man i had the same one when i was a kid,you couldnt get me off that thing,it was my pride and joy.

to many of us older dudes, these bikes are the gateway to a life-long obsession. mine began on a Trail 70 & Suzuki TS 75, and many of my pals had a Honda Trail at home. we’d meet up, trade rides & enjoy the new freedom of being miles away from home & authority. maybe this’s one reason why Joe’s channel is so successful…he revives our coveted machines.

Oh man i had a brand new white one for Christmas & i was soooooo happy. I asked all year & my parents kept saying Absolutely Not they are dangerous suicide machines, so Xmas morning i had absolutely no clue & when i came out into the lounge room there it was sitting & i was so happy i was crying.. Great memories & it seamed so big & powerful to me at that age…& i loved it & looked after it so well always washed it & serviced it & that was the start of bigger & better bikes. Oh dude keep it just for it’s rarity. & mine had a nice little chrome pack rack on the back, Awesome little bike it was to learn on it wasn’t to scary ..

I had one in Yellow at 14 years old and it was my EVERYTHING!

Remember you have to get the part that you're soldering hot enough to soak the solder up instead of melting the solder onto the cold part. You can tell when it's hot enough because the solder disappears from the puddle form

I bought a 1977 Honda 70 for $500 all it needed was a carburetor put back on and new bolts. Fired right up 2nd kick, has under 2000 miles and currently it sits in my house looking beautiful and catching all my friends attention.

The ignition timing on these small engines is set using the F mark on the fly wheel not the T. When the F mark lines up with the mark on the case the points should just be starting to open. Ignition timing is set with the points gap. 0.3mm - 0.4mm. There is no reason to remove the cover to view the cam sprocket to do this. The mark on the sprocket is for timing the cam not the ignition. These small Hondas will run even if the points are worn and timing out so the fact it has spark and started doesn't mean the ignition timing is correct. It's more a testament to Honda engineering . The stator plate has several seals. The o ring on the back plate, a seal on the crank and there should be small o rings on the fixing screws. Worth checking all of them. Didn't see any on the screws.

Wow... the first motorbike I ever rode was one of these beauties. It was a 79 I believe, essentially the same thing. I spent all day on it riding through fields and some easy trails. One of the best memories I have from my childhood.

My childhood bike good memories. Rare bike now

Man you need to get some soldering flux paste it makes soldering 10x easier. And it makes your soldering look perfect. The solder just melts into the wire perfectly there is no fumbling around with a puddle of solder trying to get it to stick in the right place. Once you use it you'll never go back

Another fun and nostalgic video, for us older guys. One comment: as someone else pointed out, heat the metal you are soldering to first til solder melts onto it, then your wires. Get you some Kester 186 liquid flux to coat wires and terminals, and that will help insure a very tight bond. It's all about the flow. 🙂

Hey Joe! keep up the good work and constant videos! you're smashing it

Couple tips for you. It's not gonna be able to draw enough air through the venturi in the carb without a slide so it's not gonna wanna start. Also you will find that heating the wires you are soldering to the point where the solder melts on the wires themselves will not only do a nicer looking job but will result in a stronger and better connection. Edit: Ah I see you figured out you had to plug the slide. I love z50s thanks for doing a video on one.

Enjoy your videos. One tip though, your soldering technique is leaving "cold solder joints " . In the video your iron looks to be chasing and smearing the solder around. You have to get what you're soldering up to temperature. When the wires or terminal are up to temperature, the solder will flow to it and adhere. Simply melting solder over and onto what you want to solder will not get proper adhesion.

My brother ate it HARD on one of these when we were teenagers….and he hasn’t been on a minibike since!

I had a 1996 Honda z50r and made some money on it and they are very cool bikes

I always scrape varnish off enamelled wire before soldering, I think some may be intended to allow soldering but I never chance it.

This is the exact year bike I had when I was a kid. I wish I still had it. Great Video Joe!

I know he said weld it. But you can sometimes drill a hole and put a roll pin in. So you can still get that case off on that side. I’m not telling you how to do your job just a suggestion. Thanks for sharing brother. See you on the next.

