Aquisition
In On February 22, 2008, I picked up a Honda CX650E from a very nice gentleman named Jim in Michigan. Since the Eurosport is quite rare in the U.S., I figured it was worth the trip around the pond. I still wonder if taking the ferry would have been easier and/or more cost effective. Anyway, here’s how she looked when I first picked her up:

Here you can see the faded paint, the lack of air horn, the extra running engine (as opposed to the bad one in the frame), and my buddy Chad who happened to be picking up an engine (which turned into 1.5 bikes) about 10 miles from where the E had been living.

Removing the Guards
Here she is sitting in my garage at home, waiting for me to tear her apart. The bike in the background is an ‘86 Suzuki Intruder that I bartered to my friend Steve.

My Eurosport happened to come with engine guards installed, so step one was getting those off. There’s one bolt attaching the guard to the frame near the rear of the engine:

There are two more connections at the front of the engine hanger, right by the radiator:

Once the engine guard is off, the engine looks something like this:

The other guard comes off just the same. One bolt in back:

And two in front:

By the way, getting these off makes use of three sockets: 17mm, 14mm, and 12mm.

The right side, cleared of guards looks like this:

Stay tuned. In my next post, I’ll go over removing the exhaust.