Idiots Should Not Be Allowed Near Cars

It’s no secret that I like older vehicles. They’re cheaper, they're made better, and they're generally much easier to work on.

I went shopping for a Jeep a couple of years ago. Because I’m tall enough for it to matter, I needed a CJ7 instead of your typical CJ5 or other “short” Jeep. I needed legroom. Because they only made them from 1976 through 1986, any CJ7 is going to be over 40 years old. I opted for a 1981 model with a 4.2 6-cylinder engine in it. I didn’t want a V8, and I didn’t want anything newer than ‘81 because that was the last year of the “narrow track” axles.

But I digressed.

When I scoped it out, I gave it a good eyeball, and could pretty much see its many needs and shortcomings. (I’m not new at this sort of thing.)  I could see that someone had dumped a lot of money into it at some point in the past, and I knew it wasn’t the older gentleman I bought it from because everything on the Jeep looked a few years old. He also admitted that he had bought it without knowing much about Jeeps.

I didn’t drive it before I bought it like I usually do when buying vehicles. For some reason, I treated the Jeep more like buying a used motorcycle than I would have when buying a car—like it was a hobby project instead of a “driver.” I did listen to it run and played with the gears and other things, but that’s about it. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t actually drive it in 4-wheel drive or I may not have bought it (more on that later.)

Some of the costly upgrades it had on it were Moser one-piece rear axles, a nearly new Bestop soft top, Clifford intake manifold, dual-outlet headers (I’m not a fan of headers, but oh well), Holley 390 cfm 4-barrel, D.U.I. brand HEI distributor and wires, new windshield, new MileMarker 1050 hydraulic winch, and 4” lift kit. I’m sure all of these upgrades together cost one of the previous owners what I paid for the whole Jeep.

I have no idea if anything was done on the inside of the engine (such as different camshaft, etc.), but the notoriously-leaky OEM valve cover had been upgraded, so I knew some work had been done on it besides the intake and headers upgrade. I was glad to see that the dual-outlet headers were combined into a well-done single exhaust. In my opinion, dual exhaust on a 6-cylinder is overkill. There just isn’t all that much room under a Jeep for duals anyway.

I bought it up near Anacortes, Washington, and I drove it about 110 miles down to my place. It drove ok (not great), and the brakes were barely passable, but I got home without incident. I waited to start working on it until I had all the paperwork and licensing in my name. Here’s what I brought home:

 

Once I actually owned the Jeep I started wrenching on it—starting with the brakes. The rear brake shoes looked good, but peeking into the wheel cylinders told a different story. Definite need for replacement. I found that removing the brake lines from each of them was not going to happen. Neither of them would budge. I actually had to cut the brake lines to get the wheel cylinders off. After removing the shoes and wheel cylinders both, here’s what I found: One cylinder was a mud hole, and the other was dry as the Sahara desert and frozen solid. I couldn’t even free it up with a hammer: 

The shoe retaining springs were lifeless, and the emergency brake spring was in 3 pieces:

While working on those, other things became apparent, such as this cracked fuel return line and wasted axle snubber:

 

 

 

About this time I started in on the front wheels. The disc brake pads were almost shot, but were still barely usable. Knowing I was going to replace the brake rotors and the brake pads both, I started taking everything apart. I found sleeve bearings almost totally dried out, with a few of the needle bearings actually lying sideways!

 

That’s about the time I noticed looseness and clunking in the left front axle. Imagine my surprise when I pulled it out and disassembled the u-joint. Zero grease in any of the four caps, and some of the needle bearings had actually been ground down into smaller pieces:

 

  

When I tore the right side apart, it was much the same, but at least two of the bearing caps still had some grease in them:

 

  

Had I actually tried to drive it in four wheel drive I probably would have completely broken an axle or worse. (Looking back, it’s probably a wonder I made it 110 miles home with it.)

You know the old adage: One thing leads to another, which leads to another, etc. Here’s what things looked like only a couple days after I bought it:

 

With a 40+ year-old Jeep things were bound to be bad, but I really struggle when I see total neglect. I felt like someone (probably the idiot I bought it from) should be bitch-slapped and forbidden to ever own a vehicle again.

