DIY disasters: The barn-find Honda that squirted water jets
Mechanic Viv McCann got into hot water when he tried to fix this fifty
‘You don’t even get that with a head gasket’
Honda’s chunky little 50cc Zoomer is a sturdy piece of kit and it had taken the owner of this example 14 years to need help. Mind you, the ped had only covered 14 miles in all that time!
When Sam Harris, M&M’s delivery driver, arrived to pick the bike up he found it sitting in a garage, covered in dust, but looking like it was in decent condition.
Sam told us: “The owner got home from that first 14-mile ride, parked it up in the garage and never got round to riding it again. But he got attached to it, so he just hung onto it.” When Sam got back to the workshop, M&M’s owner Viv McCann started checking it over. The battery was surprisingly not completely dead, but the spark plug was black, so a fresh one went in. Viv said: “The engine took a little while to fire up, popping and farting along the way, but when it did burst into life and I blipped the throttle a jet of water shot out of the exhaust for a metre or so!
“We couldn’t believe it, you don’t even get that sort of flood if a head gasket has gone on a car. When we spoke to the owner about it, he said that someone had told him that if he was going to hang onto it, he should fire it up once a fortnight and leave it ticking over for 20 minutes. So he followed that regime for a decade at least, but every time he did that, condensation formed in the exhaust as it cooled down and gradually built up into a ‘dewpond’.
“We rode it around the yard to get it thoroughly warmed up, then checked the pipe for corrosion by tapping it with a tiny hammer. If any part is thinner through corrosion it gives a dull noise, but this pipe rang cleanly.” Lucky escape! The Zoomer was back on the road for just £130.