XR80R

[Cowboy]

I thought it was going to be a long project, but it wasn't.  A buddy of mine brought his wife's little 80 bike out here, but it hasn't been started since before they left the States, a little over a year ago.  It's just sat in the carport looking cool.  I told him I would take it home and get it running because I wanted a project.  Well, it only took a couple of hours  .  Put some gas in it and kicked it over, nothing happened of course, but you have to check.  Spark was good, air filter was clean.  That leaves fuel.  I popped off the carb and opened it up.  The float was green and the hinge was sticky.  I cleaned it up and put it back together and she fired right up.  It all needs to come apart again when I get some carb cleaner, but there's not going to be any challenge now.  The cool part was I did all of this with a pair of vice-grips and my knife.  Yeah... when I packed what few tools I could bring, I neglected my pile of metrics.  All well, the bike runs and it's fun to ride around on.  Must be pretty amusing to see 6'2" 200lbs of me on it though.  But that is my only other project at this time. 

[Bob]

HAHAHA COOL those little bikes are a bunch of fun...don't matter that their small they still go like a bat-out'a-ell HAHAHAHA
....
I had to go through the trans in our suzuki 80 ...3rd gear went out...
found the whole trans shaft in a bike junk yard in texas for $30.00 pluss shipping... the kid ran that little thing till I got her a KX125 Kawasaki
 and then she started leaving me in the dust... HAHAHHA My TT500cc yamaha single was strong but the power to weight ratio of that 125 and 98 pound Kid made it realy hard to keep up ! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
.... those were the days !
HAHAHA!
Bob.........
 

[janmarsh]

Ah.... Memories.

I had a Honda ST70 Monkey Bike when I was alot younger.

A few day's after buying it, I was off to my brother's place to pick up a compulsory helmet. Wearing nothing more than short's, T-shirt & a pair of flip-flop's, I must have been touching a good 50mph with my chin on the steering yolk when along side me appear's a very large cop bike.  He towered above me & as I looked up at him from the yolk, he had a big grin on his face, shaking his head.

He then went directly ahead of me & started braking.........  braking far harder than I possibly could.  The inevitable occured.  I clobbered his rear with some impact although I did stay on the bike....... he & his bike didn,t even move.   He didn,t look around, just remained looking forward & again slowly shook his head.

He was fine about it, accepted he braked harder than he should have, wouldn't believe I was off to get a helmet & I found myself with a £5 fine.


Ah.....the good old day's.   

[Bob]

HAHAHA I can just amagin that !
... Way back when I was rideing my first motorcycle a Honda 50cc sport
that Mom & Dad bought for me in a cardboard box... Dad telling Mom don't worry dear he'll never get it running, and it will keep him out or our hair!.... well Dad was wrong  and I rode that thing all over... but like you I needed a helmet too... well Mom took me to Kmart ( a new store in our town at that time) and picked up a nice shinny Gold metal flake helmet... so that became my calling card for years.. black little bike and a gold helmet was ME ! .... well after falling a few zillion times and winding up with dirt in my mouth on a few Occasions... I thought a bar of metal across the mouth area would be nice... kinda like a foot ball helmet... well I went to work on a piece of 1/8" thick 4" wide strip of aluminum and wound up with a JAW for my helmet... and sense the Jaw was silver and the helmet was gold and all scratched up by this time...I decided to paint it black... and cut the face shield to fit the jaw portion.... so I had a full coverage helmet..the first one in the USA I am sure! ...I got more comments from that helmet after that HAHAHAHA  traded in the 50cc for a 90cc and then started melting pistons ! HAHAHAH
...I loaned the helmet to a guy in Reno and never saw it again
...
Oh well
Bob.....

[janmarsh]

Bob,
         People personalised stuff far more back then.   Sticky tape & string was in every tool box.  The creative ability of bikers never ceased to amaze me.   No high performance, multi-cylinder machines, you had to make your machines higher performance yourself.

A good pal of mine was an absolute perfectionist. He picked up a 500 or may have been 650cc A.J.S. Twin  ( Multi-cylinder then ) & set about cleaning it up. He would finally  use "Brasso" liquid metal polish to seat the valves. Also using this method to mate the cylinder head & barrel, doing away with the need for a head gasket, a perfect metal to metal seal. It would take him hours.

He ran it on methanol when he could afford to. It wouldn,t fire up at first on this fuel so he simply removed all jetting & fuel just flowed straight through.  Nothing could catch him...... including the local law.   

                                                                                            Marshall.