da9licious

I recently came across a honda aero 50 on craigslist. the guy wanted $400 but the bike was a bit beat up and non-running. we settled on $200

i went back through this thread and it's pretty random and unorganized so bare with me haha







first things first i got the plastics off to start inspecting the engine.



quite a bit of dirt

the first issue i found ( and proof the guy that i bought the bike was lying to me that it ran fine)
was some bad wiring





not exactly sure why, my assumption is someone twisted some wires together to repair a broken one and it grounded out and melted a bunch of them.



one of the belt/ variator cover hardware was stripped to crazy so i had to hammer a smaller socket onto it to get it off



i believe this hole is where a kick starter used to be.. wish i still had it...



overall nothing too bad so far



i'm going to recreate these stickers in adobe illustrator so i have brand new ones!



the floor board is going to take some serious love to get black again...





i think the thing looks pretty cool without the plastics



got the suspension off to clean up the motor



how low can you go?



the variator weights have bald spots on them i'm sure they haven't even been inspected sense they went in during manufacture.. i hope i can finds some new ones





this is where i ended the first night

da9licious

day 2



quite a bit of dirt on the inside of the wheel



engine out



this is the ONLY plastic piece on the bike that isnt broken HAHA



front cover off, this is about all i can to other then the front wheel with the tools i have.



wheel has rust inside i wonder how often the tires were changed in this bike's life



i wish i would have taken before pictures, one of these brake handles was bent but i used a hammer to straighten it







end of the day i cleaned up and lay'd everything out "exploded view diagram" style (kindof)

next i need to decide what i'm going to have powdercoated and what i need to order to get this thing back on the road

da9licious

today was motor day! i dis-assembled the thing and checked the tolerances on everything.. after a few hours of cleaning dirt and carbon this is what I've ended up with...



i also cleaned the starter/oil injector and the associated bracketry



the spark plug still needs replacement, i just have the guy blocking the hole from foreign material





i also cleaned all the blue plastics and used some armor all on them to get them looking nice and blue again



engine mount before (but after cleaning)



mount after



the engine cover is stupid dirty and is taking quite a while to get clean...



painted the exhaust heat-shield with a high temp dull aluminum paint



the wiring is gonna be a nightmare!



like i mentioned before i think the problem was someone did a ghetto job with the harness...



here is my evidence and the reason the ground wires were mostly melted and ****...damn wire twisters

that's about all i have for today more soon!

Tuner Eddy

In for the finished product! Cool build man.

da9licious

me too!

i've been working on that **** harness. each day gets me a bit closer to getting this guy started ( i cant WAIT to ride it!) i've recently purchased some spraypaint for the frame... it's fairly close to the OEM paint but still a bit light.. it wont matter when the plastics are installed anyway...



I also have finished the layout for reproduction front sticker (the colors are not finalized yet)



i still have to match them to my pantone swatches but they are almost there ( the "e" is slightly different but the other letters are practically spot on! the black line around the thing is the cut path, and the yellowish white square is the actual picture i took previously)

i also ordered a new belt and rollers yesterday.., this weekend i hope to get the wheels powder-coated and the tires ordered

JDM-sol 89

This thread makes me want to find a old scooter to restore!

How hard is it to the oem Honda parts for something this old?

da9licious

fairly difficult especially stuff like the plastics (body panels) the motors are pretty easy to get things for as they used the same/similar motor in quite a few models like the spree and elite. a good amount of stuff has been discontinued but you can still get some of the more common (maint related) stuff at a honda motorcycle dealership. ebay is really your friend if you know what you are looking for. assuming you know how to wield and are fairly mechanically inclined there is no saying you cant use a motor from something else. the best part is if you find one you can usually pick it up for a few hundred dollars i would say a mint one would probably only cost you around 5-600

if you are really interested check out this forum for more

http://www.hondaspree.net/phpBB3/index.php

da9licious

got these in today



put them on



that is all (been pretty busy lately)

JDM-sol 89

What camera are you using to take your pictures? Shots are extremely clear.

da9licious

^ all but the first three were taken with a Nikon d90 w/the kit lens they are all straight off the camera (none of them have been edited)

JDM-sol 89

The quality is amazing. I'm trying to find a good camera to invest in for I ever get deployed in the future

da9licious

when it comes down to it its either Nikon or Cannon i prefer Nikon but some prefer cannon they are both awesome but everyone has different opinions check out

http://kenrockwell.com/

for plenty of info on them, honestly i've spent hours on the site

this weekend i put the motor back together and mounted it back on the bike, i decided not to paint the frame until i ensure the motor is running i dont mind taking the bike apart again, but i'm more motivated to ride the bike then to get it looking perfect at the moment







next is to get the harness situated, the battery charged, and to do a bit of rust removal on the inside of the tank, then the moment of truth!

