Vintage Honda repo plastic question

Call these guys. Vintage Honda nut with the good shiny plastic. Tell him I sent you his way please. I bought complete sets of plastics and seat covers for my 80 CR125 and 83 CR250. It looks great.

www.vmxracing.com

80 CR125



In action

Nice 1980 Honda CR 125... Looks great.

Question? How many labor hours do you have into the bike for the restore? I understand it all depends on the starting condition, but if you can give me a ball park I would appreciate it...thanks

As with all your resto's that I've seen you post, that bike looks awesome. I really dug the '79-'80 CR125's, with the Johnny O' Mugen being the sexiest moto-bike ever built.

Is it a painted tank? If so , how bad is the dent and does it really need to be pulled/ removed at all. The metal on motorcycle tanks whether steel or aluminum is rather thin and without being able to access the backside of the panel (inside the tank) the majority of the repair work will have to be done from the outside. Just remember any rough grinding on the exterior of the tank may render it unusable. There are a lot of good body filler materials out there that will work on aluminum and you can repair some fairly hideous looking dents without prior straightening of the metal. Now if you decide the dent really needs to be pulled out, just find yourself someone that can weld you some small tabs of aluminum or even just some small lengths of aluminum welding rod to the centers of the dents and creases. Grip the tabs with some vice grips, secure the tank to keep it from moving as you pull outwards with the pliers and tap around the outer edge of the dent with a lightweight hammer working your way inwards towards the dent. Once it looks to your satisfaction, grind off the tab and fill the remaining imperfections or just file and sand the aluminum smooth. Autobody hammers work excellent and can be found at auto paint suppliers or for cheapo's, Harbor Freight. Make sure to put some masking tape over the face of the hammer if you have used it to beat on anything other than aluminum. You can easily contaminate the alloy with anything left on the face of a hammer(usually steel particles).

If the tank is polished alloy or a brushed finish (think Maico, 74 CR250, old British) you definitely need to straighten the dents. For this, you pretty much need to be able to access the backside. I've seen a lot of exterior dent pulling with the aluminum tab technique but unless you can find an alum. welding rod with the same properties as the alloy of the tank you will most likely end up with a different color spot where the repair was done. I cut the majority of the tunnel out of an Elsinore CR250 tank so I could get my hand inside the tank to hammer and dolly the dents out. Double up a couple gallon ziplock bags and fill it with sand to give you something to lay the tank on while you knock the major dents out from the inside. Just use a standard heel dolly to rough out the dents. It's small enough to fit inside the tank and has several different contours to work with. The sandbag will support the tank and allow the dents to be smoothly hammered out. You can buy these made out of leather if you see yourself doing a lot of this. Put several layers of masking tape on the exterior of the tank to keep from excessively pitting the metal as you hammer and dolly it. Once it starts to take shape, use a rubber sanding block with 180 or 320 grit paper to lightly sand over the exterior of the tank. This will instantly highlight any high and low spots that will require any further work. Lots of time and patience will get you a straight piece of aluminum. Check out the Eastwood Company website to get ideas for a lot of the tools required as well as polishing tools and materials to get the desired finish on the aluminum.

If you have some minor dents that don't require cutting a major access hole, you may be able to drill a small hole from the underside to insert a metal rod in the tank and knock the dent out. If not too far from the fuel spout you may be able to bend a metal rod to get in to the backside of the dent and give you the backup needed to hammer out small dents. Do not use it to pry through the fuel neck though, it's pretty fragile. Have fun!

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JeffH