Kiwi Canuck's 1981 Honda CT 110 Restore

[Kiwi Canuck]

Front Fender original or not?

The thing that has really puzzled me about this bike was some parts looked pristine but then other parts pointed to a much higher mileage bike.

I'm learning as I go and I think I've found another item that is not original, the front fender, it's never looked correct for the mileage and that's what got me baffled from the start.

When I was looking at getting all my fastners cleaned up and sorted for reinstalling the license plate holder, I noticed the underside of the rear fender was really nice underneath, no rust and surprisingly clean.

I double checked the front fender and realise it has probably been changed as well as it's really rusted underneath and certainly showing much more use than the mileage shown on this bike.

Take a look at these pictures, the top was showing bad pitting in the paint surface, (the sanded area) yet there is no other signs of rust like this anywhere else on the bike.







Now the underside of the rear fender, if you can make it out.



I think that makes a lot more sense, that this bike has had a few parts replaced for some unknown reason, and the remainder of the bike is original and the milage may infact be close to what it shows

[Kiwi Canuck]

I got my new All Balls steering head bearings installed tonight, and yes they feel like a world of difference compared to the stock ones.

I dropped by Routledge Enterprises, (Wally's) and had him remove the bottom race with his handy dandy bearing puller he modified for use on M/C steering heads and he had the old one off and the new one pressed into place in minutes while I waited.

Here's a few photos of the assembly process, I lubed everything with grease and installed the triple tree in the headstock, I hand tightened the top nut until it was still turning but with a fair amount of resistance, then I slipped the fork legs up through the lower triple tree and installed the cinch bolt just enough to hold them in place.
I then slipped the top yoke on and tightened the nut enought to hold it in place and used that as a guide to determine the correct height of each fork leg, once I got each one to its proper height I torgued the cinch bolts to 18 ft lbs (recommended value 13-18.1 ft lbs)

Oh, I almost forgot, hidden under those nicely cleanup fork boots are Gizmo's new springs which also feel very nice. (Gizmo is a member on the CT90 -110 forum and lives in Princeton BC)



Here is the 2nd one installed



Now to align the top yoke up, once completed I can then remove the top yoke to install the fork ears and continue with the assembly.
I have ordered a new fork ear and am still waiting for that shipment, hopefully I will recieve it before the weekend.

[nvr2old]

I officially suck at bondo work, not sure what's the deal but I just keep at it and it goes from almost OK to s**t in no time, I have been at this for 2-3 hours and I'm no closer to it being acceptable.



This looks to me, like you're sanding away too much of the filler. When it doesn't feather into the surrounding metal like that, it's still low. The dents may have crowns around them. Try taking a hammer and punch and lightly tapping down the edges of the dent a bit and refill the areas and sand again. You'll also be surprised how much of that will be taken care of with a quality high-build primer. Stay at it, it'll look way better then removing the filler and just re-spraying it.

Great little bike. Who amongst us didn't grow up around the 90's and 110's..?

[ShadowFocus603]

At the stage that the bondo is in that pic I would switch to a polyester glazing putty to finish it off. There will be fewer pinholes and it will feather much better than regular filler and with a much finer grit paper. I did bodywork in Vegas for a few years and learned to love glazing putty.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Thanks Never2old and Shadow, I had a guy come by who knows a bit more than me about this and he told me what to buy and I've been making better progress with the new tools and a can of standard bondo.
I was using the thin glazing putty stuff and it would setup so fast I couldn't get it smoothed out before it started to get hard.

Seems I was using too little and sanding it too much as Larry suggested.

[Kiwi Canuck]

I got some of the parts I was expecting but 2 of the packages that were supposed to be at the mail box were not there or the person who was working there couldn't find them.

I got the first 2 orders from Beatrice Cycles but no tires or the last shipment that arrived 2 hours before my wife went there.

Oh well, I got some stuff to work on this weekend.

Check out this haul.



My new fork ear in Tahitian Red, it looks really good in the picture, but I must say that Honda hasn't wasted any paint on this part, in fact the paint is so thin it reminds me of the beakfast sandwich special they used to have at ihop in the US, the bacon on that baby was so thin it only had one side.

Old and new

[Kiwi Canuck]

I only got one can of Honda Color-Rite Tahitian Red paint as it was about $40 a can and I need to paint quite a few pieces, I thought I would try a few colours to see if I could find a paint that is compatible with the Color-Rite paint and be close so I would get better coverage from the one 11oz can.

I found this at an auto parts store and picked it out just by eye, it's actually quite close but I still need to see if it's compatible as an undercoat.



Sample paint job on the old fork ear, certainly not the best picture, as I took it with my phone but hopefully it shows the clour as fairly close, good enough as an under coat.

[nvr2old]

At the stage that the bondo is in that pic I would switch to a polyester glazing putty to finish it off. There will be fewer pinholes and it will feather much better than regular filler and with a much finer grit paper. I did bodywork in Vegas for a few years and learned to love glazing putty.

Glazing putty is a nice product and it has it's application purposes, but it should only be used for filling sand scratches and pin holes which are usually caused by cheap plastic fillers. It's not something to use for actually filling a dent. It's too thin and brittle. Quality auto-grade body filler can be finished with 180 grit before primer, but that's about as smooth as you want to get it because it needs some tooth for the primer to adhere to. The high-build primer (even from a rattle can) will fill 80 grit scratches really well. Prime it, sand it with 180, prime it again, sand it with 400, then spray color. Filler work, primer, and painting needs to be done in steps with progressively finer grits. It's easy to skip steps, but it usually causes problems with adhesion if you do.

