I put the valve back on the tank and filled it up with Evapo Rust.
After a few hours, I noticed liquid weeping out one of the corners of the tank. I drained and flushed the tank again. Then I removed the paint from the weepy corner and found two tiny pinholes. I will either solder these up, or fill them with JB Weld AutoWeld, which is approved for fuel tanks.
I stopped and picked up some more JB Weld on my way home from work this morning, but didn’t feel right about that and decided to solder up the holes after all.
I started with a soldering iron, but it looked pretty sloppy. I was out of butane and propane, so I very cautiously used mapp gas.
Its still not pretty, but I poured some alcohol in there and a few hours later it was still nice and dry. No more leaks.
In reply to Woody :
awesome progress... I'm very excited to see if your carb swap gets the little guy running!
I had no real intention of making the tank look pretty, but I decided to at least hit the bare corners with some Hammered Black paint, even though it matches nothing.
I slathered a bit of ABS cement on a few cracks that I found on the original front half of the airbox (probably should have found a full assembly on eBay), and it seems to have worked very nicely.
Carb, airbox, new air cleaner and repaired fuel tank are on the shelf ready to go on. It has finally cooled off in the garage. Hope to get some real work done today.
Wow... I remember the Elite scooter after seeing the pictures and brochures. Had totally forgotten about them. I seem to remember Tamiya made a model kit of them, although I can't find any evidence of that.
Interestingly, I saw a guy riding an Elite to work this morning.
Old carb in situ:
Jeez, Honda, how do you expect me to get at that carburetor clamp?
Wait...seriously?
Well done, Vintage Honda Engineers. Well done.
I love that you're restoring this thing.
I need some of that ABS cement to do the plastic boots on my Yamaha. I have some little cracks and I think its creating a slight boost leak.
I love the attention to detail. Nice work so far!
I had to have some professional body work done to one of our vehicles and during the process it was revealed to me that plastic welders exist. I'm now intrigued by this idea.
I expect we will see you out there cruising soon!
Old carb came out without much of a fight.
New carb looks pretty much identical, with the exception of three extra vacuum ports.
I found some blue plastic things that may actually be vacuum caps in The Big Bucket of Metric Hardware. Perfect.
New carb in situ:
You're going to kill me in anticipation... I keep coming back waiting for a video or some confirmation it's running...
I can't believe how excited I am about the 80's scooter of some guy from the internet possibly running this week.
Cleaned and tested the vacuum operated fuel valve and swapped in a fresh O-ring.
In reply to spacecadet :
In reply to Wally :
I have resisted posting that GIF out of respect.. But yes.
In reply to Wally :
There has been an unforseen complication...
Ack! Be careful with that, I had an old boss almost lose an arm playing with a garage door spring. People hold a lot more blood than I thought.
Wally said:Ack! Be careful with that, I had an old boss almost lose an arm playing with a garage door spring. People hold a lot more blood than I thought.
I wound those springs the first time. Enormously stressful. Never again. It is worth whatever it costs to have someone else do it.
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