I found several more things as I went, such as the badly-installed (and too big) steering stabilizer that was rubbing on the tie rod:

 

 

How about the condition of this clutch linkage? It was ready to expire:

 

 

 

This was what I found behind one of the turn signal lights. What kind of an idiot would do this? I can see someone accidentally pinching a wire, but how could you not see it while plugging the wires together?

  

 

 

When I saw that the dash speakers had actually been cut off instead of just removing the four nuts that held it, I stopped being amazed and astounded. I just shook my head.

 It’s pretty apparent that some people should never be allowed to work on cars.

The Crater

Up on the hill near Bonney Lake, Washington, there used to be a jagged, muddy hole in the ground, laced with gullies and washouts.

Everyone called it The Crater. (I capitalize it out of reverence and respect.)

 

No matter where you seemed to go in the Seattle-Tacoma area, if you were among guys who rode knobby-tired motorcycles in dirt and mud, you knew about The Crater. Motorcycle shops knew, riders knew—it had a certain status to it. If a fellow rider overheard that you had never heard of The Crater you would likely be met with, “You been living under a rock?”

 

I couldn’t begin to tell you exactly where it was because that was decades ago. I just know that if you drove south on highway 162 (the Sumner-Orting highway), and turned left at the Alderton general store and wound your way up the hill out of the Puyallup River valley, you’d be headed the right direction. There were no markings to guide you to The Crater. You’d have to know your way. The only way to find it if you’d never been there was by following another dirt bike rider.

There was nothing magical about it. It was just unusual. Nobody seemed to know its origin. Was it dug? Was it some weird quirk of natural erosion? I never found an answer. (Of course, I never really pursued it either.) You almost had a view of the valley (sorta seen in the background) from the parking area up there.

 

The conditions of The Crater depended largely on what time of year it was. The water could cover the whole bottom fairly deeply, or maybe just half of it had shallow water or mud. In summer months it could be completely dry.

No matter what time of year it was, the grooves up and down the sides never went away. There was no one to groom the sides of it with their tractor to keep it in optimum condition. It was “what you see is what you get.” The constant tire-churning of motorcycles was all that kept it clear. (If you can call some of those mini-ravines clear.) Here’s my brother, Denis, bombing up one of them on his Suzuki 250RM, followed closely by my best friend, Dan, on his Yamaha:

 

The Crater was a good place to go for those that weren’t trail riders—folks that liked to go park and ride but still stay close by their car or truck. There weren’t any trails leading away from the The Crater to get lost on. It was just a big area with space all around it to park your rig, with all the riding being done there within the circle. We didn’t go there often because we were avid trail riders. (I classify ‘trail riders’ as folks that point themselves away from their base camp and go, not turning around until they were down to half a tank of gas.) It was fun and it wasn’t too far away.

There is nothing but houses up there now, and it’s been that way for years. No surprise there though—view properties = $$$.

The Crater: Gone but not forgotten.

New Developments at Home

I was a chronic weed smoker for the last several years. I smoked from the time I got up to the time I brushed my teeth for bed. Way back in the '70's when I was a cigarette smoker, I remember always having to light up after a meal, and although I haven't smoked cigarettes since 1980, I did the same song and dance with weed. I tried to make a point of going a half hour between bong hits, but because I smoked so much of it, I was only really getting high for about 15 minutes if it was a good hit. After my 15-minute high was over I'd spend the next 15 minutes figuratively watching the clock.

All that came crashing down last month.

I went to bed feeling fine, but woke up with horrible abdominal pain, diarrhea, and puking my guts out. It didn't improve all morning, I just kept alternating between bed and bathroom. By this time Brenda had had enough and called an ambulance. I was carted off to the hospital where I spent the next three days. My electrolytes were dangerously low--to the point of an impending heart attack. Potassium was also in the danger zone. While these were being restored I was also being subjected to test after test after test. My arms were pincushions. My weight had gone down to 140lbs., which is what I weighed when I was a kid at 18 years old.

It appears that I was a victim of my excesses.

