My Bike: painting small parts

I spent Sunday cleaning a few small items and experimenting with spray finishes in my garage as I didn't want absolutely everything powder coated.

The items you see here are the belly pan lower mount, fork lower crown and another look at the swingarm.

Items were wire brushed, cleaned with petrol, dried and rubbed with wet and dry where needed. Primer is Halfords grey, paint is Halfords Satin Black and Halfords Platinum Silver (an MG colour).

With the swing arm I am not happy with the finish as you can see quite a bit of damage on it after the rust was removed. This item is heading went for powder coat Monday morning as the PC finish is thick and will cover the minor pitting in the metal.

primer coat

add satin black

rear brake torque arm

Swingarm

Brochure: Honda Sports and Touring 1984

Here is a scan of the lightweight page of Honda's 1984 range brochure featuring a black MBX 80. What is really nice about this brochure is that the cover is signed by Freddie Spencer, so I have included that scan as well. The other pages feature Sports Mopeds (inc MBX50), Sports Singles and Twins, Euro Sports, Super Sports V2/V4, Super Sports, Touring and Trail (inc MTX80).

Magazine Feature: Practical Sportsbike Oct 2016

This scan is from the magazine Practical Sportsbike and features the restoration story by the bikes owner Rob Billman.

My bike: Restoration, final frame strip ready for paint

Its taken a little while but I need to push on and make some progress, so I decided to take a Friday off work and get the frame completely stripped so I can take it and get it powder coated.

The final strip was relatively straight forward with the exception of some rusted bolts that were holding the rear mudguard on. A couple of bolts snapped and the final bolt wouldn't budge, fortunately this last bit of mudguard is being replaced and was cracked so I just pulled it off then cut the bolt off.

So with the final brackets and the head race's removed we are ready for paint next week, I feel this is an important step as technically from now on I am re-building!

27/02/2017, Frame, side stand, rear rack, brake pedal and nose fairing bracket dropped of at www.plasticoat.co.uk - looking forward to getting it back, so watch this space!

Honda MCX80

I spotted this MCX80 (HC05) for sale recently on the Honda M Shop's website. I literally know nothing about it apart from it uses the air-cooled M series 2-stroke 80cc engine. I guess the C in MCX refers to 'custom' but that's it!

found this info from www.sonnengelber.de/mcx-80 and google translated.

Honda's little successful attempt of a 80 Choppers.
Equipped with air-cooled engine of MB / MT models, the MCX worked on the proportions a little failure. After two low selling for Honda ratios years the chopper disappeared quietly without replacement from the program.

Year: 1983-84
Engine: air-cooled, 5-speed, 7.4 HP
Tank: 7.5 liters
Weight: empty 93
Color silver, black, white
Number of pieces:
Price: 3.324, - DM

Bruchure: French MBX80W and MTX80S

Honda MBX80W and MTX80S

NOTE; The single front disc with dual piston calliper and the built in rear indicators!

Brochure: German 'Supersport in der 80er klasse'

"Supersport in der 80er klasse. Honda MBX80" or "Super Sport in the 80 class. Honda MBX80"

Brochure: German 80cc 'Volles Programm'

I have some new brochures fresh in from Germany, here is the first.

"Volles prorgamm die 80er von Honda" or Full program the 80 Honda!

Brochure: German Market small range poster

Here is a new brochure I picked up from Ebay. It was printed for the German market and is A3 folded to A4 size.

The models are Rothmans (mk 2), full fairing and bikini (DX version).

Cover

model side un-folded

MBX models

Owners bikes: Carsten from Germany

I had this nice message from Carsten Hammer from Germany, its also really great to here that all our experiences are so similar! Can't wait to see the finished bike.

Hello from Germany!
I was just as you, an 16 year old MBX80 driver in 1986! I owned myself  a black one, with the neon-like tank design and full fairing. Just weeks ago, I bought an white one with full fairing, and now I´m gonna do the restoration work.
MBX was a fascinating bike at the 80`s, and my first one (that i bought new!), lefts me with more then 20.000 km after 2 years. Can´t forget that horrible moment....
Hope to get things done, with my white one now...spares are difficult to find sometimes. Even the radiator shield for full fairing models (missed when I bought mine), seems to be a problem to get.
So hope you enjoy the bike in the future, I sure will (when it`s rebuild).
There`s a quit big mbx scene in Netherlands did you know?

Send you a pic with this mail), that shows my MBX 80 in the state I bought it, few weeks ago.
It looks much better on the pic, than it is in real life...so still a lot of work to do!
At the moment it is stripped fully, and the frame is sanded, and rebuild (in German i`ts called "Pulverbeschichtung" don`t know the right words in English <Powder coating, I will be doing the same to my frame!>)
Enjoy !

Owners bikes: Rothmans MBX80

This is Stefan from the Netherlands MBX80 Rothmans edition. Stefan would like to convert the bike to dual disc brake (like the UK model), if you have any parts that can help him please mail me and I'll pass the details on.

set-up: 80cc tuned cylinder, 4 valve membrane, 24mm Mikuni carb, original air box, Techno exhaust pipe, CDI mps300.

My Bike: parts, NOS speedo cover

I needed a speedo cover for my build but according to the Honda M shop these were now discontinued. So I was very surprised to see a new old stock item pop up on ebay. I used www.cmsnl.com to check the value of what they should be (£40ish), so I bid honestly to its actual value and won! To say I was pleased was an understatement as it was evident that were other bidders, sorry!

Owners bikes: Rob from Belgium

Rob Dever from Belgium owns this rather nice MBX80 re-sprayed in a more subtle take on the original 'rainbow' paint scheme.