No I don't still have one (pity) but I can't find a single reference to them here (Maybe due to my stunning search technique). My second bike, '73 I think, Orange with black stripe, handled like a dream, excelent engine once breathed upon slightly.
Anyone else around here that owned one?

You may need a new search technique. :thinking: Try this to start, Honda Gallery :applause:

I got one about two weeks ago, its the blue '76 model. very fun bike to ride, light too! my wife even liked riding it!



all that, just to take this bolt out so i could change the kickstarter shaft...



its all back together now, i'll post some picks later.

dorkpunch said:

Cool, be good to see it. Never had to dig quite that deep into mine.
Did split the cases though, fried a big-end. Figured as long as I was there I'd fit an offset crank pin :D First time I'd done that so I was real fussy about getting it straight, made a big difference, smoother than it had been.

Something really weird: walked into a mates workshop store yesterday and tripped over an XL 175 engine. "What the hell are you doing with that" says I.
"I've been going to heli-coil the plug thread for about a year now, he said, Do you want it". "Where's the rest of the bike, says I. "Behind that pile of steel"
Looks like it's missing the side covers, exhaust, tank cap, and yes someone's welded the kick-start to the shaft :banghead: Still, I'm very tempted. :thinking: .....

I had a 74, the orange and black one. I got it for a bit of work I did for a guy, it had about 500 miles on the odometer but hadn't been run in maybe 20 years. I split the motor apart and cleaned it all up, put in some new gaskets, ran a hone through the cylinder and installed some new rings, a new coil and points and cleaned the carb. It started on the second kick. Was a real nice bike and got my wife into riding. She is on a DRZ400 now and my friends wife is learning on the XL.

so here it is with the motor back in.





an heres the 250 i picked up with it!

tntmo, you obviously do good work :thumbsup:

Mine was the first brand new store-bought machine I ever owned.
Not prone to making good decisions but that was a good-un, sweetest most forgiving bike I've had. My mates had mostly XL 250s, TS 185s and DT 175s, all quicker in the open but when they slowed for a breather I'd be gone, great bike to learn on even now.

They red-lined quite high for the time (9K?) standard but with a cam and higher compression I could get my tacho to read "Nippon Denso" if I wasn't careful :eek: Too high in hindsight, I put 3 pistons in it over a couple of years.

dorkpunch said:

Nice, both of them. Those 250s were about the most popular dirt bikes around here for years, even well after the mid-range XRs and TTs came out, bulletproof. Probably thousands of them still lurking in barns and sheds. Looks like that one's all there, well worth a bit of a birthday. Not used to seeing them now, notice how far back the engines are in the frame, and the tiny suspension travel. :shocked: Apart from that there's not really too much to show for thirty years of development is there?

I ended up picking up a 1976 XL175 for my girlfreind to vintage race. She likes the bike because it's light for her too. I've ridden it and it feels like the stock gearing has a little space between 1st and 2nd, :excuseme: I bet a smaller front sprocket would help that. :confused:

I was working at a local Honda dealer in 1977, and we took a '73 in on trade. It had over 21,000 miles on it (I kid you not). It was a low serial # (342) and the guy had never ridden it in the dirt; it was his commuter, and he'd ridden it all over the western US. Engine had never been touched.

I traded straight across for a '70 CB175. I put on Petty fenders (IT on the rear), Cheng Shin knobbies, and a Super Trapp on the stock header pipe. It was gutless. Working in a shop has its advantages (cost + 10%), so I decided to do the Powroll thing. Hal Kenyon, the owner of the shop, who had built some killet XL412s, said to do it all, so I did. Bore and stroke (267cc total), big carb, cam, pipe, and ported head. When we pulled the engine apart, it was pristine inside - it even still had cross hatches in the cylinder! What's that saying - no power, no wear?

It was like night and day. Stock, I had to tug on the bars in first gear to get the front end up. Pumped, I could just roll it on in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. I used to love riding it through all 5 gears on the back wheel. Wonderful engine, never ran hot or gave me any grief. The chassis, on the other hand, was mediocre at best. Built for a small rider (I was/am 6'2"), it had 33mm fork legs which were way flexy. On the plus side, it was fun on the fire roads. And it didn't weigh a ton, either.

Yup, all sounds familiar, flexi-forks and all, managed to bend mine twice. Don't know if they ever used that engine in anything else, pity it was a good unit, plenty of potential. The bike felt really gutless out of the box as you say but the funny thing was that even standard it was never too far behind my mate's TS185 and DT175. Nothing else about the bike was real special, maybe it was just that I didn't know any better (previous bike was a well used SL125) but I think the whole lot worked together better than the individual bits had any right to expect.

dorkpunch said:

Great bike Dorkpunch! I have the exact same model. Mine doesn't look quite as nice as yours. I sold mine years back to a buddy that road it and in turn beat it to hell before returning it to me for lack of funds. My exhaust is falling apart at the tail end, I have a few dings in the tank from said x-friend that punched it I think, and spliced wires from him losing the key. Other then that though I'd bet I could have it running in a couple of days. Have any extra parts or know where to get any? Ebay is not bountiful.

Thanks

that is the only 175 i have, parts bikes or running! to bad about the ignition wires- alls you have to do is unplug the key switch and itll run... stuff turns up for them now and again on ebay, but youre right,theyre kinda hard to find parts for! got any pics of yours?