I've read quite a few articles since then about my malady, and it's becoming much more common. They're calling it "Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS)." Today's cannabis is extremely more potent than anything we smoked in the '70's. It's been so selectively-bred that it's become an organic medicine in its purity. 

That bong hit before I went to bed that evening was my last. There was no fuss from me about giving it up--I did so very willingly. I was in such bad shape that it actually helped me quit. I had no cravings, only the occasional "it'd be nice to have a hit of weed" every now and then.

My recovery has been pretty good. My weight is back, and sickness reset my digestive system, so it's functioning better than ever.

My sickness and hospital stay also had another effect.

For quite some time now Brenda has been after me to get a yard maintenance service to care for our yard. She was always concerned about me being out there mowing in 90+ degree sun. The thing is, I liked doing yard work in the sun because I could be nude and get a no-line suntan while I worked. Yeah, I did have times when I would get light-headed, but I always attributed those to standing up too fast, or being a little stoned.

She finally won out. It took something as desperate as a near heart attack for me to cave, but I finally relented. We hired the same people that take care of our next-door neighbor's yard. Their first visit was for the initial cleanup. They weeded everything, edged everywhere, mowed and fertilized the lawn, took out a couple bushes and part of a diseased tree, pruned all the remaining bushes, and laid down 7 cubic yards of mulch. There were 3 or 4 guys here for 6 hours on a Saturday doing it all. Since that day we're on a weekly maintenance schedule, and they show up every Monday.

I feel like a slacker now. As comedienne Rita Rudner used to say, "Men are good for two things: lawn care and vehicle maintenance." Well, now it's down to just vehicle maintenance for me then. On the plus side, our property has never looked better.

I guess you could say (in a roundabout way) the credit goes to weed.

 

My First Car

I landed my first job as a paperboy at 13 years old. As the oldest of 5 kids in the family, I learned early on that if I wanted to buy something I needed to earn it. I was not into picking berries or mowing lawns, so I became a paperboy, delivering papers until I was old enough for a “real” job. It was during my paper deliveries one day that my mom found me and rolled down the car window. “Have you got $30?” she asked. That was a weird question. “Yeah,” I answered. “Go straight home after you’re done,” she said, “your dad has something for you.”

At that time my dad was the parts manager for Fitz Auto Rebuild in Auburn, Washington. He was in a good position for deals, and they came his way often. He was always bringing cars home that needed something fixed, at which point he would do the needed repair(s) and sell them for a profit. It was a good supplemental income for our 7-person family.

It was one one of those deals that sent mom out to find me that day. It was well-known that I would often continue around town on my bike after my paper route was finished, wasting time and looking for adventures (or trouble). My parents didn’t mind as long as I was home for supper.

When I got home that afternoon it was already there—A 1964 Chevrolet Impala SS. I’m sure I was surprised. After all, I had barely turned 15 at that point! The car was a weird beige color--like one of those original Band-Aids that match absolutely no-one’s skin color. It was really straight, having only a dent in the left front fender above the wheel opening, and a smaller one near the back on the same side. The interior was perfect. There were no tears or holes anywhere except for the gaping hole in the transmission tunnel where an automatic shifter and console used to reside. There was no engine, transmission, or driveshaft.

My life changed at that point! For a fifteen year-old gearhead like myself, there was no better way to keep tabs on me. From that point on I couldn’t wait to get home when my paper route was finished. There we so many things to tweak and work on! I cleaned, painted, polished, straightened out wiring—you name it. I fixed little things that I found here and there, and learned as I went. If I didn’t actually work on the car on certain days, you’d likely find me sitting in it, just listening to the AM radio (complete with its factory trunk-mounted reverberator!)

One day dad came home with another car, and this one was a game-changer. As he backed it up the driveway with the Fitz wrecker, I wasn’t too impressed. It was a plain-Jane medium blue 1962 Belair 4-door, and it looked like it had been literally dragged out of someone’s swamp. The whole lower half of it was mud. Dad explained that it had a (probably) good 283 and 3-speed transmission, and almost everything else I needed to make my 64 Impala complete. I can’t remember if it even cost me anything for sure, but I think it might have been like $20 or something.