I had one of those z50 1969. I had so much fun with that. Great little machine. Mine was a 3 speed if your wondering about transmission

Loved this video. Had a blue Honda 50cc Monkey in the 70’s. Three speed, no clutch. First minibike I had with a kick starter, seemed like a big deal at the time when others were mostly Rupp pull starts and non-running Tecumseh’s! But when the Rupps actually started and ran they rode circles around the little slow Honda. Always wished I had the Trail 70👍

Finally a Z your working on great little bikes and great job so far.

My first bike was a 1992 Honda z50. Been watching your videos since you used to hand draw the intros love you videos

Never boring and always a good project!!!

I had one as a kid loved it. The graduated to a 1980s yamaha 80

Tip...a good jug shouldn't look shiny like glass. I got away with simply cleaning the original rings and de-glassing the walls. New gaskets and good to go. Rings ride on a micro film of oil that resides within the grooves left behind by the hone. Without those horizontal micro grooves...metal to metal contact and low sealing capabilities. I do see your rings are shot. But I would rehone that jug before installing new rings. But that's just me...with my 600 hour Honda 90.

I had a blue Honda 50 a few years older than that one you have. And when I was a grade school kid I have some great memerys of riding and things that happed around that time. I used to ride in in a small town that was no longer a town just some left over houses with a couple of dozen people around. It had lots of old black top roads with no body on them and my Mema and Pepaw lived there. There was an old high school and a general store. Sure was fun to ride around the town. My grandpa I called Pepaw and old Indain guy called my mini bike "Your Wheel" LOL

Vinny is gonna love it when the snow comes ... heez built for winter

but ur videos have motivated me to get them out and get them goin again....thank you for being so awesome!!!!

Check the middle rear of the stator plate, seal in there too. I also think sometimes the screws holding it in have o rings, I think they did on my atc70. I have a kickstart shaft from a 69 z50 if you wanted one for this project.

You should put load on the kick start before kicking it, that's why they strip/break.

So many memories. Back in around 1978 my dad and I were worm-hunting and came across an abandoned, wrecked Z50 under some brush. He threw it in the back of the car and, at home, threw tools my way and said if I could get it running I could keep it. I did everything you did there -- multiple times -- except welding the kickstarter. I had never-ending trouble with the cam chain jumping time and my dad didn't help me with new parts lol. Such a fun little bike to learn on. These days, nearly 45 years later, my dad is long gone and I ride a Tuono 1100 Factory, continuing a hobby that started in fits and spurts and clouds of blue smoke on that tiny little clapped out Honda.

That's awesome, my son and I took out the 81 ct70 today , cool machine the 50 is to , I still need to put a big bore kit on my 400ex , it's a 03 and looks new but we blew it up, lol. Buddy you have some serious skills , still not sure what big bore kit to buy

Add me to list of people that had one of these as their first ride. Mine is a 73. My grandfather bought it for my aunt. It became mine when she outgrew it. Then my cousins and it's now my cousins sons until it gets passed down again. I still get to take it for a mini rip any time I visit.

I remember I had one of them and 86 that's my first bike I traded it for a Moto 4 to my cousin cuz I didn't like dirt bikes at that time I was a kid great video keep up the great work Joe!!

Great content. Note cylinder may look good ie smooth but needs a visible cross hatch to retain oil and not burn it. Not sure where you will go from here but I would go up 0.25mm on bore/piston, possibly more pending measurements

nice video and format. Thank you for taking down memory lane. So awesome!!

