Thanks guys, yes Bill, I'm not gonna build another show pony that is trailered to and from bike shows, and lives under a blanket in someone's lounge room like some of the K0 owners I know. I've been really lucky that this thing hasn't cost too much, the vast majority of the parts are original 50 year old Honda parts in all their slightly faded glory, so I'll only use repro stuff from Yamiya where I need to to make it function.
Once the engine cases arrive (should be next week some time, the seller just sent me a message to say they're on their way) I'll get them bead blasted (not vapor blasted) and paint them, and build the engine. That'll mean pushing my Kawasaki Z1 build sideways for a little while, but because I bought a lot of stuff for the future K1 build, I have a lot of what I need to get the ball rolling. I did buy a set of restored carbs from the US for $1000 USD plus another $300 for shipping and taxes etc, which is insane, but they looked so good I had to have them.
I had the other 1969 cases, head and cylinder block vapor blasted in 2018 before I got sick so they're still looking like new, and when my frame comes back from the blasters next week I'll give it a nice thick coat of satin black enamel. The front wheel is immaculate, I bought it from a seller on Ebay in the US who had it advertised as a K6 wheel, so $80 (plus $100-odd for shipping and taxes) was a bargain as it had the correct disc and axle which are unique to the K0. The rear wheel is in pretty poor shape and I need to strip and rebuild it, but I'll probably throw a good K1 rear wheel on while that's happening, so as not to slow the momentum.
I've got new main bearings coming from Hugh Robinson, a very talented motorcycle engineer who I bought my cast iron disc rotors from, these are a "one size fits all" deal (like Honda's green bearings) so i don't need to order some brown ones, some green ones, some black ones etc, as you usually do. I'll stick them in and see how my oil pressure's looking, and if it's in the 60 psi @ 60 MPH range, I'll call it good. I did also buy a NOS OEM rear fender from the US for a whopping $350 USD, plus shipping and taxes, but the good thing is that the "single cut" front fender that I bought from the guy I bought the frame etc from is in really good condition, so my chrome won't look awful.
So what's "Redneck" about it? Well apart from not having it professionally painted, I'm also gonna run the old Koni shocks on it once I clean and paint them, a good used period Marschall headlight that I bought off an old feller on FB, and a new Delkevic 4 into 1 pipe, just because I like them. I'll also fit the repro K0 seat that's currently on my K2, but may eventually buy a Yamiya one, because they do look more authentic, but that'll be once I sell off some extra K0 parts that I don't need. Basically, it'll be a fairly clean old "rider", but definitely not a show pony. In years to come, if someone wants to pay my kids stupid amounts of money for it so they can over-restore it to wins trophies and trailer it to shows that's fine, but I just wanna put another one back onto the road, warts and all. Hmmnn, I just remembered I've got a new CycleX 849 kit in a box somewhere, and maybe an F2 cam?