It lives again
 

So I've been stationed in Japan for about a year and still haven't managed to get my RC registered. Granted I was gone all summer and working my ass of over the winter but that's beside the point. The bike's been sitting on front and rear stands for about a year, most of that time it didn't even have front forks or brakes installed. Well I've been reassembling her over the past few days seeing as how I don't have to go to work. Well today I put the battery back on the charger and while the charger was doing it's thing I pulled the spark plugs out (they look great btw) and squirted some oil into the cylinders. Turned the ignition on and all the lights came on, left the kill switch in kill and hit the starter to get the bike to roll the crank and get some oil moving. Put the spark plugs back in, lowered the fuel tank, dumped in 5 liters of 100 octane. Disconnected the charger, flicked the kill switch to run and hit the starter. Within 4 seconds she was idling on her own, blowing oil smoke like you wouldn't believe (remember I squirted oil into the cylinders). After a few minutes she quit blowing smoke and was running just as pleased as ever. :boobs: I'm amazed that she started so easily after so long. I'm just one step closer to getting her registered. Now I'm waiting for light bulbs and my vacuum bleeder (still) and I need to call Honda to try and get some paperwork for her and then I'll be set.


BTW, does anyone here work for Honda and could possibly help me out getting some paperwork?

what kinda paper work do you need? i used to work for a honda deal and still have some connections to the shop

I need a Certificate of Origin and a Brake Certificate.
Certificate of Origin is something that says Honda did make my bike's Vin#.
Brake Certificate says that when my bike was built, it conformed to Japan's brake regulations.

Thats awesome man, glad to hear it! You certainly didnt waste any time when you got home did ya?

I've got two weeks off from work and a lot of stuff to take care of before I go back to work. I'm still working on the first of business, getting the bike re-assembled. My second order of business is to get the truck squared away. Third order of business is to grow a scruffy beard in two weeks because I can. All three are coming along quite nicely :)

Not to resurrect a LONG dead thread, but I'm going to.

Because I can.

I have the RC51 ready for inspection, paperwork's all done. Waiting on the weather to play nice long enough for me to get the bike into the trailer and get it to the next town over for inspection. After more road blocks and hurdles than I can enumerate, I FINALLY figured out how to register a machine in Japan. That's when the base decides to do what this base seems to be good at and stick it to people sideways, sans lube. :td: AFI 91-207 was re-written not too long ago, and it requires sport bike riders to attend a MSF course in addition to that required of every other type of bike. All of the sport bike riders at Misawa are being threatened to park their bikes because the base wants a sport bike rider to teach the MSRC (even though there are other courses allowed by the reg.).

Sounds fishy to me, but I've been told to "shut up and color" every time I've inquired about a RiderCoach cert. Here's a few questions for the certified RiderCoaches on here:

1. Is there a different "cert" for each course? Or is a RiderCoach certified to teach all MSF courses?

2. How much ass-pain might I expect if I looked into getting cert'd on my own dime?

3. Is anyone near the Florida panhandle teaching the MSF ARC in June-ish?

Congrats on getting the bike alive again. Good luck on the other stuff. I'll have to go to that course too :(

I took Lee Parks' Total Control Advanced Rider Clinic several years ago. Terrific class and instructors. But I don't see it scheduled in FL: http://totalcontroltraining.net/HTML/Schedule.html

Well, here's an update on the bike's registration…done. Trailered the bike to Hachinohe last Wednesday. I pulled into LTO (Land Transportation Office) at 2pm and had a Japanese title and license plate by 430pm.

We're supposed to have a meeting sometime this next week to figure out how we're going to proceed. I have no idea what base leadership is going to decide. Hopefully they don't decide that I need to park 'em. I will definitely look into the total control course.