Great job!

I'm wondering if the frame dimensions and geometry were the same between the Rickman Zundapp and the Rickman Hodaka Micro-mettise. I know that Rickman made and sold complete bikes with a Montesa 250, Zudapp 125, and Hodaka 100, but don't know if the frames were basically the same.

There's still snow in the mountains here, but it's nice and muddy here on the farm. My grandsons and a few others took their bikes for a spin around the meadow out behind the barns. I'm still recovering from shoulder surgery, but couldn't resist joining them for a few laps. No Hodakas though...this ...

I'm wondering what ever happened with this transaction. The only reason I'm writing this is because the crickets have been deafening in here for about 10 days.

This kit by Motion Pro comes with all the plugs to do just about any two stroke engine, including Hodakas.

By plugging the exhaust port and the carb mount you can carefully pressurize the engine to no more than 6 psi. Ideally it should hold that pressure for 3 minutes, but if it leaks more than 1 psi per minute it has a leak that needs to be addressed. There are leak down pressure test kits that are avai...

It's possible that the owner had added oil to the cylinder to keep it from seizing while sitting and the crankcase is full. It can take a while to work all of that oil out of the engine and pipe (especially the pipe). A leakdown test is simple to perform and would be very helpful in locating the sou...

Here in Vermont it's up to $58.00. It used to be that anyone, anywhere in the country, could register a motorcycle over 15 years old, or under 300cc without a title in Vermont. It looks like that's been changed now.

Excellent suggestion

My first flat track bike was a Hodaka. It was a real beater that wouldn't shift right, but I learned a lot about the shifting mechanism by tinkering with it. It was stock and clapped out. I threw an expansion chamber pipe on it and had a ball battling for last place with my brother, who was also rid...

Back in the 60s we used to buy VW Beetles for $50. We would strip them down and shorten them and drive them in the woods. Those chrome exhaust tips got reused as silencers on a lot of small motorcycles. Good memories

Dirty_rat might be on to something. It's hard to tell from the pictures for sure, but it seems to show that the diameter of the sheared portion might be slightly larger than the minimum diameter of the depth of the splines on the shaft, potentially indicating that the inner diameter of the splines o...

I just checked my sources and indeed have found that the Dunlop K990 90/100-18 has been discontinued and is out of stock. The Cheng Shin 755 4.10-18 is still available , and is still much more affordable than the Dunlop ever was. It performs very well on the Hodakas.

All of my racers have the 4.10 Cheng Shin on the rear.

The Dunlop K990 tires are specifically designed for small bore vintage bikes. They make a 70/100-21 and a 90/100-18 that have the look and feel of vintage tires, but manufactured with modern compounds.

I have found the Hodakas to be very competitive against the other brands. My MX model is top shelf but has all the mods, but even my slightly modified Road Toad has won against all brands at the highest level.

While I don't seem to have pictures of the early years of flat track racing, I always hand painted mine. Here are a few from the 70's.

I think it's hard to build up a head of steam when you're loaded down with all those hotdogs

I think his record was something like 72 in ten minutes.

Ahh, thank you Mike. I suspected that the number might have been intended to be .008 to .010, that would retard the timing as Dale had mentioned. It's still strange to have two different recommendations in the same manual without explanation. I have had two Road Toads and ran them both at 0.012 with...

The English to Metric conversions are not correct. They are off by a factor of 10. 0.08 " is about 2mm, and 0.10" is about 2.5mm. Hence my confusion. The 0.012 to 0.014 seems more in line with all of the other Hodaka model specs. Very interesting that the manual has this typo. 2mm to 2.5mm...

Without having access to the manual, I suspect that your second set of numbers (which is actually 2.03mm - 2.54mm) is relating to the ignition timing before top dead center, not the point gap.

Just a thought from previous experience. If a vent hose on the carburetor is plugged or crimped it can cause very erratic symptoms ranging from lean to rich.

Thanks for the great story Clarence! Perseverance wins!

But then the Old Man Going North thread has amassed 85,000 views.