Vintage Dirt Racing on a 350 Honda Twin

Thanks to Azcagiva and Mr Fast, they connected me to their motor guru Owen, a vintage bike guru and Honda 350 twin specialist. We spoke on the phone and Owen had great insight on all of the challenges I'd been working through and also had some pretty solid ideas why the chain appeared too tight. I doubt there's very much on these motors he has not seen before.

I have some additional parts ordered now and after they arrive will take another stab at putting this thing together, if and when that is successful will give a full report.

Hey Rick,

Looks like you have a pretty cool project going with the 350. John said you will be at the Mexican 1000 next year, glad to hear it. We are amping up for the Mexican 1000 along with Vintage MX and Vintage Road Racing in AZ, UT, Albuquerque.... It's hard to keep an old geezer down

Sue

Hey Sue! Yes we have a lot going on and it's all good! We worked like mad all weekend prepping for our 2nd biggest race of our season, the Stump Jumpers Desert 100 in Odessa, Washington. Luke made a lot of progress on the radical 500/550/650 4 cylinder that he will be riding at the MK1 and debuting at the D100, I spent the weekend working on the team support rig, our 86 mini winnie. Full report on that tomorrow.

Jan and I will definitely be at the MK1 next year, too many college and wedding bills for our daughters this year! Looking forward to seeing all of you and having a great time, we will be there with you in spirit this year for sure!

Presenting the de rigueur carburetor polishing picture.

Oi ! Witness the rampant carburetor polisher in his natural habitat. Watch closely as he hungrily circles his prey, the throttle plate from a hapless Holley 4180, as they dance around the bench grinder... who will pounce first? Unscrew your power valves, check your metering plates and tune in next week for the conclusion....

4180? You nailed it, I'm impressed!

Prep work for the D100 is in high gear as we simulaneously prepare Luke's CBRZ-650 for its debut, as well as my TTR250 (decided to ride it in the D100, can't be borrowing a bike every time I want to ride), the SL350 for the Steel Stampede (same weekend as the MK1) and Motorhome as the OSR base vehicle for D100. Whew! :eek1

The list;


I work best off a list, whether at home or at work. I talk to Luke about using a list, but he keeps it all upstairs in his organic super computer.

I wanted to tackle the hardest jobs first, and since the furnace repair is now complete, it was time to turn my attention to the leaky old carb on the Minnie Winnie. Pulling the carb was an adventure in itself, almost an hour in tight quarters just to get it off. Once off the rig, I broke it down into subsections for pre-cleaning;


Subsections ready for deeper cleaning and rebuild;


Things were rolling right along until I got to the part where you are supposed to shear off the choke cover rivet heads (to be replaced by screws), realizing too late the the chisel action can break the choke mounting bosses. Luckily the damage was not too severe and jb weld provided the fix. Later I talked to an old Ford guy and he said he made this mistake (once), now he always grinds off the rivet heads. Lesson learned!


After this setback, everything got back on track, and all wear parts, gaskets, seals and floats were replaced. I also used a dremel and opened up the mixture screw areas on the secondaries, someone had already opened up the primaries.

Completed carb ready for installation;


Before dropping the carb back on, I went over every nut and bolt I could reach. The left valve cover bolts were finger tight and leaking oil, tightened those right up. Found and fixed a few other things, dropped the carb on and within a few hours she was purring like a kitten.

After a weekend of grunt work (we also had a shower faucet failure on Saturday and I dropped everything for a few hours to fix, cuz if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!), I needed to do something fun, so decided to clean all the dorky tourist decals off the back window and put some proper race decals in place;


Yeehaw!

As all the prep work for the season continues on, I think it is safe to say that we are a little burned out, especially Luke, who has put in hundreds of hours building his CBRZ-650 Frankenbike.

