Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Sorry They get delivered tomorrow morning. I will follow up with pictures of the process. most likely I will be building one and parting out the other. If you need elite parts, keep me in mind! More to follow!

okay here they are fresh out of a field/swamp/barn/backyard.. not exactly sure !







Turns out the one on the left judging by the purple color and the painted over sticker is the "good one" with the AF16 so it's the one i will be working on first.



It's full of dirt....





and even has plants growing inside it



aaaand a whole ant colony ( I believe these are larve)



motor is a but dirty but not too bad overall ( the bike only has 578 miles on it)



I was hoping i might find some treasure in the glovebox but nope



here is where i had to stop to go to work, amazingly the ONLY plastic that is broken is the left side of the headlight housing, very little rust also.





I will be tearing into the rest of it after dinner. I think i can probably get this one running this weekend seeing how i can borrow parts from my DJ-1. I'll dovument the progress of this one as i go then follow it with the progress of the second one after i am satisfied with the first.

is there a storey as to how you aquired these two $6 each scooter?

The story is, I have a friend who owns a local scooter repair shop. His landlord (the guy that owns the garage he works out of) had a property that had some long time abandoned scooters on it. The landlord asked if my friend would be be interested in them. Because he is a euro scooter guy he picked the scooters up for $25 (for both, I technically paid $12.50 for each of them) and was going to throw them away EXCEPT he knew I was a big fan of honda scooters. He delivered them to my door, I paid him what he paid the other guy and bought him lunch. originally i thought they would make good parts scooters but after seeing the condition of the better one ( it is a 98 Elite SR) I figured "why not get at least one running." and the rest is history...

I will have plenty more pictures later this weekend but here is where I ended up calling it a night tonight...

I havnt had a whole lot of time to work on these scoots... earlier today i decided to try and remove the matte black spray paint from the plastics using this..



it works pretty well so far. best part is the previous owner didn't prep it correctly so once I finish and buff/wax the purple i bet it will look pretty good!

Ooooo maybe I can try using that on my bike. I have the exact same matte black spray paint color on my elite from the previous owner.
When you strip down the bike and clean it, do you just spray it down with a hose? All the electricals stay safe?

takes some elbow grease I used a microfiber rag on the end of a mouse sander. if i spray anything with a hose I usually have removed the wiring harness and motor or anything I think could be damaged. when i was in aviation we washed the * of aircraft with much of the wiring intact. of course they are a bit different and had months to dry. I clean most everything with a bucket of warm soapy water or a spray bottle of simple green and plenty of rags it's not much work to strip a scooter down. the plastics are usually the trickiest part

Amazing !! gotta love a $12 scoot

It really is pretty awesome the unfortunate part of it is neither have a title so it's going to cost me around $100 to get the nicer one legal again plus the approx $100 in parts I need for it so far. The older one needs more work then is worth it so it's just going to be parted out or i'll just use the stuff I can for spares/future projects. assuming everything goes well $212.50 is still a pretty d*** good deal for a 98 elite with less then 600 miles but I usually like to go by Murphy's law HAHA

I didn't get to work on the scoot today so i dont have anything new or cool to post.

it's been forever sense i've posted. I transfered the elite motor ( after cleaning it up) to another scooter i have that i know has good wiring. after a few kicks it started right up. It smoked like crazy for a good 30 min of riding, but with a few carb adjustments ( and i'm assuming the burning of the old fuel residue in the exhaust) It runs perfect. I sort of knew it would with the condition and the milage but it always feels good to bring something "back from the dead" all that's really left is to transfer everything back to the elite and i'll have a clean low milage elite SR to putt down the road to on.

did a bit of work today it's been snowing so i haven't had much ride time lately. I got a 78cc bbk for my dj-1 that i am awaiting head studs for so the nicer elite seems to be the closest to running. today I started the re assembly process (on the purple one.) so far it needs a new lock/keyset and a rear brake cable.. Thats it!

as far as the other one goes...
Because the motor was open* and shot from sitting outdoors for a long period of time rather then parting it out or trying to restore it i decided to make a "drag bike" why not?
One of the cool things about the 88 elite is besides its predecessor the spree it is one of the lightest scooters ever made. Sitting at just at 108 lbs (dry) it is sure to make one * of an acceleration machine with the right motor ( AF18)

Today's task was to remove all the components that are not required ( because I dont need it to be street legal) to lose the largest amount of weight from it ( For the best power to weight ratio)

here is where I started...







and after about an hour or two





The scooter as pictured weighs 34.2 lbs (only a few lbs less then the motor that will be going onto it! )

i'll estimate the scooter should be around 80 lbs (dry) when all is said and done with a motor that should have hopefully 7-10 hp
the next plan is to remove all the unused tabs and brackets then make an extended motor mount then have the frame powder-coated. i'll replace all the cables, and hide the majority of the wiring harness. I'm in no rush to finish this project so dont expect progress to come quickly ( I also have 4 other scooter projects and a DA integra i'm working on)

anyway any feedback or comments are appreciated!