1996 CR80

Thank you for the tip on the brake lines. I'll give a rehab a go this weekend. Don't want to go black on this tank, I like the stock seat cover and white tank combo. I'll give scraping and sanding a try and see how it works out. But I hear you as it is a focal point. Everything else is clean and the frame is white, but the tank looks like it smokes a carton of lucky's. haha. I had a lot of luck wet sanding the tank on an old 89 I did years ago, but white ones are a different story

I watched a video where a dude stripped a coax cable for the copper wire and fed it through his lines to clear them, so I did the same, 5mm each push. Should be clear now. hope this works!

The line is clear but the master cylinder, christ almighty. I cleaned it all out but needs new piston seals. After cleaning it was leaking out the behind the piston when I tried to check the old seals.

But the rear brakes work great now

Here is a rough sketch of what I am thinking. I researched the honda racing woody woodpecker and it seems the original was called mr horsepower. So I am thinking of incorporating the original like the honda racing style.. and sort of blending it into the 96 CR type. And I love the number Shimoda is running so I am thinking of lifting it for this mini. Again, just playing with ideas but I think this could work.. waddaya think? Thumbs up/down?

Was able to clean it up pretty well. There is no going back to pearly white on this one, but it may be workable. I'll see when I finish designing out the decals. Only thing is, I am not going to put a straight up white decal on the yellowed tank, I am going to color match it as is, and design the tank decal with that as a base color around the edges and work in the white color towards the middle of the decal so it wont look so clashy.

Lil progress on this mini, come a long way from a gang of parts in boxes. Carb needs attention and the front master cylinder needs rebuilt. I may actually be able disturb the neighbors this weekend! Millenium really surprised me with their quality, what a great shop. Still a few odds and ends to come, bars, controls etc.

My next focus will be the graphics. Sharing my process in the last pic. The green outline was first pass and the darker brown is the iteration. Basically you have to start somewhere. I start with taking a picture of the plastics straight on, placing the photos in a design tool like illustrator or a free one like figma. then getting a ruler or tape measure and capturing general areas around the plastics, picking points from one edge to another and drawing lines with those lengths, creating curves around edges and forming an outline, printing it out to scale, sometimes having to tile a letter sized paper and then cutting out with an exacto knife pencil tool. then taping the cutout on the plastic, finding out where things are off, remeasure, adjust the artwork, print, cut out and do it over again. usually takes me three passes. Then I actually design the graphics in that sandbox. It is a pain in the ass but fun to do as a creative person, almost as fun as the build itself. I have a friend who can print them on large format printers, he laminates them with the thick clear to protect against scuffs like most graphic companies, and then uses the outlines in the pic i mentioned to use a laser cutter to create the final product. That is pretty standard. 

Well I got it to start and is ok at idle, but as soon as I open the throttle at all, it wants to die. Any tips of as to what is going on?

Here is a video:

https://twitter.com/bonseff/status/1820480405289742435

Found the problem. They looked and sealed fine so I ran them like an idiot. 

Thanks, man. I hope I can eventually get this thing sorted. It's been the most challenging of all three 96's. 

I am still having issues with the front master cylinder. I replaced the seals in the piston and cleaned everything like new. Still won't move fluid. I am stumped. Gonna try and backfill it and see if that goes anywhere.

This is so weird, but when I pulled the reed block the reeds we crushed inwards inside the block. And one small piece was missing, so I thought damn, it may have been sucked in the motor. so I pulled the jug and was afraid it was floating in the bottom of the cases. I was worried I was gonna have to pull the motor and open it up again. I felt around in the air boot and didn't feel anything so I thought it wasn't in there, but I pulled the filter and there the bastard was. I have never seen back pressure destroy reeds before.

The mini has been on the back burner while a few things have come up, but finished the graphics and am sending them off to get printed and cut. It took a few extra rounds to get the templates right, but the fit should be clean. Opted to pass on tank graphics.

Got the decals on yesterday. Other than addressing the front brake and some tweaking on the subframe, I am close to done. Maybe some Renthal bars. But pretty happy how it turned out.

Here is the 1996 trifecta, what started 11 months ago as a 125 purchase to get back on the track, turned into an 11month OCD collection.