I'm a long-time customer of the Hagerty insurance company. They insure all types of classic cars, boats, motorcycles and other vehicles. I have all three of my classic Hondas insured by them and have been very pleased with their service as well as the reasonable premiums.
Because they're so much into classic vehicles, the folks at Hagerty are always working on some restoration project in their garage. Awhile back, Davin Reckow (Hagerty's Media Garage Operations Lead) started a complete restoration of a 1974 Honda CT70, aka the "Trail 70". If you're of a "certain age", you probably terrorized the neighborhood on one of these when you were a pubescent lad/lass. I know I did...
The Hagerty folks document all their builds via a YouTube channel called Redline Rebuilds. They do some really cool time-lapse productions that show the projects from start to finish, and Davin often has some really useful tips, techniques and inside info on the design of the (mostly) engines he works on.
When Davin started work on the CT70, I offered my vapor honing services for the engine parts. As it turned out, they had already decided to get their own vapor hone, so at first it seemed my services weren't required. But later on Davin contacted me and said that their vapor hone had been delayed. He asked if I could do the engine cases and the cylinder head so that he could continue with the build. I agreed, and he shipped the parts to me.
Here are a few pictures showing the parts as I received them. You can click on any to see a larger view:
I set to work immediately and was able to turn the parts and ship them back the same day.
Here's what everything looked like after I was done:
As you can see, the transformation was remarkable! I think Davin's going to have a very nice looking engine when he's all done.
When Davin started reassembling the crankcase, he shot another Redline Rebuild episode and was kind enough to give me a nice shout out in the first two minutes of the video. You can watch that episode here:
To watch the video above on YouTube (full screen), click here.
And if you'd like to see the other videos Hagerty has done on the CT70 project so far, check out the following episodes:
Completely disassembling Honda Trail 70 motorcycle | Redline Update #70
Saving the VIN tag on a Honda Trail 70, plus some Ford race car stuff | Redline Update #79
Dirt track race car suspension and Honda CT70 body work | Redline Update #81
Honda Trail 70 project gets fresh paint! | Redline Update #82
So, I'm very appreciative of the kind words and exposure from Davin and the folks at Hagerty! I had fun working on their project.
Give me a shout at jims.workshop82@gmail.com or call (937) 760-2333 and let me know how I can help with your project!