By then, my 64 was all prettied up the best I could do. The engine compartment was all freshly painted and waiting to be filled with an engine.

The main objective (according to both parents) was to get that blue Belair stripped of anything I could use so dad could get it out of the driveway and back to the Fitz Auto Rebuild boneyard. Imagine my surprise when I started working on removing the parts I needed and and found that there were 4 chrome reverse wheels under that layer of mud! We got it started and listened to it run before tearing the engine out. Besides the engine, I yanked the transmission, driveshaft, dual exhaust, lights—almost everything I could think of, then swapped wheels and tires.

With the donor car gone, I started in on cleaning the engine all up. I replaced the oil pan gaskets, valve cover gaskets, and anything else that might have been leaking, then gave it a nice Chevrolet-orange paint job and dropped it in the car (not by myself of course.) At dad’s urging, I splurged on a new clutch and pressure plate before I put the transmission in.

Now, I had a car that was drivable! Well, except for one thing: There was no shifter yet. That didn’t stop me from starting and running it all the time though. Tweaking, tuning, and learning everything I could about the Carter WCFB 4-barrel carb kept me busy, too. It was a little particular, and I fussed with it quite a bit, but in the end I won, and had it running pretty well.

Some time later—maybe a month or two—a 65 Impala came home on the wrecker. It appeared to be in nice shape, but looks can be deceiving. Whomever was driving it had caught a low tree stump dead-center. It had passed under the front bumper, so there was no apparent damage, but the oil pan was munched, the transmission was broken, and the driveshaft was bent. What it did have was the one thing I was missing: A shifter! While it was still hooked up on the wrecker I got all the shifter stuff unbolted. The shocks all looked brand new, so I took all four of those well. It went back to the boneyard the next day.

A 3-speed manual transmission was not offered in a 1964 Impala SS of course, so mounting my “new” Hurst shifter meant I had to enlarge the hole in the transmission tunnel. I did the best I could at trimming it out and making it look okay afterwards.

I now had a running car that I could actually drive, and it looked cool, too! I still had months before I was 16 and could get my driver’s license, but I was able to drive it back and forth between our alley and the driveway in front of the house. (We were the second house from the corner, so the drive was literally about 500 feet.)

 

 

By the time I turned 16 I knew everything about that car, and it was so clean and polished it would have made anyone proud.

Then came the bad news.

My parents had Pemco insurance at that time, and it was then we learned that Pemco would not insure a 16 year-old driver if there were more than 3 cars in the family. They determined that kids weren’t mature enough to drive until they were 17. WTF? Didn’t they know how hard I had worked to get that car? I believe we had like 5 cars in the family at that time, so there was no way around it short of changing insurance companies.

Imagine. A kid that has worked on his first car for a solid year, suddenly having it all fall flat at the last minute. Well, I had no choice. I was still able to drive mom & dad’s various cars on errands and such, but not my own.

When I turned 16 I gave up my paper route and got my first real job. I was the “lot boy” at (then) Bothell Brothers Chevrolet in Auburn. Because I couldn’t drive my own car, and mom & dad sure wasn’t going to give me unlimited use of one of theirs, dad suggested that I put all the lights and stuff back on his old hot-rod Honda S90 and ride that instead. He decided insurance wasn’t a big deal with a small motorcycle, because how much damage could it do to a car? (I guess damage to me didn’t matter that much.) Anyway, I ended up riding it the whole year I was 16—rain or shine. (And in Washington, there isn’t much shine.)

Side note: It was 1972 and the state of Washington had just enacted the law requiring riders to have a motorcycle endorsement on their driver’s license. I remember feeling pretty cocky while running through the pylons on my S90 while other riders there had to complete the course on their big bikes. There were even a couple of Harley riders there.

I can still remember turning 17 and finally able to actually drive my car. The feeling I had as I drove down the street, seeing our house fall away in the rear view mirror was one I’ll never forget.

Camera Acquisition: Encore!

I attended a swap meet at the Puyallup Fairgrounds a couple of years ago. It was largely an auto parts event (after all, it was presented by the Galloping Gerties car club), but there were plenty of old and oddball items of interest scattered everywhere also.

