I am in the initial phases of starting on a new summer project.  I have a 1972 Honda SL100 that hasn't ran in years and is need of some major TLC.  I was just wondering if any of you have SL parts or know some good places to find them.  I have been searching E-bay and Craigslist but a couple of the key parts that I need are very hard to find or very expensive.

Some of the main items that I need are a complete seat, tail light assembly, and a speedometer.

I'm hoping that next weekend I can dig it out of the shed at my parents place and bring it back home with me and start the restoration.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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Edited by canammx1, 22 April 2011 - 11:36 PM.

Thanks for that helpful post canammx1!  That really helps!  

Anyway.........I'm hoping that I can get some pictures posted of the old girl next week and start the tear-down process.  My wife has already voiced concerns of spending too much time and money on it so it might be a slow process!

I'm hoping to utilize this thread to post progress and get some help along the way from those of you that may have gone through the same things.

Well I don't know that I can help you, but I do know how you feel. I just got my '72 SL100K2 (tortoise green-not my favorite color) this past weekend. I've been looking on Ebay for the parts I need. Lower triple clamp (steering lock tabs are broken), original type handle bars (some funky bars on right now) and the engine has a serious cam chain rattle. I have a Clymer repair manual on order and I found complete triple clamp on Ebay. It seems like everything you are looking for is reproduced from China. That's what I have found for the handlebars so far. Good luck with your restoration.

http://www.davidsilverspares.co.uk/
If you cannot get it off fle-bay i use these guys.they have NOS honda inventory.
Nothing cheep about overseas shipping,but if you gotta have it your going to spend it.
Just got the last brake cable for a xl250 motorsport they had.Cheeper that fle-bay used and faster than westcoast ground shipping.

Thanks for your help guys!  

Sunday I was able to score a couple key parts that I needed on e-bay.  Some guy was parting out a complete bike that was in really nice shape.  So far I got the OEM speedo, a seat with good pan and foam that needs cover, a nice front fender, straight bars, a complete tail light assembly, and a few other misc. items.

I have both original side covers but unfortunately the left cover is messed up pretty badly.  I see there is a guy on e-bay selling new reproduction left side panels for this bike that his company molded themselves.  I'm not sure if I should take a chance on them or to keep looking.

Right now I'm still trying to decide what type of restoration on the old girl.  I would love to do a frame-up restoration sparing no-expense but my wife has already gave me her opinion on that!  So I guess we'll see what happens.

This bike was a Christmas present to me in the early 90's from my parrents.  The had gone to a guy's farm to pick up a minature horse for my sister for Christmas and my dad noticed this bike sitting in the barn so he got it thrown in on the deal with the horse!  It didn't run but I think that made it even better because I loved to fix things.  I cleaned the carb, filed the points, put a new battery and fresh gas in it and had it going the next day riding it around in the snow.  The best part of the deal is that I have the title for it.  The signed title that I have is dated 1974!

I was able to get home to the farm last weekend with the trailer and dug this jewel out of the machine shed!

That is a jewel for sure. Amazing you still have the same bike.
I had the exact same machine in red as a young teenager. Unfortunately I eventually killed it through years of abuse and lack of maintenance and the remains were sold off when I was 18.
I found an identical bike last year that was in about the same shape as yours when I got it. I decided to make a playbike/vintage motocrosser out of it. I did a little TLC, added some paint and number plates and it looked great. Then I did what you did - filed the points, cleaned the carb and put in a new battery - and it fired on the first kick. With a little fiddling it ran perfect. In a week I was doing giving full MX 250s fits without even changing the stock tires (the photo below). This was a bike advertised as a non runner that had been sitting for years...
The old SL100s are amazing bikes. The motors in particular were ahead of their time.

Dam hondas,clean the carb and set the points and off they go.The 72 xl250 had weeds growing in it,flebay a new kick start shaft and hold the choke on off it went.
I am at the same point as you are.So what i did was fix what needed to get it started,nos kicker shaft,aftermarket gas tank,new rear brake cable then all new aftermarket cables.
Gonna use aftermarket plastic and seat cover then call it done. Only going to vintage events. I can buy one or less than i will spend on making this one 100%

Nice bike, I will be watching closely. I have one too and love it.

It started here.






I have owned this bike for over ten years, it was my second resto ever. I ended up riding it for a bit like this.



I finally took it apart again and did everything - paint, new seat, the works. I use it now as a playbike but am thinking I may street it. This is what it looks like now.