Reminds me of the old days bud. Thanks for bringing it back with the video. We used to do the same back in the day with all the makes and models but no phone camera or video in the early nineties. Lol. Bout ta get me a Honda 250 dirt bike ta mess around with. Thanks again

On that stator plate oil leak it could be the big o ring but make sure you check the o rings under the 2 bolts that hold on the plate. In my experience the lower bolt will leak. I always use a little rtv on them

Your videos are superb. I love watching them. But one thing I do notice which has room for improvement is your soldering skills. Particularly when it comes to soldering enamelled copper wire like in this video!. I won't give you a lecture here on how to solder properly as there are many videos on KZfaq which explain this very well. But one thing I find important when trying to solder old or dirty wires etc is to first 'tin' the individual wires or solder lugs etc first!. Then when you have 'wetted' them successfully you can concentrate on holding the 'pretinned' wires whilst you solder them together. Also, it helps to scrape some of the enamel from enamelled copper wire (of course only where necessary) before attempting to solder it as this allows better heat transfer to the copper wire itself and helps to burn off the remaining bits of enamel where you want to 'tin'. Lastly, don't be afraid to apply a bit more heat and solder to to clean old wires etc the extra heat and flux cleans the surface. The residual solder should just fall away. Keep up the good work. And thanks for your great videos.

Love the vids and i didnt even know a z50 was a thing lol, keep up the good work!

Loose cam chains on those is normal for some reason.try tensioner but don't over do it. Good luck, once again. Great vid. Love them little mo key bikes, have one for my grandson put away. Doubt ge will ride it he loves atvs.

Yes bud! Just went back to the well (where we all stared) got myself a trail 70 few days ago...lol 82, thought it was missing all sorts of stuff cuz I always had the 70s modles but turns out the 82s didn't even have all the "stuff"

Did you go to school for small engines or are you self taught? I enjoy watching you channel. It’s relaxing after a long night at work.

Its very nice watching someone who knows what they are doing diagnose and repair these machines, thank you,

that same bike was my first bike i had ===and i rode it everywhere think back then my dad bought it used for $25.00 i see them go for 2000 now crazy great video again

Greetings from Texas. Love the channel. I am always working on mini bikes, motorcycles, four wheelers, you name it. Learned a lit watching your channel. Only thing I can say is - Dude! You welded the kickstart?? Get a cutting disk and widen the cutout so you can tighten it down more and possibly cut new splines on the shaft manually. Not really a bit deal, but a red flag in my book. Keep working. I love to see you get the really tough ones going.

You should by a Harbor Freight bike lift. The platform one.

I learn so much from you. another awesome video!

Oh wow you make my day I had one back in early 80s best memories I'm 50 years old now

Heck ya it can be saved. I learned to ride on one back in 1982, awesome mini.

I had bought an mint 1981 z50 for 150$ 6-7 years ago from my local fleamarket got it running for an little an minute wouldn’t start again ending up selling it an month later for $1200 and 12ga mossberg with 100 rounds

Great video. Invest in some tinning flux or at least some kind of flux for your soldering.

Pretty nice little 50 looking forward for the next video. Coolio seeing little Vinny👍🏼👍🏼

Another great video Joe

I don’t know the first thing about welding, but have to assume Joe took the gas tank off to avoid it exploding when he welded the kick starter. But didn’t even think about removing it until I saw him start to weld and it was gone. Although there is a good distance between where he welded and the gas tank, I think if you did not work with motorcycles as much as Joe does, it would be easy to forget to take it off.

Enjoy your videos! Soldering comment: You'll find that heating the metal with your tip such that the solder melts will provide a stronger bond. Stay safe!

What a nice little bike so cool!

those stator coil wires have insulation/varnish on them that has to be sanded off before solder will stick to them. once you get rid of the insulation and use some flux, it should solder easily.

im in michigan..im not sure where u are but i wud deff drop em off for you to get runnin again...the Trail 70 and RV 90 still have orig tires on them....they have air and the rubber never rotted...unbeleivable..they are both clean original everything

Just curious if your ever going to get a motorcycle lift table to work with? You do so many bikes and quads I'm wondering why your not using a table to work on the bikes it's alot easier to work on at waist height than on the floor. But always enjoy seeing you bring the machines back to life!