The only thing I bought all day happened to be a camera that I never knew even existed until this nice old man started giving me the salesman schmooz. One of the items he held up was this Encore disposable camera from the 40's or 50's. Wait--what?! It's true--a disposable camera 80 years ago!

Here's a bit of info I found on the web:

The Encore Camera Company was listed at P.O. Box 28, Hollywood, California in the 1940's. The company made a line of disposable cardboard cameras which were to be returned to the company for film processing. The cameras were also given away as a promotion.

The Encore Deluxe Camera was made by the Encore Camera Company in the 1940s and 50s. Designed as a disposable camera, the Encore Deluxe was constructed of cardboard and covered with paper. The paper covering is meant to look like leather. A front and rear set of viewfinders pull up for framing the photo. The camera was factory loaded with film and then after the user exposed the film, they would mail the whole camera back to the Encore Camera Company for processing. There is a slot on the bottom of the camera used for inserting a $1.25 for film processing and return shipping cost. The camera measures 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 5 inches. Since these were disposable cameras, they are hard to find.

Pretty unique, I must say. Here are some pictures of the one I bought, complete with the instructions and everything:

 

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Fast Eddie's Motorcycle Sales (Legitimate or not)

I was stationed in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1979 while I was in the Air Force.

One of my friends was a fellow from New York named Mark Degroat, who rode a beautiful 650 BSA Lightning. It was the first time I had been friends with anyone that rode a British twin. I was enthralled with the look and the sound, and it rekindled the motorcyclist within me. Having been stationed at various remote communication sites in Europe for the last few years, I never got the chance to go two-wheeling, but now I just had to find something to ride! Knowing it was my last assignment of my 6 year enlistment and I wouldn’t be going overseas again, I started looking for a motorcycle to play with. I couldn’t really afford a BSA or Triumph at that time, nor did I have any experience with British bikes. Through someone on base I ended up buying a poor-looking 65-ish Honda 305 Superhawk (also known as a CB77 by Honda.) It was ugly, it barely ran, and was missing the mufflers, had the wrong seat and gas tank on it, and was missing lots of other things as well. I have no idea what I paid, but I’m sure it was very little.

 

As you can see, no side covers, air cleaners, lights, wrong forks and front fender—it was quite a list. Because of the condition of the bike and the fact that I like everything to be operational (I’m kinda anal that way), I spent a lot of time going to visit the Honda dealership in downtown Fayetteville. The main man in the parts department was called Red. He was a pretty good-sized feller, and he knew his way around old Honda’s. One day I had stopped by after something I needed or wanted, only to be told by Red that it was no longer available.

“Tell you what,” he said, scribbling on a piece of paper, “here’s the address to a building ‘cross town where we store and assemble bikes that come in from the factory. You go there and talk to a man named Eddie. He runs the place. He might have what you’re looking for.”

I drove over and found the warehouse easily, and as I got out of my car he came walking out. I don’t know if Eddie was the only employee there or not, but I didn’t see anyone else. Eddie wasn’t a big guy, and he seemed pretty friendly. It was pretty obvious by the color of his face that Eddie was a drinking man. I explained the scenario to him, telling him that Red sent me over. I was not prepared for what came next though...

Inside this warehouse space were rows of older motorcycles. There had to be a hundred of them in there at least! I was in awe. I asked Eddie what the story was, and he told me that they were all motorcycles that had ended up there from Vietnam soldiers and airmen that never came back from the war, and bikes that were repossessed for one reason or another. There were Harley’s, BSA’s, Triumphs, Honda’s—you name it, all covered in years of dust.

“I’m in the market for parts for a 305 Superhawk,” I told Eddie. “I need a bunch of parts, so I was hoping to find something fairly complete.”

“Yeah, Bo,” he said, leading me down one of the rows, “I think we’ve got one over here.” (I believe he called everyone “Bo.”)

