A little bit of bummer news.....I stripped the fuel tank today, only to find bondo, Ughhhh! The top has a few dents on top, but at least there's no rust, so I decided to keep the dents for character, at least for now; someday down the road I'll get it fixed properly. I hit it with the Krylon Fusion Red Pepper and it looks great. I also installed the new rope and grip for the starter, the spring that holds the seat latch in place, the NOS hand grips and painted the metal end caps, the NOS rubber grommets that hold the headlight frames in place and installed the wiring harness, which is in immaculate condition, compared to the old one. Last thing installed was the new sprockets and chain, along with the aluminum chain guard, which was missing.
Here's a pic.
Fred
Retired Army Guy
1982 Honda ATC 185S
1985 Kawasaki KLT160
Look'N GOOD! Keep up the effort, it is fun to see another 185 being brought back to life.
Thanks, Dave! I have to say that this has been a lot of fun, but it'll be a lot more fun to fire her up for the first time and ride her, while my uncle is looking down from above.
Fred
Retired Army Guy
1982 Honda ATC 185S
1985 Kawasaki KLT160
Quick question for you gurus....what size are the exhaust studs? One of mine was bent, so I need to get new ones.
Typically 6mm is a 1.0 thread pitch because the diameter is so small. Most tap/die sets have a thread gauge in them. 35mm length sounds about right.
Just read through your thread, looks good so far. I have a '82 185S myself all restored, nice to see someone else doing the same. Very common machine (atleast by me) but most people tend to not fix them up. Regardless what you use it for... they make great trail riding machines especially for the size & weight you can't beat it. Added a PRM 6 pack rack to mine and in combination of 50 mpg +/- and a 2 gallon can it'll take you a long ways. Like to see them piece of junk 4X4 mini sherman tank auto brake clutch belt chewing 4 wheelers do that.
Fyi- There's much more upgrades that I didn't read about or might not be aware of. For example 185S/200S have same everything minus cylinder, so putting a bored 200 jug and piston is easy did that to mine. My 200S/200X both run high compression Web Camshafts (fits 185S) megacycle makes the same but in a needle bearing conversion, heavy duty vavlve spring kits are available. PBI sprockets makes smaller or larger sprockets if you want increased speed. The rear axle hubs will accept 200X or 400EX hubs so you can run 4/110mm bolt pattern for limitless rim choice.
Good luck with finishing it. Also noted glad to see you're cutting those ugly carlisle knobbys off. Even if you have new tires bought, I run 20" rears on mine versus the stock 22". Didn't notice speed difference but the acceleration is much quicker.
Typically 6mm is a 1.0 thread pitch because the diameter is so small. Most tap/die sets have a thread gauge in them. 35mm length sounds about right.
Just read through your thread, looks good so far. I have a '82 185S myself all restored, nice to see someone else doing the same. Very common machine (atleast by me) but most people tend to not fix them up. Regardless what you use it for... they make great trail riding machines especially for the size & weight you can't beat it. Added a PRM 6 pack rack to mine and in combination of 50 mpg +/- and a 2 gallon can it'll take you a long ways. Like to see them piece of junk 4X4 mini sherman tank auto brake clutch belt chewing 4 wheelers do that.
Fyi- There's much more upgrades that I didn't read about or might not be aware of. For example 185S/200S have same everything minus cylinder, so putting a bored 200 jug and piston is easy did that to mine. My 200S/200X both run high compression Web Camshafts (fits 185S) megacycle makes the same but in a needle bearing conversion, heavy duty vavlve spring kits are available. PBI sprockets makes smaller or larger sprockets if you want increased speed. The rear axle hubs will accept 200X or 400EX hubs so you can run 4/110mm bolt pattern for limitless rim choice.
Good luck with finishing it. Also noted glad to see you're cutting those ugly carlisle knobbys off. Even if you have new tires bought, I run 20" rears on mine versus the stock 22". Didn't notice speed difference but the acceleration is much quicker.
I didn't get a bunch done today. I rebuilt the Keihin carb and then spent the better part of an hour cutting the front tire off of the wheel.....couldn't break the doggone bead, so I sliced it up with my boxcutter. I then took a wire flap wheel and put it on the HF grinder and went to town getting all the crud off of the inside of the wheel. Cleaned and painted it.
Tomorrow I'll go over to TSC and get some valve stems and then get to work on reassembly, then I'll tackle the rear wheels.
Fred
Retired Army Guy
1982 Honda ATC 185S
1985 Kawasaki KLT160
Couldn't sleep last night, so I decided that it was time for a marathon session; I stayed up until 4AM and finished everything I needed to. I degreased and painted the engine that Phil Gipson was gracious enough to give me, put new gaskets in the top end, reassembled everything and set the valves to .002 inches per the manual.
I did run into a problem though and need some help. When I was assembling the driven sprocket, I noticed that the damper holders weren't mating up to the sprocket the way they are supposed to; the sprocket isn't sitting perfectly centered the way it's supposed to be. The result is that, when I assemble the chain, I have a moment where the chain is a bit slack, followed by a moment where the chain is hyper tight. I've checked runout on the axle and it's fine, so I know that's not the problem, so that leaves me with the sprocket itself.
The question is how do I get the sprocket to sit as it should so I get equal tension on the chain?
Fred
Retired Army Guy
1982 Honda ATC 185S
1985 Kawasaki KLT160
Major f'ing setback.....got everything installed, added gas and tried to start it.......nada. I pulled the plug wire and saw no spark......faulty CDI unit? faulty pulser generator? faulty AC generator? Who knows? I go inside to sort it out and go back to the garage five minutes later............to find gas leaking all over the place from the tank........F@%#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back to square one.
Fred
Retired Army Guy
1982 Honda ATC 185S
1985 Kawasaki KLT160