To KLP,
Heck of a nice job on your restoration. I just got mine a couple of weeks ago and will start tearing it down here shortly. I noticed you polished your side cases. Was that your preference. I can't decide if I will polish or paint them. Also where did you get the paint for the fenders and plastic side covers? Again, nice job.

Well.........I got to spend a few hours this weekend in the garage working on the bike.  Today I got the frame and some other misc. parts to a buddy of mine who is going to blast and powder coat them.  The frame is going to be the same light grey with a bit of metal flake in it.

My first objective with this project is going to be getting this thing back into a rolling chassis so I don't have a large pile of parts sitting around in the garage.  It appears like this part of the build is going to be quite expensive.  The chrome on both my rims are trashed!  I need to get replacement rims and spokes (or re-chrome the rims and re-spoke), polish the hubs, new wheel bearings, new brakes, new rear shocks, and I need to locate some new front fork tubes because the chrome is pitted pretty bad, and the upper triple clamp is cracked and needs to be replaced.

Here are some photos of the progress:

klp said:

Thanks klp!  I'm hoping that mine will turn out as nice as yours!  If you have any tips for me along the way or have any good sources for parts please feel free to give me any advise that you have!

What did you use to polish up all of that aluminum?  It looks really nice!

petey383 said:

Nice.   I need more garage space.   I get so jealous when I see a big garage.

You might want a scissor bike jack stand.   It will allow you to raise the bike up and not work bent over.   It's on my shopping list.

Kev_XR said:

I need more garage space too!    It's just a standard 2 car garage and the wife's tahoe takes up half of it!  The other half is taken up by my bike trailer and my KTM 300.

One of those lifts would be nice for sure, but sitting on the creeper seat isn't too bad either.

Well...... I made a little more progress on the bike.  Got the frame back from blasting and powdercoat.  Went with a similar grey color on the frame with some metal flake to dress it up a little bit.  I need to fix two small dents on the muffler and that and a few other odds and ends will get blasted and powder coated.  Also got all of the black parts getting blasted and coated.

Wow, your frame is looking awesome. Keep up the good work and the pictures coming. My budget won't allow me to take mine down to the bare frame, so I'm just fixing what has to be fixed to get it to run. Parts for these SL's are not the easiest to find compared to CT70's.

Wow, looks great... keep it coming. Thanks for the compliments on mine - I am pretty proud of it.

The paint I got a match from a local auto supply house - it is close but not perfect, a little darker than stock. The tank I left alone.

The motor and forks I polished on a buffer with various rouge. I had never done it but was surprised with the results. I like it better than paint as it adds some contrast to the engine. It was A LOt of work though. Yeah. I don't know that I would do it again.

KP

I am looking for a cam chain tensioner guide for a 1972 SL100 K2 part # 14500-324-000.
Honda apparently doesn't make this anymore, so I am searching flea-bay. Honda changed the part # from '71 to '72. Will a tensioner from a '70 -'71 fit ok in a '72? My old one is grooved out pretty good, I hate putting a used one back in but it that my only option? Are there any sources for a new one this side of Taiwan? Thanks for any help ya'll can give me.

Quote

Try Western Hills Honda in Cincinati, OH. (513)662-7759!

I ordered a bunch of parts from Service Honda but the rear rim and spokes are both discontinued.  I had a local dealer here run a search of other dealer inventory and this is what they came up with.  They had 5 NOS rear rims on hand as well as the 36 spokes I needed!

I asked them how the hell they had 5 NOS rims on hand and the guy said they are one of the larges vintage Honda parts dealers around.  Might be worth a try!

Well......I made a little bit more progress on the 100 tonight.  I had another little batch of parts that I was going to give to the powder coater but I needed to fix a couple dents on the end of the pipe first:



So I thought I would give it a try.  Since I couldn't get the baffle out my only option was to either weld studs on and pull them out or to pressurize the pipe and heat the dents.  Since I don't own a stud puller I decided to go with option 2.  Went to the hardware store and bought a couple plugs out of the hardware section:



Then I took the valve stem out of one of my old tubes and dissassembled one of the expandable plugs and used it as the center bolt and installed a washer and the valve stem nut:



Then I installed the plugs in the pipe and snugged them down:



Hooked up the air jack and pressure regulator:



Since my oxy/accetylene torch is at the farm I had to use a hand-held butane torch and quite a bit of pressure (125 psi) to get the two dents most of the way out:



It's not perfect but it's much better than it was before and I didn't want to push my luck and blow it out or destroy the pipe.