There were actually a few of them to pick from. At first I eyeballed one that was complete, but being kinda chickenshit I decided not to jump in with both feet and ask about buying the nicest one in the house. I mean, who the hell was I anyway? Just a 23 year-old punk kid that wandered in off the street. He didn’t know me from Adam. I pointed to a rough-looking semi-whole bike that caught my eye because it had a good seat, gas tank, and even had a hard-to-find lift handle on the left rear of the frame that allowed its rider to easily lift it up onto the center stand. I asked him what the possibility was of me buying the whole bike. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then he said, “Sure, Bo, how’s 40 bucks?” I shook his hand. “Deal.”

I went out to the car and grabbed my bumper-mounted motorcycle carrier hoops and hooked them on and we loaded the bike into them.

I couldn’t believe my good fortune. That old parts bike had a lot of the things that I needed to put my junker that much closer to being legal and ready to ride, such as the already-noted seat and gas tank, and other goodies like the whole front end and passenger foot pegs. Hell, my bike didn’t even have a center stand before, let alone that lift handle I mentioned.

 

I told Mark all about it the next day at work, adding that I wanted to go back and ask Eddie about the nice Superhawk I saw in there that day. The two of us went back to see him a couple days later.

I kept telling him about the place as we drove, and when we got there he was just as amazed as I was when he saw what the warehouse contained. I introduced him to Eddie, and then headed over to that near complete 305 I had my eyes on during my first visit. There were stars in Mark’s eyes when he spotted a matching 650 BSA to the one he owned. His BSA was already in beautiful shape, and needed very little, but one of the things he did need was a pair of rear shocks. Up until that time he had not been able to find any shocks for it and had been riding with chrome steel struts in place of them. That’s a hard ride. He negotiated the purchase of the shocks and started unbolting them. Meanwhile, I was eyeballing that nearly complete Superhawk. I just had to have that bike. The mufflers alone almost gave me heart palpitations. Eddie had no titles to any of the bikes, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need a title—I just wanted all the parts I could get my hands on.

When I asked Eddie about the complete bike I wanted, I didn’t think he’d sell it to me. To my surprise he did his usual pause for effect, likely figuring we were a couple of cash cows, wondering what he could stick us for.

“That’s a pretty nice bike there, Bo. I’d have to get a hunnerd for that one.”

I paid him happily and we loaded up. On the way home we were giggling like schoolgirls about the whole deal. We decided from that day on that we would call him Fast Eddie.

I talked to Mark the next day and he was in heaven, riding his BSA with rear shocks for the first time ever.

I transplanted almost everything except the engine from those bikes I bought onto the one I already owned and had licensed. It was like I had an instant restoration. Seat, mufflers, everything. I was still working out in the barracks parking lot at this time, so I didn’t have any storage other than my giant 69 Ford station wagon road cruiser, so I had to actually put old parts back on the non-running bikes just to keep them secure.

The next time we went to visit Fast Eddie was strictly for Mark’s benefit. He wanted to see about a complete bike he had seen on our first visit—A pre-unit (separate engine and transmission) 57 Triumph that was complete. Again, Eddie told him it was going to have to be “a hunnerd” for the whole thing. (I doubt he knew the value of anything there.) Mark was so excited he about tore his pocket getting the cash out. As he was paying him, he said, “Eddie, I don’t know if you’re getting anything out of this deal, but here’s an extra hundred for you,” he said, handing him a stack of bills. Eddie looked pleased as punch, “Well thanks, Bo.” We both knew nobody but Eddie was ever going to see any of that money, but Mark was so beside himself he probably would have given him the shirt off his back to get that Triumph for a measly hundred dollars.

I went back to see Fast Eddie one last time, and like before, I knew what I was after. This time it was for a metalflake green (ugh!) Honda CL77, also known as a 305 scrambler. It was in great shape, and even had hard-to-find “Snuff-or-nots” on the exhaust pipes.

 

Again, Fast Eddie went home with booze money. Here’s what it looked like when I brought it home:

 

It didn’t take much to get it running other than cleaning the carburetors out and putting some new gas in it, and it ran great. And that sound!

Here’s what it looked like after I put new skins on it:

 

I loved that bike even more than the Superhawk. Unfortunately, it was stolen from me after I got out of the service.

Here are a few of the later shots of my Superhawk after I finished wrenching on it:

 

God, I wish I could go back there and visit Fast Eddie.

