The story with this bike is this, I have a good friend who has a large collection of old cars and motorcycles, big money stuff. Anyway, his mom had a Trail 70 she bought brand new, and it's been in their family forever. Someone was riding it and the chain snapped at 45mph, destroyed some of the cases and then the bike sat for a while.
My friend knew I was mechanically inclined so he gave me the trail 70 to fix. I tig welded the broken cases and freshened up the bike. It rode amazing when I was done. They were so happy with it they paid me for the work and gave me a CA160 they had bought a while back to restore but never touched.
This is how it was when I got it.
The paint is really clean under some oxidation, it has 5 thousand something miles, and was kept in a heated warehouse for the last 10 years. It was probably outside for some time before that though because it has some rust on the lower parts of the frame, nothing I can't handle. The engine kicked over easily, and I was happy that I could probably get it started with not too much work. No title, but here in Washington state, you can get a 3-year registration and then petition to get a title for it after a 3 year waiting period. I got a box of parts with the bike including both side covers, a large rear rack, front sprocket cover, and a few other misc parts. My plan for the build is not doing a perfect NOS resto, but it'll be OEM+ styling and i'll keep all the stock stuff for the next owner.
I started on the bike right away trying to get it started. It hadn't ran in at least 15 years. The carb was seized, I took it apart, soaked everything in gasoline, and put it back together. I cleaned out the tank with muriatic acid, cleaned up the stock petcock, and put everything back together with new gas in the tank. I changed the oil in the engine, the old stuff was some of the dirtiest oil i've ever seen. haha I got a new 6v battery for it and figured out the wiring enough to get spark.
At this point, I was ready to start the bike. I had fuel and decent spark. I kicked over the bike a few times and it started right up. Sounded really good too because the stock pipes are all rusted out. Those will be replaced with some reverse megaphones, I'm thinking.
How it looked after waxing the paint and getting it running. Looks good next to my roommate's CB125s.
I rode it around the block. It was a blast. I can't get the clutch to disengage with the hand lever. I think the clutch plates are all stuck together from stilling for so long. Another thing I have to work on next time I have time.
Yesterday, I replaced the bent rear brake linkage with a nos one, as well as the broken rear brake lever with a nos lever. It now has a functional rear brake. Happy about that. I also took off the extremely rusted/swiss cheese pipes. I'll have to find some good pipes to replace them in the future. For now, my neighbors will hate me.
That's all for now. I have a new rear tire coming in the mail, as well as a replacement petcock, because I don't want to deal with the stock one right now (all the rubber inside keeps swelling and not letting fuel through). I also bought emblems for the tank. I'm excited to improve it and ride it for the rest of the summer.
More posts to come soon. Cheers,
-Curt