The last few nights, we've been doing a little less of the hard work and just a little more of the fun stuff. When I got home last night, Luke was riding around the property on his trials bike, then I rode it a little bit and then he worked on it for a while instead of his MK1 bike;


Then Little Red came out and reminded us we only had 9 days til the D100 and we better get going, especialy on the creature comforts such as the new camp fire ring. Luke volunteered and I just stepped out of the way. Here Luke is being schooled on fire ring building by Jan, who was being backed by our dimunitive but feisty property manager Joan Jett;


Luke seems to respond well to pressure, because in short order he had it together and fired up;


I worked on my TTR and got it renumbered with the OMRA approved numbers/letters and colors;


As for the vintage bike, a package arrived today from Dime City with a few more goodies to get the engine back together. As soon as the D100 is behind us, we will be going full force on that project.

That made my morning! Also, the skid plate and engine guards look mean on the CBZR-650!

Seems like I may have landed on my head a few times last year, enough to concern my wife with the integrity of my helmet. Because she was genuinely worried, she got me a brand new "Bonnet" for Easter!

Here I'm all geared up with everything I'll be wearing in the D100, hydraton, ballistic suit, bonnet, etc.



Right after this pic Luke and I took a brisk ride up on some nearby fireroads and had a great time, that is until he lost his back brakes! We think he might have boiled the brake fluid, but it must not have been too serious, cuz thats when he offered to let me ride the beast! :eek1

We needed a ride just for fun, we had another weekend of thrashing on bikes, motorhome, gear etcetera, it was fun just to get out and ride and cut loose a bit. Just a few more days til we head out for Odessa and only a little more than 3 weeks and Luke, Paul and the gang from OSR head South to Baja.

Just getting ready to head North for the D100, it's been a frantic couple of weeks getting our '86 minnie winnie (still waiting to figure out a proper name for her) ready to go, working on the TTR, helping Luke just a little and keeping an eye on the SL350 and thinking about thrashing hard on that project as soon as we get back. I'll post up a race report when we get back and then it will be time to focus on the old twin. Wish us luck!

The 2013 D100 is now in the rear view mirror, but oh what memories! We've been getting ready for weeks & weeks, and all the hard work really paid off.

Friday morning, ready to head out;


Even though we'd spent a lot of time working on the 27 year old motor home, about a 1/4 of the way to Odessa she began running out of steam, it was all we could do to maintain 50 mph, on some hills we were down to 35 mph. We stopped in the Dalles and changed the frame mounted fuel filter (I'd changed the carb filter when that was rebuilt) and we also bought an electric fuel pump kit, just in case we got really stranded. In camp I adjusted the float level, but it wasn't until we were on the way home Sunday afternoon that we discovered it was an easily remedied electrical gltich causing the problem.

We soldiered on, and just past Umatilla Al and luke passed by;






Despite the problems, we persevered, and after about 7 hours arrived in Odessa. Kootenai Rider and his crew had saved us a choice spot, so we proceeded to set up camp;


Panoramic view of the race camp site;














Friday night sitting around the campfire, L to R are Luke, Paul, me, Don and Al. We were only missing Paul Sr. and Lady Bug, otherwise we would have had the full OSR traveling team from the 2012 MK1;


Ready to head out on the Iron Man Poker Run;


Jan told Al to move in a little closer;


After the poker run, one loop was plenty for the Super Seniors and the vintage CB500/550/650 rider;


Al stripped his counter shaft sprocket on the poker run, luckily a new sprocket was found on vendor row;


Poker run debrief and lunch, Jan kept us well fed all weekend;


Luke's frankenbike received new tires and a gearing change after the poker run, it turned out to be a great decision;


Some people! All kidding aside, when there is work to be done, especially tire changing, there isn't anyone I'd rather have around than Al!


Pre-race scramble on Sunday morning;




Pre-race pep talk by Al;


RT & Kootenai Rider;


Don Housely & RT;


Race is over and a very happy rider, last year was pretty tough, I finished but was injured and pretty beat down, this year went great for all of us;


Luke rolling in just a few minutes after I arrived, he put in a heroic ride on the four cylinder beast, I thought of him often while negotiating rock gardens and boulders, wondering how he would get through it all. No worries he came through with flying colors!


