200ES build

[Gabriel]

All parts are disassembled. All the engine cases are cleaned and painted. Pain is drying on the main case halves right now.


I was actually amused by how simple the main transmission is. Now, I'm not sure if that's because it IS simple OR the two days I spent disassembling/assembling (multiple times) the sub-transmission gave me a little better understanding. Either way, I have another 200ES I plan to restore when this one is done. The intimidation level has plummeted. Still have about 2.5 light years to go before I reach expert but it's not as daunting as I feared.

Just ordered some HondaBond 4 and as soon as my gaskets are here, bottom assembly begins. I'll get a pic up as soon as the main halves are assembled.

[ps2fixer]

Nice work. pretty such most of the jap style transmissions for motorcycles and atvs are the same basic design. Automotive world transmissions are pretty similar too, just they have some brass synchros and such for a stick, automatics are a whole different ball game.

Just for giggles, here's a Toyota R series (like R150F) manual 5 speed transmission from a mid 80's pickup. Similar design in principal, it's just top shifted like most automotive transmissions, and the 3 shafts are sorted out a little different. The input and output shaft are located on the same pane but don't actually connect, the 2nd pane locks one side of the shaft into a gear on each end, or something along those lines, been a while since I played with one. Of course everything is supersized to handle 300hp+ vs 15hp.



Things make a lot more sense when you can get your hands on it and play around and actually see what's going on. I think that's why automotive repair is such a common pass time for a lot of people, the basics are really not that hard, just takes some time to get experience. Schooling helps since some jobs should be done a certain way that isn't obvious, like brake jobs, the sliders should be cleaned up and lubed/anti rust coated with something like anti-seize. Same goes for the wheel mounting surface. Very few people actually do it though, even mechanic shops. My dad's a mechanic so I grew up around this type of stuff, ATV's are just a pass time for me.

If you enjoy this kind of work, might try to look into small engine repair and such. I've heard, atleast in my area, there's quite a large demand for that. Automotive repair is flooded and pay isn't that great, tons of special tools needed etc, but small engines are so much simpler since less special tools, and overall they are running old designs with a touch of modern EFI, ECU etc. Personally I'd say to specialize in Honda or a Jap brand, but it's just because I prefer them, main stream brands would be better "job security". I think in general people are willing to spend more on a Honda to fix it up than say a Toro, so I guess it might balance out a bit.

Anyway, I'm ready for photos of the progress =).

[Gabriel]

If you enjoy this kind of work, might try to look into small engine repair and such. I've heard, atleast in my area, there's quite a large demand for that..

I do enjoy it but would NEVER do it for others. Selfish SOB. LOL!!!! Seriously though, I get to work on my projects at work, in between customers. People see me working on stuff and ask all the time. I politely refuse. I fix tires and nothing else.
Reasoning: If it's mine, I don't HAVE to fix it. If it belongs to someone else, I am bound by agreement to fix it and care for it. My personal belongings can be fixed at my own pace. If I get tired of it I can put it away. If I lose my patience and wish to be rid of it, I can break out the sledge .....that's happened more than once. In fact, it almost happened today with the recoil starter spring. I came up with a piece of 2x12 and some 90 degree bent nails to make a winding fixture and used a pair on needle nose vice grips to hold it while I put it in, so all ended well, but I would have embarrassed a seasoned sailor with the language involved in the process.

[ps2fixer]

To be honest, it sounds like your personality is like most mechanics including my dad. I had the short temper till 7th grade, not sure what happened but I became super laid back and it wasn't drug related in any way. I get frustrated but it never gets out of hand except in very extreme cases.

Another option could be start your own business in small engine repair, I think there's some sort of cert or license for it, my dad's slowly working on that route because he had a tree fall on him and his shoulder was dislocated so bad that he lost a ton of strength and can over work it really easy now, so breaking loose big rusted up bolts he can't do every day anymore. If you're your own business, you work on your terms, if something is beyond what you want to do, you can refuse the job, or attempt it and explain the situation to the customer and probably not charge them for the work (atleast that's what I've done in the past). I have to turn down wire harness jobs somewhat often, either the harness is too complex and costs would be high, or there's connectors I haven't sourced yet if they are even made any more. Of course online vs in person is a little different.

