My New Honda CRF450
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Good old facebook marketplace and £500 cash. That was our challenge, me and a mate seeing how much motorcycle we could fit in the back of an old Hilux.
Unfortunately it was the Works Christmas party the night before I went to pick this up. So I took my chances by taking the only available car, the Fiat Panda and some tools with me.
It was nice of the seller to leave half a tank of old Petrol in the tank aswell. High as fuck on petrol fumes on the way home, I decided I got a cracking deal on it.
How can you not love pitbikes? Poor build quality, awkward to work on, typically poorly serviced and maintained, poor part design and silly gearing.
For £500, it's well used, but the engine was a peach so provided you have the patience these things can be fixed.
The Suspension was awful, had about an inch of free play in the swingarm and the Forks had no damping left. To start with, I had to get into the forks by creating a tool to undo the caps. You cannot buy this item anywhere!
New Seals, and new Fork oil to suit my weight and riding style and it's transformed. The inner seals are blind, so you will need a sharp puller tool to get them out especially as the fork tubes themselves were slightly different internal diameter! Well done Chinese engineer.
Fixing the play. The shock bushes and seats were very worn. And you guess it. You cannot purchase any replacement bush, a completely unique item. Nothing is designed to be fixed here!
So rather than engineer the solution and hit the Lathe with some custom oversized bushes, I wrapped the old ones in some Bronze Paper to pack them out and the pressed them in. Bodge of the Year. Works a treat. And that fix was free.
A Mate bought his a day after, and similar issues to mine all rebuilt by us. This is the first time I could not get a carburettor to run properly, it was Mikuni Copy 26mm piece if shit that would not cooperate. Pitbike 1-0. In the bin.
So I've done the unthinkable and bought a Chinese carburettor...., NIBBI N26mm Race Carb. Yikes.
It's actually pretty good, the overflow circuit is only routed to one side which is irritating and I had to up the jetting considerably from factory settings. But I'm happy with it, Comes with a handy jetting guide for the novice which is decent for Kyle's.
Yes it's cheap....,
Pit bike throttle cables are the wrong thread size, so I couldn't just put on my old KX or YZ throttle housings. So I bought 3 piece CNC thing, apparently these are popular but my god what a terrible design. It does work though.
And Anodising makes you faster.
Someone put a Hydraulic clutch master on this at some time. It works, and that is all I can say about it as it's a heavier pull than the standard cable action...
After replacing all the odd bolts, bolt to long with 6 washers on. The Hex cap next to the Cross pan screw, the missing bolts... Undoing much of the previous 'servicing' by previous owners,
A bit of TLC and a good service, it's a fun little toy making a decent bit of torque with short gearing and enough suspension travel to ride it flat out along the trails. Certainly better than I remember pitbikes being.
Anything you can stick in the back of a 4X4 and be a hero is good with me.
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