Dude, I'm so envious of your 450, I've wanted one of the older ones for a long time now. Beauty!
Oh, me too.
I'd been searching a looong long time and have restored a badly neglected K6, and have another K4 in the garage that needs work that I need to tackle (head gasket, etc) but always longed for this color of K4 ever since I was 15 years old and peering through the window of Lee's Honda shop in Hammond, Indiana as I walked to work each day after school. All I could afford with my paycheck as a stock clerk at A&P was a '71 CL100 back then. Funny thing is the CL100 had the same blue and white paint scheme as this '71 CL450...and the 450 was built in September, my birth month...strange.
I think it may have originated in Iowa as it still has an Iowa safety inspection sticker under the seat from 1975. Maybe it was sold by Garvis Honda in Des Moines, who I bought several bikes from over the years when I lived there. Dunno. But I am running a Garvis Honda key fob on it just because.
It ended up in a collection in Arizona and that owner passed away from brain cancer several years ago and his brother was finally getting around to selling his collection after he was diagnosed with cancer as well.
It hadn't run for many years, but luckily was drained of gas and dry stored inside (the paint and gauges are not faded at all).
All it took was a new battery and fresh gas and she started right up.
I went through everything, oil filter cup was pretty clean, ultrasonically cleaned the carbs twice and replaced wheel bearings, chain (the sprockets showed very little wear), tires, tubes, rim strips, brake shoes, shocks - all the wear items.
Polished all the paint and chrome and replaced a few light bulbs and she runs like new.
I have yet to install a new OEM skid plate I have, but will wait until I paint the frame first as it has some rock chips in front that are bugging me.
