My son was 9 years old then when he first repaired a retro Honda CR8O carburetor. The bike has been sleeping for years and the carburetor was filled with stinking fuel slime. He has to use picks, brass brush, small scraper and a screw driver to pry out the chunks of hard sludge sticking on the carburetor. He was a bit clumsy to spill some rotten fuel on his shirt and you know smelly rotten fuel is :)

Saturday, October 9, 2010

moving-on

This is his first experience to remove a scooter engine all by himself. I needed the engine from this scooter to be removed and since my son was still a bit heart broken about not finishing the CR80, I thought that he'll have a good time pulling the engine off of this bike and he did.

Since this was his first, he was so happy and contented with his work. He thinks that he did good in dropping the engine but the truth is he made a big mistake on how to hang the bike. He should have hanged it properly because the bike should have twisted and fall once he pulled the main engine hanger bolt but since I was watching him, I grab hold of the bike before he took the main engine hanger bolt.


This is the scoot that needed the donor engine. I installed the engine and did some minor repairs and got myself a good working scooter. Thanks for my son for helping me remove the engine from the donor bike.

final repairs

My son was not able to finish his repairs on this CR80 because of his school schedules. After several months of not touching or repairing it, he finally had time to play with it once more. He assembled the parts and got the engine to run but the clutch was sticking and the bike needed more work so I told him that he has to give up on this project since I don't have parts. I promised him that I'll let him play with the orange Kawasaki Vulcan on the background if he'll let this one pass and he said OK.

Even though he didn't finish the repairs on this bike, I still believe that he learned something like how to overhaul a carburetor and how to bring the engine back to life. He also learned how to remove parts and to reinstall them back again. It was a half done puzzle project but I think that my son enjoyed hearing it's engine roaring when it started. It was a very old bike and needed lots of repairs and parts and restoring it back to life is a bit of a time waster so we decided to let it go. After he installed all the parts, I placed it for sale and sold it. Got himself a bit of pocket money from his little project and was happy.

About the vulcan, he did help me fix it but it will be on another blog... :)

other repairs

After installing the carburetor, his next move was to start fixing the clutch lever.

It was getting late and we really have to start cleaning-up and head home but my son was still struggling trying to remove the broken clutch lever from the handlebar. Probably my hammer was just too heavy for him...

carburetor overhaul done!

Half groggy and half hi from the putrid smell of the rotten fuel and parts cleaner, he finally finished overhauling the carburetor.

inspecting and cleaning the carburetor

inspecting and doing some measuring 

installing and setting the jets


cleaning the carburetor

When he removed the carburetor form the engine, he was got "hi" from the bad stinking smell of rotten gasoline. 


The carburetor was full of sludge and rotten fuel and smells very bad. I asked him if he is OK and he said that he is starting to like the foul smell??? 

He also said that he likes the smell of the parts cleaner??? I think he is half-hi from the smell...

removing some parts


I don't know what came to him posing with a big screw driver and an electric driver???

removing the fuel tank