 

In the Beginning There Were Motorcycles - Part 2: Moving to the Big City

In 1970, Honda released their first 3-wheeler, the US90 (later changed to ATC90.) Dad was smitten. He managed to talk his way into buying a brand-new lime green one, no doubt whining and pouting to mom until he got his way. With its unusual balloon tires as its only suspension, it was quite the machine. It was a whole new way of riding and steering, too, having the rear wheels locked together as they were. You had to lean into a turn like a regular motorcycle, but you had to put all your weight on the footpeg on the opposite side.

 

It was touted by Honda as easily transportable, and their brochures showed it disassembled and actually fitted into the trunk of a small car! You would pop the seat/rear fender unit off, undo the handlebar quick-release latch to turn them as needed, and the rear axle and wheel slid completely out as one unit after removing the opposite rear tire. It was an interesting design:

 

When I finished 6th grade we moved to Auburn, the “big” city next door. By big I mean it had actual stores and sidewalks and cops and everything. During this time dad expanded our family motorcycles to include a Honda Mini Trail 50. It proved so popular in our family that a couple more were added. Now when we went camping there was no bickering about riding. Gone were the “It’s my turn, you’ve been on it long enough” gripes that always led to someone getting pissed off—usually dad.

By now dad’s little motorcycle “business” had expanded to cover all single-cylinder Honda’s, and he also occasionally did repairs for people. As a result of all his bartering, repairing, and upgrading he had accumulated quite a few parts for Honda 50, 55, 65, 70, and 90cc bikes—all their single cylinder models. Sometime during my junior high school years (9th grade?) I approached dad and asked him if he thought there were enough parts to build a motorcycle from. He gave me permission to go ahead, and I jumped in.

First, I built the engine. All I had to go on were his manuals, so I spent a lot of time comparing individual gears, snap rings, shims, and all the other stuff that goes into an engine to pictures and diagrams in his manuals. When I got it all together it ended up being 55cc. When it came time for a carburetor I was stumped because a Honda 55 engine used a “stand up” vertical carburetor, and we had none.

 

Instead, I got out his welder and built an intake manifold out of exhaust pipe and 1/8” steel for flanges, on which I mounted an S90 carburetor like this:

 

The frame was from a 55cc also, and I painted it metal flake purple, because why not? I had no idea what models the wheels were from, but the whole front end—forks and all—were from an S90. (Because his main dirt bike was still his old hot-rodded S90 he had a lot of parts.) It was quite the Frankenstein when it was all finished! I had converted the automatic clutch a manual clutch, and it operated on a toggle switch with no battery. When it came time to actually try to start it, I wasn’t savvy enough to trust that I had everything right, so I went and got my dad off his nap couch. He chuckled, like he knew it would never start. Imagine his surprise (as well as mine) when it started right up! I never did get any pictures of it, but it kicked around the family for several years, getting ridden quite a bit for fun. Dad finally ended up selling it. That was one of my proudest achievements.

Our garage was tiny and there wasn’t enough room for much more than a car, some toolboxes, and our own motorcycles. His motorcycle “shop” if you want to call it that, was our basement. He had a small room packed with all his tools and parts, but due to space he had to work on whole motorcycles in the main area of the basement. That meant he had to haul them down from the outside door that was halfway down the stairs, and back out when they were done. He (we) learned a valuable lesson one day when a bike he was working on backfired and started a fire. The fire department was there quickly, so not much damage was done, but it was truly a humbling experience. No more whole bikes in the basement!

The nicest of the Honda Mini Trails we had ended up getting an upgrade when he pulled the 50cc top end off it, transplanting a 70cc cylinder and head onto it. It was a fun bike with plenty of power for adults. Those minis ended up being carted all over the place because they were so small and portable, like this time we stuffed one into our '61 Mercury station wagon and took it on our trip the Bonneville Salt Flats:

 

Sadly, someone broke into mom & dad’s garage a few years later and stole all 3 of our beloved Mini Trails, and they were never recovered. Dad’s hot S90 and the 3-wheeler were not in the garage though, so they escaped being stolen.