1984 Honda Gryo running nicely now

[vintagegarage]

A month ago, I decided to buy a basket case 50 CC scooter to have a project to work on and discovered the 1984 Gryo. It looked pretty cool, and I decided to see if I could find one. As luck would have it, I found a nice one on ebay not too far from my house a week later. The main problem with it was that the starter didn't work, but it had a title and it sounded like a perfect project. When I got it home, the first thing I tackled was the starter problem. The starter would turn, but wouldn't engage in the motor. After reading the service manual linked to on this site, it looked like I needed to take apart the right side gearbox cover to see what was going on with the starter bendix. When I took the cover off, I found that it didn't have the original Honda gasket on it, so I know someone had been in there a couple of years ago. Once I got the cover off, I found that the big left hand nut that holds the big gear that the starter bendix engages in had loosened about 5 turns, and the big gear had so much wobble to it that it had eaten away the outer half of the splines on the end of the crankshaft. The wobble was so great that the starter bendix couldn't reach it. In addition, the bolt for the small spring plate that keeps the oil pump gear from moving to the right was missing, and the spring plate was loose in the bottom of the case. Rather than replace the crankshaft in order to have good splines, I decided instead to install the gear back on the end of the current crankshaft, as the inside parts of the spline were still pretty good. I put 5 footpounds of additional torque above specifications on the big left hand nut, installed the spring holder on the oil pump gear, and put in a new bolt for it. Lastly, I installed a new factory right side cover gearbox gasket, probably the last one in the world. I fired up the engine, and took the scooter for a test drive. The test drive when well, and the gearbox seemed to function correctly, so I went about getting all the missing parts for the scooter. I was able to obtain the following missing or broken parts used on eBay and various other places.. the front brake cable, the muffler protector, the fan shroud, the air cleaner box and all the guts inside, the rear luggage rack, and other smaller stuff. I also repainted the front basket, and repaired the rear engine cover. All four mounting holes on the rear engine cover were broken off. In any event, here are some photos of the result:

[Johnniespeed]

The red paint came out great ! My Gyro had much broken plastic, I spent a long time with JB weld and aluminum scraps to stiffen the plastic.
Your Gyro looks so good that the wheels and forks deserve some new silver paint.
By the way I used rubber boots from Wilwood clutch master cylinders ( automotive) for my fork rubbers, they fit fairly well and look very close to originals.
I had to fab my own rear "bumper" from sheet metal, looks decent, sorry I didn't take any pics of it.

[vintagegarage]

Johnniespeed,
Thanks for the nice words and the tip about the Wilwood rubber boots. You are right.. the next step is to paint the wheels and forks, and install new rubber boots. Did you have to buy a pair of cylinders to get the boots, or two rebuild kits, or is there a source for just the boots? Also, what Wilwood cylinder has the closest to original boots. There are a bunch of Wilwood choices. Is the boot on the Wilwood 260-1304 cylinder the one you used? If not, which cylinder is the one I want? Thanks in advance..