Doing what you love as a job can be great, but it can be a curse too if it's also your pass time. It also tests just how much you love the work when you're doing it 8+ hours a day. I love working on computers, programming, repair, building, etc. My very first job was directly in my "dream job" of a workstation tech which involved repairing printers too. I did it for 5 years and still did it at home and on the side. Only changed job for higher pay, which ended up being a crappy company, and chose to go self employed instead of trying to get my old job back. Been loving the freedom, just the income/work isn't steady. It picks up about time time of year till spring though. Because of that effect, I'm looking to get more summer time hobbies, working on saving up for a drum set to mess around with and prepping a fairly large garden area. Just recently upgraded my sound system for the house to support the electric drum set I'm going after, so far loving 2 channel + sub to fill in the lows (not boom boom boom). Kind of funny, I have more money in the sound system that what the drums cost new and I'm going for a used set =D.

[Gabriel]

Okay, here's the engine so far.







I am NOT happy. I ordered some Hondabond because everyone swears it's great. Ohh HondaBonda is the best! This s*** sucks!
It dries ENTIRELY too fast for my assembly speed. Worse than that, it's stringy! It gets on everything. I used a tiny brush to lay thin film and had to fight it the whole way to keep thin strands from hitting the paint. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do about the seams. I can't fan paint back over the wrinkle black finish, it'll NEVER match. The gray I can fix but the black.....Grrrr! I wish I had used my permatex aviation sealer instead.

What a waste of weeks worth of work cleaning and painting to have it look like a quadriplegic monkey assembled it. Looks like a toddler got in there with some Elmer's glue.

Oh well. Moving on.

[ps2fixer]

Never had experience with Hondabond personally, but it sounds just like the special super expensive sealer for the base gasket on chain saws that people recommended, hardens so fast you have like 15-30 seconds max to apply + assemble. My dad got tired of fighting it and went to the Gray RTV, and it's never caused any problems on his ported Dolmar/Mikita chainsaws.

The engine gasket kit didn't come with gaskets for the transfer case? Pretty sure every seal-able surface is either a gasket or o-ring except the valve cover, but I could be wrong. I like gaskets because they set the width correctly, infact that's why the sealer is used on ported chainsaws, it's something like 30 thousands of an inch thinner than a normal base gasket, so it ups the compression, but port timing is changed if you don't port it right. I'd make sure everything spins freely inside the transfercase, I'd assume Honda would design the pins long enough to stop from binding/pinching the gears inside. Just hate to have you get it all assembled and find out oh crap there's scraping noises in the transmission/transfercase.

Anyway, silver + black looks good. Red bolts I'd say is the uniq part of the paint scheme but it's not bad. I think I've seen another engine builder do a similar setup with all silver or polished cases with red bolts.

[Gabriel]

Yeah, everything is free and it shifts through all the gears smoothly. I do a complete test assembly before I do it for real.

Funny the picture looks silver. The color is Duplicolor Cast Iron Gray.


The rest of the engine is getting assembled with the Aviation gasket maker I know and have used for years.

[Gabriel]

Wiring is pretty much at it's end stage.

Every wire was checked 3 separate times for damage and continuity then labeled with a number. Corresponding number attached to it's connection as well. Then I made a chart in the memo section of my manual; number-starting point and destination. Every wire was then checked by my wife for the proper color. This should eliminate ANY future issues I may have. Meaningless work for most of you but for any of you that are colorblind (red/green deficient) it's time WELL spent.

Since I will not have high/low beam on my new LED headlight, I soldered a wire to the high beam lead and ran it through the harness to the rear. I will pick up ground at the tail light harness. When finished, I will have headlight ON with low beam for a 9 LED lamp and a separate 3 LED rear lamp that will be ON when the high beam switch is on. I was going to route it through a relay, activated by the reverse switch but opted for this instead.





***Special thanks to ps2fixer for helping me along the way. This guy knows his stuff and proved invaluable to this wiring idiot. Thanks buddy!!!***

[ps2fixer]

FYI, for the tail light, the brown wire going to the back is powered when the headlights are on + low or hi beam. That's assume the wire is good etc yet.

Also the main power and ground wires generally splice out in several locations in the harness, but if I remember right I sent you a wire diagram to follow (good spot to mark the numbers I'd think).

Nice thinking ahead to deal with reading wire colors, I'm not sure if I could do what I do if I was color blind in any form. If I recall correctly Semi trucks use a similar style of wire marking where wires are all white and printed on them is a number to identify it, my dad worked a little around them, but he mainly works on cars/trucks.

