Ascot Forum

1982 Honda FT500 Ascot with Bingham Mk 1 sidecar, matching silver and blue paint job, bike caf

While we have been in lockdown (lockup?) here in Aus with the Covid virus around and unable to go outside of town I got in and did some repainting on my FT. I had finally (after twelve years of ownership) found a rear seat cowl that wasn't broken and decided to repaint it, the front guard and bikini fairing. The tank I did with 2 pak clear over the original paint and the sidecovers had been replaced recently with NOS. I haven't painted the frame as it is still original and like me has a few scares but still works OK.

Nope, haven't done it. I imagine it might be hard to get to all the bolts.

My wife has an '82 FT with 13,281 miles on the clock. Always garage kept. Good premium battery, good tires, red color, crash bars, progressive springs in front forks. Excellent condition. What could we realistically expect to get for it? Just curious.

Been a while, still alive tho. And the bike's running too. Although it has developed an occasional knocking/grinding engine noise that seems to occur whenever it pleases (seems to happen more frequently when under medium load or engine braking hard), and it usually goes away by hitting the redline, or by just keeping on driving. Rarely makes the noise when driven WOT. First time this noise occured was when I was downshifting without the clutch. No metal shavings or anything unusual in oil. I've had the engine covers off and nothing seems loose. Truly baffling. Guess I need to do compression and leakdown tests next winter as it also consumes some oil. Most likely needs engine opened again

Got some pics for you special few who care about these bikes. Fabbed up a new exhaust some time ago, made some seat brackets along with frame mods and welded some tabs for rear light and turn signals. Also did an electrical/air box and battery box which can be considered prototypes aka they suck and I'll redo them in the future. New (same as old) China special headlight, secondhand speedo from a Suzuki TU250X. Chain, sprockets, rubber, some other small things here and there. The whole bike needs some mechanical care, tidying up and repainting but it'll do for now. Been doing about 3000-4000km each summer, so probably closer to 10k since I last posted

New tail light:


Seat brackets:


New exhaust almost done:


And couple scenic ones from this summer:




Edit: just noticed in an older post that the fuel consumption used to be "5,7l/100km or 41 mpg". I have a sample size of about five to seven tankfuls this summer and it's now around 4,4l/100km or 53mpg after new exhaust, airbox and rejetting. Doesn't seem to matter if it's wide open throttle highway blasting or slow forest crawl, consumption stays pretty much consistent between tanks.