Honda Mini Trail Project

Many moons ago, when I was a young boy, my family had a small cottage in northern Michigan.  It wasn’t much, really: two small bedrooms, probably less than 800 square feet all in.  But it was “Up North”, and it had 50 glorious feet of frontage on an all-sports lake.  See, the thing about “Up North” in Michigan is that many of the rules, convention, and otherwise common sense of parenting and growing up are suspended somewhere north of, say, M-61.  A whole bunch of stuff that a kid in the city would never be allowed to do was somehow ok if you were “Up North”, and so it was with my family.

One of the greatest joys for a boy “Up North” is that all manner of equipment with internal combustion engines were both plentiful and accessible.  Boats, jet skis, quads, and yes, even motorcycles.  While by most hillbilly standards, I started riding quite late, when my father came home one day and asked if I thought I could handle a 50cc mini bike, it was all my 11-year-old self could do to attempt to show some level of restraint and answer in the affirmative.  “Yes, father, I believe that this machine is well within my capabilities,” or something slightly less eloquent was my response.  A phone call, a trip to a garage sale, and the princely sum of $250 later, I was the proud owner of a 1971 Honda Mini Trail, aka Z50A.

For those of you perhaps not familiar with this fine piece of Japanese machinery, let me describe it.  It is a 50cc mini bike, with a 3-speed transmission, and centrifugal clutch, which means no clutch lever, embarrassing stalling, or epic burnouts.  And, the shift pattern is upside down; in other words, neutral is at the top, then down for 1, 2, and 3, topping out a lightning-fast 30 mph.  At the time, my friends were on 80- and 100cc mini motocross bikes.  The Mini Trail was not exactly cool, not cutting edge, and certainly not fast.  But, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and I rode the shit out of it.

I soon grew out of that little bugger, and upgraded to a newer, bigger bike.  I sold the Mini Trail to a friend, who, with the help of his half-wit of a brother, promptly blew it up.  How one blows up a Honda motor, I’m not sure, but they did.  I’m still a little sore about that.

All of this is a very long, sentimental explanation of why I bought this POS monkey bike that is now sitting in my garage and collecting a number of new adjectives to describe its uncooperative behavior in my attempts to get it in solid running order.  Now, before anyone gets too excited, I’m not doing a full restoration.  No offense, but that’s just way too much time, energy, and money to put into these little bikes.  Not my thing.  My stuff gets used; my bikes get ridden.  I intend to get this thing solidly running, take it up north, and drink beer and ride it around at my cabin.  (On my own property, nannies.  Although, I’ve recently heard that one can get a DUI on one’s own property.  Of course, as long as one’s required to pay property taxes, one doesn’t “own”; they rent.  Whee, what a free country!  But I digress…)  Besides that, I’ll probably make someone haul it over to a rally or two like the Easy Rider Rodeo in Fowlerville, so I can participate properly with the rest of the cretins.

Thus far, I’ve rebuilt the carb…I think.  What I mean by that is I took it apart, cleaned it, and installed the new gaskets, rings, etc.  I have no idea if it’s correct.  See, the dirty little secret is that I’m, well, mechanically challenged.  Severely.  I disassembled the twist throttle to replace the cable, only to find out that all the little bits that are (were) in the handle were jacked up.  Ordered a new throttle cable, it was wrong.  Got a new kickstand to find out that the little pin that it pivots on was tack welded from the factory and (surprise!) they all fall off and have to be drilled out and bolted.  Got some replacement peg covers, and after having a total of four different ones, I finally have two that match.  That should be relatively easy.  I managed to clean some of the rusty growth off the rear springs without issue, so I’ve got that going for me…

I guess that old ’71 for $250 really was a good deal.  Probably should have held onto that one…