Great effort Luke!


Don Housley was the star of the show, I don't know his final placing yet, but he turns 60 in only three weeks and rides like he's 20! Awesome job Don!


We had a fantastic time and can't wait to get back to Odessa in 2014.

Fantastic!!

Awesome!!!

Great story - sounds like it was a great ride!

Congrats!!!

With the Steel Stampede in Crooked River only three weeks away, it is time to get serious. My good friend Randy Hess offered to help get the old twin put back together and ready to race, and we ended up having one of those really great days in the shop where a lot of progress is made and also had a lot of fun. Randy has been a big part of my motorcyle world since we were teenagers, in addition to helping build my old Norton Commando that we flat tracked, he also helped on other bikes and was even there to drive me home when I broke my knee at Woodland (almost forty years ago). A darn good friend!

So Saturday morning we started out with several piles of parts;





We also started out with a list;



We decided Randy would work on the frame and suspension and I would tackle getting the motor together. Randy said his goal was to have the bike on it's wheels by day end, my goal was to have the motor together. And off we go!

Before starting on the frame and suspension, Randy decided to get the de-rusting project started on the MT250 fuel tank;



Randy prepping the frame for re-paint, it had been painted before but then some welding and other modifications had taken their toll;



Starting to paint;



Installing rear swing arm and shocks (with Danny helping);



We had more than a few road blocks to our progress, one was just finding all the bits and pieces amid the multiple proejcts from the last year or so and the other was that the bike is such a conglomeration of parts, often what shoud fit doesn't. In this shot. Randy, Luke and Corey are welding a bar into the lower steering bearing race to get it out of the frame, so all new bearings can be installed;



Each part or fastener had to be cleaned and buffed and those not plated had to be painted, so it's a slow process. Here is Randy working at the LC Garage precision buffing deivce;



After a full day of hard work, here is the chassis, ready for the motor;



Great job Randy!

While Randy was doing his thing, I'd gotten busy on the motor. First up was to cut the old cam chain;



Since the motor had been sitting open for months while a lot of work went on around it, I opted to rinse the motor out with high detergent ATF and drain the block before proceeding;



The previously installed pistons & rings were still looking good, and this time around I had help installing the cylinder. Not even sure how I got it together the last time without breaking any rings! :huh

Slipping the new chain into place with some fine wire;


Then with Randy's help, slipped the cylinder block on, much easier this time!



Before the head could be installed, first it had to be clearanced for the larger camshaft. This process took awhile, install cam, check clearance, grind, clean, reinstall, check again. Argh.

Here is the cam box before modification, the black circles are some of the contact points;



After a lot of grinding, it all finally came together;


None of this could have been done without the help of the Graves family in Flagstaff (aka Lameco) and their vintage race bike mechanic Owen. Owen was gracious enough to spend time with me on the phone and talk me thorough the modifications and installation of this hot rod motor. Big thanks to to both Johns (Sr and Jr) and Owen!

Head installed on the motor;



Joining the cam chain together;



Riveted in place;



Motor completed and ready to install;


Sunday morning, first some fun stuff, checking the vintage British fenders for fit;



Installing the motor;



A great weekend, lots of progress, can't wait to get this thing done and hear it come to life. Lots of little bits and pieces need to be put together before then, ignition, fuel system, etc. But every day there will be progress.

The bike is coming together very nicely, Rick. I'm glad your righthand man Randy was on hand to make sure you didn't slack off too much. Randy is truly one of the good guys, for those who do not know him. I've met him at a couple of races that me and Rick did together and he is a racer's dream crew mate! He jumps right in, fixes what needs to be fixes, fabs what needs to be fabbed (I remember a certain gas cap gasket he made at Chehalis out of an old tire tube), and is there to grab the bike after an exhausting moto! A great friend and team mate indeed.

Take notes, Rick, because I fully expect us to do the same to my motor to get it ready for M1K in 2014! Or maybe we should just put your motor in my frame Oh the possibilities! But Randy needs to come!