DEET MB5 - Fully Legal

[HerrDeacon]

Picked up a 1982 Honda MB5 a couple of days ago. Have always loved the look of these little bikes and just couldn't pass it up. Its in pretty rough shape, missing and broken parts but it runs. It looks like it spent its life off-road and it really shows. Going to be a bit of work but should be fun. I was intending to do a full restore, but due to the missing/broken parts, I think I'm going to cafe it but not cut anything so that I can return to stock if I can gather up the parts.

This will be a pretty slow project as I'm also still working on the 350, but I'd like to have it on the road by next summer.

Here are a couple of pics as it stands now:





And the three tomodachi (350 is in the back):

[HerrDeacon]

Got a bit of time today to kick it over, well actually just needed to 'arm' it over

You'll notice the garage door is closed in this vid. First time I started it I forgot to close it, nice blue haze floating around the garage 

[frogman]

RIIINNNGGGGG DIIINGG DIIINGG DIIINGGG DIIINGG Looks like a fun little beasty. 

[cb100cafe]

is the front fender plastic?  I like it. 

[HerrDeacon]

Yeah, its plastic with lots of scratches and scrapes 

[teazer]

I started mine in the garage and forgot that the door into the house was open.  Smoke managed to clear in the garage pretty fast but the house stank for days. SWMBO was not amused. Can't think why.

Cool little bikes with quite a cult following.

[Big Rich]

Cool bike Deacon- I'll be following this one too. You should be able to polish the fender just like you would aluminum. It probably wont have the original luster, but will turn out really nice.

[HerrDeacon]

I didn't realize that Rich, thanks for the tip. There are a number of parts missing from the bike so for now I'm going to cafe it, but I'm going to be picking up all the missing parts as I find them over time so I can put it back to stock one day. Will keep that in mind for the front fender.

Can't for the life of me find an electronic version of the manual online anywhere, but lucked into finding a person that has a paper version locally. Hope to pick it up this week.

[HerrDeacon]

Last night I was going through the bike and evaluating what I have to work with, and noticed that the swingarm has a slight tweak to it. The metal is not creased or dented but one side is up a bit compared to the other. Going to try and straighten it somehow. If I don't have much luck with it I may be on the hunt for a replacement.

[Big Rich]

Hmmmm...... I can't recall where I found the manual for that Derbi I was working on. Www.mopedarmy.com?

But yeah, I polished a plastic tank and Ringo did some plastic as well. Maybe a taillight?

[HerrDeacon]

I've tried mopedarmy, but no luck. Thanks though.

[Streetfighter89]

Did you saw that already?

http://www.mb5.co.uk/14.html

I'm building a MT 5!

[Erskine]

Did you saw that already?

http://www.mb5.co.uk/14.html

I'm building a MT 5!

Great read! Where's part 2?
 

Edit:

I just found parts 2 - 4 in the side bar.

Doh! 

[HerrDeacon]

Yeah, found that site last week, really good. I haven't read every page yet, getting though it. Some nice projects and info there.

[HerrDeacon]

Got around to straightening the swing arm today. Went real well. I was initially going to straighten the swingarm off the bike, but couldn't come up with a good method given my limited tools and such. So I decided to to it on the bike. I first started by leveling the bike. My garage floor is not perfectly level (slopes to a drain in the middle of the floor) so I had to shim the center stand to make it perfect. With the bike level, it was pretty straightforward. I propped one arm up on a jack stand, heated the other arm with a torch and tapped it down until it was perfectly level with the other.

Another issue with the swingarm is the brake side shock mount was also bent outwards a bit causing the shock to be under a lateral stress. Used the torch again to help straighten them. You can see how much it was out in this pic. Shifter side was fine.



As a final check, put the rear wheel back on and was happy with the result. I know I took a before picture but can't find it for some reason. Here is the after, much better than before. Excuse the trolly jack lever handlebars, put them on to see how drag bars would feel