Just saw the special thanks, no problem at all. I try to help people when it's wiring related, even if they don't end up being a customer, it's still good for the business and I enjoy helping people anyway.

I've had an idea on the back burner for ages for a wiring help type of site for these 3 wheelers (and possibly atvs too), just haven't pushed forward with the idea. Basically I'd recreate the wire diagrams based on Honda's service manuals, and include pin outs and if I can try to make it match the layout of the harness instead of whatever is easiest to print like the shop manuals use. I've done these layouts a little for my templates for making reproductions, but wires tend to cross other wires quite a lot yet which can be a little hard to display with out making it confusing. A side effect of this type of layout, could add the service specs for the different devices and such on the same page as a one spot to check basically anything. Anyway like I said it's more of an idea atm, haven't really thought out the whole layout and such yet.

[Gabriel]

FYI, for the tail light, the brown wire going to the back is powered when the headlights are on + low or hi beam. That's assume the wire is good etc yet.

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I noticed the rear harness had a female end that accepts TWO male ends but the tail light only requires one. I will feed the light with the hot wire I added to the harness and pick up ground by soldering a male end on the LED and plugging it into the unused ground in the original harness. Not junk rigging a ground.

[ps2fixer]

Yea that's what I was talking about, seems most Hondas have an extra plug for adding rear lights. Even a atc350x has them, it also has extra power near the neck for an aftermarket speedometer back light.

[Gabriel]

Finally got some new shoes on the old gal. Being able to move it easily is a big step forward.

22x11.00-8 Deestone 930 up front
22x11.00-9 Deestone 930 out back.

[ironchop]

Holy sh*t!

A hubcap collection!

You dont see that anymore

Sent from my Z958 using Tapatalk

[Gabriel]

Yeah, those aren't a drop in the bucket to what my father in law has here. Not sure if you can make it out in the pic but theres several DeSoto hubcaps. Some Chrysler too.

[ps2fixer]

Wonder how many kids of today thinks you drilled holes in the hub caps to hang them =D. Do you have a target of what hub caps you like (like 80's Chrysler for example), or just any ones you like to look at? I might have some Jap hub caps around. The two Toyota pickup ones I had I sold ages ago for fairly good money compared to what I expected, around $50 for 2 + shipping. I have a 82 or 83 Mazda Sundowner, can't recall if it has hub caps or not. I know I have some 14in toyota pickup beauty rings with center caps around. My dad might have some 70's era stuff like Oldsmobile Cutlass stuff. Now that I think if it, I have some center caps from Chevy or Buick too. Used to scrap a lot of cars, so I've gotten a bit of that type of stuff I wouldn't just let get melted down.

Similar thread, my Grandpa had basically a license plate collection, except 90% of them was his own personal ones he actually used lol. He had me sell them on ebay because they had a bit of value and he could use the money. I've since bought a box of them from an auction, just haven't listed them for sale, mainly 70-80s era from my memory, my grandpa's were late 40s and up.

Wasn't trying to get off topic or anything lol, progress is always good. I've had machines with those same tires and they don't do too bad. There's ones that look very similar but the center tread is straight and they are a very hard/stiff tire and can have unexpected grip on a 3 wheeler. The only time I've ever got bucked off a 3 wheeler is from that tire I mentioned on a 350x, doing a donut in the sand, once it gripped it wheelied straight up and I was in shock and jumped off to not have the machine land on me. It didn't flip over so no harm, but my tail bone didn't feel too good for a couple days. I ride hard do that kind of riding is what I've done for 18 or so years and I generally use grippy tires. My current tires are so grippy that wheelies in the sand is really easy, but I can do donuts all day with no unexpected results. The 200es doesn't exactly have the power for the tires to be an issue, atleast mine didn't, I could't "drive" the machine around corners fast by giving it more gas to kick the back end out in sand like the 350x.

Added photos to show what I'm talking about, yes two different machine, the pretty white one I bought with those tires, but it needs a timing chain job so haven't rode it and ended up swapping the tires and like their grip in most situations. The red machine was a pile of junk when I got it, new used engine and a few parts it really needed and it's a blast to ride, still need a ton of stuff like rear brakes, front wheel bearings, steering stem bearings, etc. Nothing super huge, just a ton of little things besides the plastics being broken up some which I don't care much about, it's my rider and I ride it hard and have a blast with it.