Awakening the Dream
AWAKENING THE DREAM
SIXTEEN YEARS BEFORE HONDA’S MIGHTY CB750, THERE WAS THE LOWLY 3E
THE JEWEL-LIKE MOTORCYCLE IN THE BACK OF JEFF Lloyd’s pickup, parked in Cycle World's parking lot, looked oddly familiar. It was a 1953 Honda 3E Dream, perhaps the only one in the country. We had seen it before, almost two years ago, in its original condition (see “California Dreaming,” CW, December, 1991). Then, it was a mess. Now, in a very nice silk-purse-from-sow’s-ear story, it isn’t.
Lloyd is service manager for San Luis Honda, in Paso Robles, California. After work, however, he indulges in restorations through his firm, Dream Merchant (385 Quarterhorse Lane, Paso Robles, CA 93446; 805/238-6369). He became part of this Honda’s odyssey after a collector saw the bike offered for sale in the classified ad, and acquired it. He offered Lloyd the restoration job, and sent him down to collect the bike.
“It was dilapidated when I got it,” Lloyd says. “It wouldn’t start, it had two flat tires, the carburetor was in serious need of repair, the ignition switch was shorted, and though it did have compression, the cylinder wall was rusted.”
The one bright spot, Lloyd says, was that both the clutch and the two-speed transmission were in excellent shape.
Lloyd set about the restoration by undertaking the most basic of jobs: remaking gaskets, using the old ones as patterns for new, handmade items. One he was able to reuse, Lloyd says, was the copper head gasket.
He rebuilt the engine, which now offers 123 pounds of compression, and replaced all transmission bearings, which were available from Honda, and all engine seals, which he acquired from an outside supply house.
Fork seals were a more difficult problem. He wound up using those intended for a CBX, three per fork leg, lightly machined to fit.
The bike’s generator was in fine shape, but its ignition switch wasn’t, and neither was its wiring loom. Lloyd had a new loom made, and is still struggling with the ignition switch.
He’s also struggling with the bike’s oddball carburetor, a Mikuni fed by an Amal float chamber. “It appears that’s the way it came stock,” Lloyd says. The needle is very worn, he says, and so far he’s been unable to find an exact replacement, and this part keeps the bike from running as well as it ought to.
Still, now repainted, replated and fully detailed with such touches as a hand-made front-fender mudflap and Triumph footpeg rubbers modified to work on this little Honda, the bike will run, though its 146cc Single produces just 5.5 horsepower.
“With its two-speed trans, one rider is about all it can handle,” Lloyd says. “I’m sure it was built for a very small man.”
But this bike, among the earliest of production Hondas and the first to carry the Honda model name in English, might just be too important to ride. That’s fine with Lloyd. He estimates the bike’s present worth at about $14,000, and he reckons, “It’11 probably be parked in the office of its new owner. I’m very happy with the way this has turned out.”
Jon F. Thompson
