Restoration Wednesday, Two for the Price of Two

Facebook Marketplace is a time suck. But the problem is, it doesn’t suck, at least in regards to finding projects. Like take a few months ago. I saw a Ruttman go kart frame that had some pieces I wanted. I bought it up lickidy-split and met a really nice gentleman who had too many projects for his son and grandkids. I asked what he had and the next day I brought home two Honda Trail 90s. Technically, one is a 1964 Honda Model CT200 (the first year) which evolved into the Honda CT90 in 1966 but they are both generally called CT90s. There a great website with lots of info if you are interested at https://ct90-ct110.com/.

He sold me the red one as “complete” and the other as a parts bike. But I’m in the process of getting them both up and running. Complete always has tales of “I give up, gather up the boxes of pieces and just get rid of it”. It needed side covers, a bunch of nuts and bolts that went missing, the points assembly cover and air box chrome cover. All of which I didn’t notice but found on eBay from this awesome seller kellysbikeworld. I reached out to Kelly’s directly with a parts list and he gave me a package deal priced right and shipped tight.

When I finally dug into the red one which had no spark, I figured out they had it wired wrong and fried the coil. I downloaded wiring diagrams and got it wired correctly, bought a new coil and it kicked over and ran on starter fluid. But now that I put on the gas tank, I’m not getting it to fire and may need new points or just new perspective. The orange one is a ’72 which was the first year for the auxiliary gas tank. I don’t have a picture of that. But as per usual, I spend time shining things up to make them look pretty before I actually work on them. The chrome wheel is one example. All four wheels on these bikes had bad chrome. The red one cleaned up really well but the orange still has pitting. But given what it looked like before I started polishing with #0000 steel wool, I’d say job done.