JDM-sol 89

What are your plans for stripping the frame down? Are you going to get it sand blasted or are you going to wire wheel/ sand it down by hand?

da9licious

like i previously mentioned, i'm not going to worry about it until the scoot is running well. i would like to have it media blasted,then i was thinking powdercoat, but i think the oven/baking process would melt the material over the wire holds. so i'm assuming a regular paint job would be the best. just about everyone that has one of these aeros just use spray paint though ( i almost did, and still might) these bikes are fairly worthless (under $500 for a mint version) so it's more of a labor of love then a beneficial rebuild

got a few things accomplished today...

first i repared some of the cracks with some plastic filler (clear)
i'm trying this stuff for the first time so we'll see how it holds

here is a before/after of a slightly polished rear tail



here is the slightly modified air filter





cleaned up most of the rear plastics







doesnt look like much from the outside but i used the penny/solvent trick to get the gas tank de-rustified clean and dry and ready for some fuel!



at the end of the day i mounted the seat.. if all goes well i'll finish the harness, ( the battery is charging as I type) fill the tank and, take it for a spin (knock on wood)

da9licious

i found an 84 honda elite 125cc on craigslist for cheap (almost free cheap) the bike was in a fire so a lot of the plastics are melted but the motor only has like 4000 miles on it! the wiring is all good and when i pulled the variator the rollers were not even worn. i'm seriously debating putting that motor on the aero, only issue would be finding a place to mount the radiator and fabricating the engine mount and shock mounting locations. i'm going to finish up with the 50 cc motor and enjoy the bike for a while first ( might not even do the swap) but i'm thinking that would be a pretty awesome project.



^the 125cc motor

goosler

lookin good!

HOMEMADEPOWER

Nice aero 50. Looking at yours makes me miss my aero 50 that i had couples years ago.If i was you i would get a bigger bore,carb exhaust etc for the motor.

da9licious

^ i cant find much for the aero. i understand it shares things with the spree and few other models of scooters.. i think the 125 motor would be the **** but dont know how much i want to do with it

this thing has just been playing musical chairs in the garage.. have some time off coming up soon. maybe i can do some work on it

porkenstein

Really enjoy following this. You are doing a great job.

da9licious

been a while.. decided to go ahead and put the 125 motor in... havnt done more then this yet though. been working on my other scooters a lot. got my metro running great with a better filter and jets. and my reflex got a bunch of polini stuff for the drivetrain..good stuff



need to design the engine mount, then find a fabricator/wielder

bigdent

bump for an update.

da9licious

^alright, nothing too different



after about 2 weeks of debating what/how i was going to mount this engine i decided on the spot pictured above

using the oem mounts welded to each-other at an angle that avoids the starter. this also leaves enough for the carb and the filter/velocity stack. the cool thing is the plastics have a vent that is in-line with where the carb faces on the right side.



the suspension will be mounted to the back here^ the best part about this is the oem plastics will only need a small amount of trimming on the back side to avoid the shocks so it will look very similar to OEM



here is a view from the other side



and where the shock will be mounted on that side

this side will require about half of the inside of the storage box to be cut off.
other then that there will be little required modification to the fairings to get it to work. because the oem throttle cable wont work with this set up ( it had the dual version that works the choke and the carb's butterfly valve(?)) i ordered the cable for the elite 125 (dunno WHERE mine is)

here is a front-ish and back view of where the motor sits...





once i get the mount welded the 2 biggest problems are going to be where i put the radiator and the wiring (that i usually have to just wing or call someone that knows what they are doing)

ZombieHonda

Nice job man some really good work! Puts a smile on my face when people take such care in repairing their Honda's. I have two Spree's that I've been working on a bit this winter. Nice garage too!

da9licious

not really that much of an accomplishment, but today i cut my engine mounts to prep for the creation of the custom one...still need to do some grinding.. but soon will come the welding

da9licious

spent a couple hours (and a couple beers) sanding the paint off the plastics...(FYI... sanding is probably my least favorite thing to do) after i get all the paint off i'm going to try and repair all the cracks and fill in the few deep scratches.
if anyone knows about some stuff that is perfect for that let me know so i can buy it. otherwise i'm going to try this plastic weld stuff that i bought at auto zone.
here is where i stopped for the day. the headlight cover is practically finished the rest still needs some work ( as i'm sure you can see plainly with your own eyes)