1987 Honda Elite SE50P

Hello all,

I know that I've been a little behind on the posts lately, so I hope that this explains what I've been up to the last couple weeks...

- so -

A year or so ago I bought a beat up, piece of junk scooter from my friend Mario. And although the price seemed a little high at the time - especially for a scooter that had definitely seen better days - it was the novelty and potential of the machine that attracted me, and I couldn't help but go forward with the purchase. Since then, however, the scooter has been rusting away in the garage... leaned up against my dusty drum set; alongside my home-made didgeridoo; within reach of my corroded climbing gear; and just in sight of my crusty keyboard...

But earlier this spring, and just as the weather was getting better, something called out to me, motivating me to work on the scooter. Maybe it was the desire to delve into mechanics a little... to get some grease on my hands... or maybe it was my eco-consciousness reminding me of the 90-100mpg rating of the engine... or maybe it was the groaning of the mini van over those potholes that led me to work towards a better way.

...or maybe I just wanted to look cooler and feel the wind through my hair on the way to work...

Regardless, the project began.

After getting the Title/License & Insurance stuff out of the way, I took the scooter to work a couple times. The thing still ran pretty well, especially considering it had old oil and not super new gas in it. Yea! Then it snowed and got cold again, so I had to wait a couple weeks before I did any riding or tinkering. Boo. In the meantime, however, I was able to learn a lot about Honda scooters from "the Internet" and plan my course of action.* Yea!

The body was in really bad shape. Cracked and broken plastics, missing lights and lenses... Some new parts were definitely needed. And this is where things got a little out of hand.




Soooo [re]addicted! I still spend a good chunk of time at work each day searching "honda scooter" "honda elite" "honda se50" and so on, and so on. Good news is, I found a lot of what I was looking for. (Not everything though! If somebody had a right side fairing for an '87 Elite I'd probably promise to name my first son after them for it.)

Like I said, a couple weeks went by and I started accumulating parts, and knowledge. And the first Saturday it was supposed to be above 40* I was out in the garage at 7:30am working on my ride.






So with a LOT of sanding, painting, screwing, cranking, tapping, cleaning, grunting - a couple trips to HondaTown on Lake St. - and another couple weeks later, this is where I'm at:





And I'm pretty happy.


*Something I did try to remedy, but unsuccessfully, was the top speed of the scooter. Right now I can do 27 mph (according to the on-board speedometer) while going on a flat or down-hill slope. Apparently there are 2 models of the '87 Elite: the S and the P. I have the P, which stands for 'Ped, or moped, which accounts for the restricted speed. Some scooters can be easily brought back up to speed by taking off clutch restrictor plates and/or washers in the muffler - unfortunately mine has neither, so the restriction is built into how the machine runs as opposed to being added on the way out of the factory... I'm not interested in soupin' up the scooter and negatively effecting its longevity, gas mileage, etc, so I'll just have to live with the top speed.
Until I get another scooter. :)