Honda Benly Cafe Racering

My plans for the benly are to remove anything that isn't needed and upgrade the remaining components to improve the riding experience of the bike. During the early 80s it was very common for bikes to have both electric and kick starts. Kick starts were present on almost all earlier bikes so the existing technology was good. However electric starters were relatively new and therefore had reliability issues. So the kickstart was there as a back up should your electric started break, or if you have a flat battery.

The electric starter on this benly was not working, the starter motors turns when the button is pushed but the engine does not turn over. This could be the starter motor clutch or the chain driving the clutch. Either way I plan to remove the starter, chain and the wiring for the starter and just use the kickstarter. This is mainly to save weight, on a light bike like this a 7kg starter hanging off of the engine makes a difference.

To gain access to the starter motor mounting screws first you must remove the exhaust pipes, I decided to replace the gaskets so both came off for this job.

Next job is to remove the 8 screws holding the casing on, these are phillips screws and can be hard to move and easy to mutilate. Its good practice to use a tap hammer on the screw head and apply alot of pressure onto the screw to prevent damage.

Once the contact cover is removed the ignition unit needs to be removed it is held on with 3 phillips screws, I scribed a line from the ignition to the housing to ensure the timing was not affected before removal.

The 10mm bolt is the only thing left with this removed the casing will eventually come off, the magnets inside make this a little awkward.

Here we have the flywheel/statorcommutator thingy and behind is a toother out gear of the starter clutch, this has a chain run round it and the starter motor. Unfortunately the chain was in the bottom of the casing and was never attached, it explains the intermittent engine rattling noise and the starter motor symptoms. The hole left by the starter has been blanked off with some plastic and a cable tie, this is to prevent dust and debris entering the casing that could damage the crank oil seal.

These are the parts that are now no longer needed.

I also removed the cable that connect the starter to the starter solenoid.

The last couple of jobs on the bike included changing the rear springs, which were terrible. The raplacement items where off of a pit bikw website, theyare a common modification on twin shock cafe racer project because they look good work ok and are cheap coming in at £50. They will always be outperformed by a racing shock like hagon, fox or maxton but you pay for what you get and I think these are good value for a bike that can only do 70mph!

Re-fitting the exhausts with new crush copper seals and some exhaust paste.

I also decided to change the oil because I don't know the condition of the oil the bike has been using.

It is worth noting that this honda doesnt use the dip stick thread to gauge the oil level, once the dipstick is unscrewed it should be cleaned and placed on top of the screw threads. Like so. This is not the case for all hondas.

I had to get a bit creative with the chain guard, it was fouling the LHS rear shock and so I took a panel beating hammer to it and bent the housing slightly just to give me enough clearance without making the housing foul the chain. This may mean I have to remove this shock if I wish to take the chain cover off, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

The exhaust sealed up nicely after a short run.

The bike looks alright and rides really well at the moment, the only complaint is the front end which is in need of an overhaul, I have ordered the seals for it just waiting for the parts to arrive, also I was recently stopped by policeman and asked to go home and put mirrors on my bike, I did so but I went for a more subtle bar end mirror I had lying around. Works surprisingly well!