MotoFuji

Welcome to my new blog! For my first post, here’s a photo of my 1980 Honda C70. The image is reversed because I used the TTL technique.

Mariko goes into the garage this morning and then comes to get me. “It smells like gas in the garage!”. So I rush in there, knowing that it must be from the supercub since I just filled it up yesterday. I said, “Oh, my supercub must be leaking.” And she says, “Oh good, I thought it was one of our cars.” To which I replied, “What?! The supercub is my baby!” Anyways, I guess it is time to order a new fuel petcock as the old one wasn’t completely sealing off the fuel flow. And I need to take apart the carb and make sure the fuel cutoff inside the bowl is working correctly. Either one of those would have prevented the leak.

I finally finished covering my Honda C70 with red paint! I didn’t do the entire bike (underneath the legshield and a couple other hidden places), but unless you look really closely, you wouldn’t know that it was originally blue. Next, I need to route the wiring to the rear turn signals more cleanly. This means drilling a hole in the fender to drop the wires down. I bought a little black rubber grommet to make the hold look a little nicer, and I don’t foresee any trouble. While I have the rear wheel off, I think I am going to replace the tire/tube. The front one was a pain to replace. It just took a lot of elbow grease to do it, but I’m still not looking forward to it. After that, the things I want to do are to straighten out the footpegs, then shave to seat foam down a little. Also I bought a little switch cover for the hi-beam switch, since it had broken off.

Just this week I also got my new license plate and registration sticker. The title should be in my hands in a couple weeks as well. Then the only thing from keeping the bike from being fully legal is the inspection. Hopefully she passes without any problems.

Yay for the Honda Supercub! Still going strong at 60.

I finally got around to seriously getting the title for my Honda C70 squared away. I have the title, but it is not signed by me yet. It has the previous owner, and his signature that he has sold it. The next step was to contact him and have him sign a “Transfer of Title” form. But, when I tried to get in contact with him a few years ago, I could only get as far as his personal assistant. The previous owner is the retired CEO of a huge auto conglomerate, so I figured he wouldn’t even really care about an old motorbike from 17 years ago. Anyways, the city that I live in now has a nice title transfer policy. Basically , send the form to the last known address in a registered letter with return receipt. Upon them receiving the letter, they have 10 days to respond to me. If I do not receive a response, I can take my return receipt form to the Titling Department, and they will transfer it to me. Or, if the letter comes back to me unopened, they will accept that as sufficient for title transfer.

Today I checked the status of the letter, and saw this:

Label/Receipt Number: 7008 1140 0002 1234 5678

Status: Moved, Left no Address

Your item was returned to the sender on June 3, 2008 because the addressee moved and left no forwarding address.

Woohoo! Looks like I should be receiving my letter back to me, and can take that to the Titling Office and have it transferred over! I can’t wait. Next will be insurance, and then getting the bike inspected. After that, it will be fully legal to ride!

Last night I spent an hour in our apartment garage getting the C70 ready for the move. I emptied out all the gasoline using the carb overflow tube. It took a long time to drain 3/4 gallon thru that skinny little tube, but it was a clean operation. In the past, I used to disconnect the fuel line from the petcock and drain it into the gas can, which can be messy and smelly, but quick. The method I used last night involved removing the gas cap, loosening the drain plug, turning the fuel petcock to reserve, and letting the fuel flow into the carb bowl and out its overflow tube.

It dripped for about half an hour, while I packed up all the tools and spare parts and removed the fragile legshield. I told the moving company that we are moving “a little moped, which is not working and is dry”, and they said that’s ok. The C70 is a bit bigger than a moped, but it is such a funky looking bike that people in the U.S. don’t necessarily think of it as a motorcycle or scooter, especially with the legshield off. They don’t really know what to think. Anyways, I hope that the moving goes smoothly!

I was looking at the US Vespa site, and noticed this image on the opening page. I thought, “That looks very familiar.” Then I remembered seeing an old 1960 Supercub ad, which used a similar concept. Kinda neat…