Welding kickstarters or gear shifters is not an option unless youre working on a complete piece of junk.. in this case you could remove the kickstarter, you can pry open the clamped part to open it up so you can slide it off.. some wont slide off unless you completely remove the bolt.. once its off you can take a cutoff wheel or hacksaw and cut where the relief is so youre not bottoming out when you tighten the bolt... a few minutes work and shouldnt cost you anything

great videos, keep up the good work

had one a kid with folding bars went in trunk great bike for a eight to ten years on

When you’re soldering, try heating the items being soldered. Dripping solder onto cold parts makes for poor adhesion. When the parts are hot enough they suck the solder in. I use flux also

Bro I wish I had a bike like this dude you are so lucky

Some pit bike style engines that top sprocket you took off under the stator plate is the tensioner and can tension from oil pressure so might be why it felt abit loose or tension from a spring from where you unscrewed that bolt to try tension it

cool little project

Absolutely awesome….thanks a lot

2 vintage I tried to message you the other day and got the prize message I have two questions about two of my bikes if you can help nobody else could help me on the one question but I trust your opinion and knowledge bro. My name is Jon I'm from Delaware if you could help me I would appreciate it greatly. Thanks keep making videos bro you are an amazing mechanic

Good compression...runs darn nice should be fine for long time. 👌

Can you do some snowmobile fix up videos this winter? Really enjoy your videos

Yeah had to watch I had a 1980 z 50 ..first bike..flogged it to death ..loved it ..YZ 125 X my second bike ..American YZ .A frame with gas I think front shocks ..looked liked big cylinders on top of the front shocks..beast .....like honestly...I rebuilt the top end ..honed new pistons and rings ..small end bearings..it was . A Beast ..and my 2 stroke life began ...lol...

Nice example !

I totally love this one .

Hi man watching from England love your videos how’s Chuck ?

This was my first dirt bike I got it when I was 7 years old mine was blue I loved it I wish I still had it honestly

Oh that’s nice I love those 50’s

I didn't see you do it in the video so I hope you scraped off some of the lacquer of that wire on the coil before you soldered the wire eye end. It looked like it still had lacquer on it and that might be the reason why the solder wasn't flowing well

Cool little bike joe can't wait to see you on it lol take care mate vinnie is getting big don't think he was impressed with the bike haha 🔧🔧👍👌🔧

a follow up of this would be nice

this might need next size up piston and rings. honda usually give you extra 3 sizes for every cylinder regrind. And you still legal 50cc at at last regrind. I wonder how do you determine?? would be cool if you show process. Had similar situation but here in thailand is super cheap for new cylinder with matching piston n rings so i went with that. cheers

beautiful minibike!!!

Like your videos. Was wondering where you get your parts from for the older bikes. Random websites or you got a go to site so to say for parts that are hard to find?

Cool lil bike ! 😃👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

I believe that you have to split the cases to put a new kickstart shaft

This bike would be perfect for my son, i wish i had it Joe..my sons birthday is around the corner and it would make his day and i would be father of the year if i could give it to him..

For some reason, I like those little bikes.

I have a 77. They don't need the Kickstarter. Just put them in gear, sit on the seat and push forward. They compression start very easily if everything else is working like mine always has. Just a squirt of starting fluid sometimes..

You get that xl500 together first then do that little pipsqueak bike

Man my first bike was a 73 z 50

Oil pump gear is wore out, I just replaced the chain, oil pump gear, roller on my sons bike, go with Honda parts the aftermarket is cheap quality. Unfortunately you have to split the cases as you can't lock the gear in place.

Yes it can be saved. Check the valves, carb and spark power. It will run pretty easy.

All those issues are because the owner just doesn't know what he is doing when working on it. I appreciate that everyone has to learn some way and the best way is to just get stuck in but that is also why it wouldn't run.

Did U check the crank case vent? That could cause external leaks too.

On those kickers you can grind the slot wider so it can squeeze the shaft better

Little beauty 👌🏻🔥

Iron under or on side if can’t be under the metal you are soldering to heat metal then dab solder so it soaks in from the top to bottom

i would love to have one of those as a kid

how are you going to split the cases now since you welded the kick lever on