Continuing with our Small Bore Finds - 1984 Honda QR50 series, we got the bike running and tried it out for the first time.
I didn't notice it as much, but the video audio picked up the massive amount of piston slapping, which tells me it definitely needs a new piston and most likely a cylinder, which will be a bit hard to find I fear. We might have to call in our Aussie friends for that! I feel a top end rebuild is contributing to most of the performance loss and we'll definitely need to get it changed out. That'll make for a great episode though, so I'm looking forward to the challenge!
Although we were excited to get it running and it was rewarding, Rennen found the performance underwhelming and much slower than his PW50 (even though he didn't want to say so), so he really didn't ask to ride the QR much after this disappointing first ride. With that, we kind of shelved the bike for later and focused on some other projects, and further developed his PW50 riding skills. Now that he's a bit bigger and transitioning from the PW50 to a Cobra JR, we'll rebuild and restore the QR50 for his little brother Kallen, who turns 3 on November 6th.
Since the QR is a bit slower and the clutch springs seem very weak, it should be a perfect starter bike for Kallen as it won't have the kick or punch that the PW50 did for Rennen when he jumped on it at 3 1/2 years old, which was actually a bit too young for the PW50.
Gear used to film and produce this video:
Camera - Canon M50: amzn.to/37Jz4hY
Mic - Rode VideoMicro: amzn.to/2KmBuun
Joby Gorillapod Handheld Tripod - amzn.to/3pgsHZF
AmazonBasics 60-Inch Lightweight Tripod with Bag: amzn.to/34GbyAK
Apple Macbook Pro: amzn.to/38wMTQ7
Editing Software: Final Cut Pro X