[steve murdoch]

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of Honda labels there were in your pic of the parts.
Lots of repro stuff from the East for these restorations.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Steve, actually most of the parts are factory OEM Honda parts in my order which is pretty nice, the CT 110 was made until about 2008 and sold until maybe 2011 for the Australian & NZ markets, so a lot of parts are still available.
It was discontinued in the US & Canada in 1986, so you will not see anything newer than 1986 here, but we are still able to buy a good amount of OEM stuff for these little beauties.

The parts are still reasonable and the one thing that was out of wack with the Suzuki's was the price for screws, bolts and washers etc.

Beatrice Cycles who I've used for most of my parts sells OEM screws in 2 grades for some sizes and the best grade is about .50 cents per and maybe .25 cents for washers etc. JIS 6MM bolts for engine cases are between .44 cents and .50 cents, I seem to remember the GS ones being double that or more and some washers being 2.49 each.

I bought an after market gasket kit and they included 3 OEM gaskets with the kit, maybe because the ones are missing from the kit or just that they don't fit, not sure yet but I'll check to see why as I didn't order them.

Anyway, nice to be able to buy most of what I need, but I see a few of the pieces starting to show NLA. or discontinued.
I think maybe I should pick up some of the larger items that will probably be discontinued within a year or two, a spare fuel tank, beautiful chrome rear rack and bash plate, all available new and still reasonable by GS standards, even front fenders are still available for $115 each which seems like a deal.

The one thing that is not available are the OEM carbs and those are being made by after market companies and selling for maybe $30 each, not sure on the quality but I see some ebay stores have sold hundreds and they have good ratings, so they must be OK.

I think the OEM seat is still available and only $100, oh and the OEM exhausts are still available for the CT 110 including those beautiful chrome heat shields, it just incredible, I want to buy it all sometimes.

Very happy with the service from Beatrice, everything shipped from their store that showed in stock on the website, and I only ordered one part incorrectly, a small spacer. (wrong length)

Well got to get back to the garage.

Thanks for all the positive comments, and it's great to know a few members on a GS forum are interested in this little project and that you are following along with me.

Cheers,

David.

[Kiwi Canuck]

Well this weekend went by too quickly, I was hoping for a bit more progress on the CT, especially as I have got a good load of parts to get started on.

Saturday I helped the neighbours by wiring their new garage, a fairly simple job but another thing to take me away from my CT.

I was hoping to get into the garage after my Sunday morning coffee meeting with the BC Classic M/C club, but as the weather was quite nice I got onto some much needed yard work, finally got done at 4:30PM and I was just exhausted so not too much bike work was done.

I did get an hour or so after dinner and got the rear license plated holder reinstalled, also cleaned up the turn signals with back to black and the same restore product I used on the fork gaitors, hopefully they will come up as nice as the gaitors.

Finally got the footpegs completed as well, they came up very nicely, and I reinstallld the little black metal things on the bottom, the tabs to lock the bolts were pretty weak after bending them back, so I broke them off and cleaned the sharpe edge up on the grinder before painting them, I didn't bother with getting new ones even though they are only about $4 each but who sees them anyway.

One other thing I did was remove the handle bars and pull all the wiring out as I'm going to paint them, they are really sctratched up and quite a few rust spots are needing some work, I hope I can get the wiring back inside without too much grief.

I left the left grip on as I didn''t want to risk damaging it by taking it off, I've taped it up but now I realize I will probably have to take it off as I'll need to bake the paint at 200F and I'm not sure if the grip could handle that.

I'll use WD40 and a long screw driver to open up a channel for the WD40 to penetrate.

I purchased a Schumacher 1.5amp charger for my new battery as I didn't have a 6V one, it's a pretty basic model, it can charge or maintain either 6V or 12V batteries. The charger has a few sets of leads, with quick disconnects, and I had a spare 4 pin plug from Vintage Connections http://vintageconnections.com/
so I was able to make up a plug to match the one on the battery.

And once again no painting today (Sunday), humity was under 50% but it was quite windy and my outdoor paint booth was out of service due to blustery conditions.

[Kiwi Canuck]

My footrest with nicely cleaned up rubber footpegs and painted frame, I used VHT SP671 Satin Finish on the metal.





Side stand with same paint, looks better in person, removed the rust and old paint with a fibre wheel and then sanded with 280 grit wet & dry paper.



Here's the bars all taped up ready for paint, but now I'm going to remove the grip so I can cure the paint in the oven which should help with durabilty.




My new charger, seems to work well, battery was fully charged this morning.

[SVSooke]

Nice job there Dave.I've actually been meaning to post up for a bit but never didFunny thing happened Saturday,walked into my local dealer and what did I spy against the wall but a CT110.Thought of yours right away

[Kiwi Canuck]

Nice job there Dave.I've actually been meaning to post up for a bit but never didFunny thing happened Saturday,walked into my local dealer and what did I spy against the wall but a CT110.Thought of yours right away

Thanks Greg, I am having a big learning curve on this bike, but it's been a pretty relaxed restore and nothing too technical, as with the GS1000 I'm starting to know which parts fiche to reference and I can almost recognize all the parts now.

Is the CT 110 at the dealer for sale, if so what year and how much? I know a couple of guys looking for one.

Cheers,

David

[SVSooke]

Don't really know Dave it was in the service bay so I doubt it.Just a bit small and weird and Honda for my tasteSo I didn't ask much about it.