate for the Aero than they are for the Elite, but it's a great-riding scooter with a lot of get-up-and-go.

I don't know if this would work in your case, but I recently had success removing a botched set screw in the Aero using a screw extractor. The principle should be the same.





But here's a bit of a mystery that's got me scratching my head. I took the bolts off the cylinder head cover when I initially tried to address my oil leak and laid them out all nice and organized so they'd go back where they came from. The only problem is, I've got one too many. As you can see, I've got 13 bolts and the parts fiche for the 83 Honda XL250R only lists 12. The odd guy is the little bolt in the lower left, which goes in the front left side of my valve cover.

So what's going on with that?:huh

Thank you for the kind words Enduro. I've always had a thing for the cheap/free bikes. I can have just as much if not more fun on them then my spendy ones. My last $100.00 bike did Mt.Shasta and Baja. 98 YZ125.

Horizontal, Love me a fastner mystery!!! You'll sort it out after a cup of coffee. Good job on the speedo cable set screw extraction. I have full sets of extractors/EZ outs. My exhaust studs, or what is left of the studs are going to need more love then the extractors can offer. I Almost forgot about the Honda Aero, I was still working for Honda when they came out. I use to warranty exhaust gaskets left and right, both on the Aero and Elite.

You can find Cameron, one of the Pizza my heart delivery guys dropping off a pie at my place every Friday night!!! Good stuff!!! One of my old co-workers from Yamaha/KTM days works in a Machine shop in Salinas. I'm thinking of just dropping off the head to him as it's less trouble then me pulling my drill press out of the garden shed..........

Back again with more photographic evidence of my insanity.

So here's my cylinder head cover, upside down. Count the bolt holes — minus the two spacing dowels — and tell me what you find. (There is only one dowel present in this photo; the other large one goes over the bolt hole on the upper right; a smaller pin goes in the small hole on the lower right and holds the kickstart decompressor in place.)



Now here's the schematic for my bike, for a 1984 Honda XL250R:



This lists 12 bolts and does not show a hole in the right front corner of the cover. Mysterious, is what it is.

This led me to try and discover if my bike was an orphan child or maybe got a weird engine along the way. After all, it rolled off the assembly line 31 years ago, and who knows what weirdness could have happened in all that time?

First step was deciphering my VIN, which goes something like this:

The first three digits indicate the country of origin: Japan is JH2, so, so far, so good. The next 4 indicate the model number, which for me is MD03, the last one being the year, 83. Checks out. Then there's a placeholder "blank" number that doesn't really mean anything. Then there's a letter Honda uses to signify the year, which for me is a D, signifying 1983, which is correct again. After that there's a letter signifying the factory that built the bike, which for me turned out to be the Honda factory in Hamamatsu, Japan. After that, there are the six digits which indicate the production number of the bike, which will remain under the Cone of Silence.

So my Honda indeed checks out as a 1983 XL250R. Now to the engine.

The info I could find on Honda engine numbering wasn't as specific as it was for the VIN, but I was able to learn some things. First off, is the same 4 digit and number combination that indicate the specific model, which matched my MD03 after the country of origin in my VIN. After that came an E, which one source said was the model year. But this doesn't match the D (1983) model year in my VIN, so I'm a bit mystified by this, especially since the Honda XL250R 1984 engine looks nothing like the engine in my bike (BTW, neither does the 1982, which I checked just to make sure).

So where does this leave us? I'm pretty sure that this is the right engine for my bike, and that somewhere along the line they added a 13th bolt to the front corner and all the parts illustrations I could find are simply showing the pre-updated versions. Who knows? A bolt is a bolt, after all.

Time to hit the garage, yank the valve cover yet one more time, and hit the hole with a Time-sert or whatever will work. My only hope is that I can get a drill in there without having to drop the engine out of the bike. Yeah, I know; I'm feeling lazy today.

Sooner or later, I'll get this all sorted and throw some pretty pictures on here for your amusement. Time to get wrenching.

My guess is that someone mixed up some diagrams. The head cover on the 79-81 xl500s looks exactly like your diagram and has 12 bolts.

Good guess, but I looked up both the 79 and the 81 XL500 diagrams, and while the covers are similar, they are different than my 82 250.

And I'm counting 11 bolts on the XL500 cover; not 12. Welcome to my world.

XL500 head. Eleven bolts, one stud--twelve fasteners all together.

Nice, but this still gets us no closer to resolving my current extra bolt issue with my 83 250, which has no stud, but does indeed have 13 bolts.

Somehow.

I was, however, glad to learn that the Redwood Curtain got to announce their new season lineup.

Indeed. lol.

Okay. It looks like Honda added the extra bolt when they went to the 1982 XL250R from the earlier XL250S bikes.
The first pic is the S head and rocker cover--just like the previous pic of the XL500S.
The next one is of the R cover assembly. Notice the number of bolts.
I believe the mystery is solved.

I'm glad to see that Brucifer. I appreciate you putting on your Sherlock Cap. Now the only mystery is why all the parts fiche illustrations on line show an XL250R cover with 12 bolts instead of 13.

Also, I can see from your illustration that some PO put one of the 3 copper washers on the wrong bolt on my engine. I'll move it to the right spot when I reconstruct my beast.

Thanks.

I searched through this thread but didn't turn up the info - are there any O-rings or other rubber bits hidden or hard to get to/replace when using carb dip to clean up the stock carb from a 1983 XL250R? I know some carbs (like Bings) have O-rings on the butterfly shaft that don't stand up to carb dips and are a small PITA to R&R.

Hopefully I'll soon start on the resurrection of this bike as other projects are starting to near completion. It was parked a few years ago after serving as a commuter, and looks like carb & tank cleaning, fresh oil, and new battery will get it running. Cosmetic cleanup may be another story .

So is it safe to dip the carb after removing all the obvious rubber and plastic bits?