1972 Honda Mini Trail Z50A K2 restoration. June 2003 to June 2004

At the 2003 Cornwall Monkey Bike Rally a Monkey mate Tony pointed out a rough and semi restored Honda Z50A Mini Trail for sale. The hard tail frame suffers from weakness in the rear hoops and this is often cracked or broken by many years of riding around rough ground. The bike for sale had clearly had a very poor quality repair after breakage. The bike came complete with a much sought after tidy looking fuel tank and cap. Also included was a very sorry looking engine, forks, seat, wheels and hubs. After some serious bartering I parted with 270 notes and had myself not only a new car I picked up on the way to Cornwall but also a new restoration project on my hands!

Unfortunately these are the only pictures I have of the bike as I got it. They're so bad because they were taken in a dark garage on my phone

I immediately started thinking of plans to customise and restore the little Trail. I felt the seat was way too high, not for rideability but for cosmetics. I wanted a no compromise tiny motorbike and decided I'd lower the seat and bars as far as possible.

The look I was going to go for would be that of an apparently standard bike with a custom look to it and paint and chrome quality to better that of Honda's

Above and to the left you can see the 'Micro Trail' as it had become named in late 2003 in its first build guise. The seat was obtained from America and the long mounts cut off. An off-the-shelf custom twin rear light came from my local bike shop and the foot pegs and stand assembly came from Monkey Bike UK. I had shot blasted and repainted the wheels by this point and fitted new tyres and tubes. I'd also had some fittings chrome plated by London Chroming. You'll notice also the bars look different to the stock Mini Trail bars. They are chopped-down Dax bars and the top yoke had to be slightly modified in the location grooves so the bars would still lower to an appropriate angle. The forks have been rebuilt at this stage and the bike now has new mud guards also courtesy of the excellent Monkey Bike UK. (See links page for details) The stanchions (fork legs) on my bike were bent so I fitted a new pair from a Jincheng M50. They are shorter than standard and lower the bike further.

By now I had bought a decent digital camera. This was now January 2004 and the build was coming along slowly but surely. Here's a close-up of one of the many small problems I had. It's a small problem of cable nipple size but one of many which had to be overcome. You can also see the finished handle bar before chrome. The bars were chopped and joined in a similar way to the frame repair with inner sleeves for extra strength (very important!)

The 'Trail was to take the engine out my Dax. It was in good health following a rebuild, 85cc bore-up, some work on the inlet and exhaust ports in the head. It had also had a manual clutch fitted to the original 3 speed gearbox which was an unusual combination.

Now the bike is in another stage of build. This stage is now to get it running and registered for the road. I like to give my bikes a good shake-down in unrestored form. This allows for modifications without affecting paintwork etc.

You can still make out the frame repair here. The rubbing mark on the frame is to show the DVLA and MOT centre the frame number. The bike would appear to of 1972 vintage.

It now had a new chain guard and smaller rear sprocket to raise the gearing for higher top speed. The chain is a cadmium plated item. These are often incorrectly referred to as chrome chains. Nice and shiny though.

In this picture the engine is running following the very first ride round the garden! There's no wiring in the bike yet but if you know anything about Honda's 6 volt engines you'll know you don't need much apart from a coil and an HT lead.

I had thrown a standard Jincheng M50 exhaust on it which is fitted round the other side. You can just make out the tail pipe.

The first ride was fun but certainly highlighted just how small the bike is. I'm over 6 feet tall but the saddle height is only 22 inches (55 cm). Thankfully I could get my knees in behind the bars. They are only 6 inches higher than the seat

Back to the workshop: Unlike conventional Monkey Bikes there are precious few exhaust systems on the market for the Mini Trail and besides I wanted a custom system no one else could have!

The system was to be made of polished stainless steel. The lovely 32mm OD bends were fortunately available from Dragon Racing Parts (see links page) and a length of the same diameter was purchased for the rest of the system.

I wasn't very tidy at welding so here's a work-mate TIG welding the system together. With straight-through pipes it was exceptionally loud so each tail pipe has a baffle inserted into it which silences the exhaust adequately for the MOT man's approval.

To the right is the 'Micro Trail' built up and almost ready for an MOT test. It wasn't registered for road use previously hence no number plate.

Note also it's a foot brake model. Earlier Mini Trails have the rear brake operated by the left hand lever on the handle bars. Because the seat and bars were lower than standard, I welded them in such a position the brake and clutch levers would be at a comfortable angle to operate.

Below shows just how small this little 8 inch wheeled bike really is. I think the MOT guy was rather amused as were the onlooking staff and customers.

My bike now had a white-faced speedometer fitted and a very small custom headlamp. Note no switch gear on the bars. The lights are turned on by the ignition switch and dip/main is selected by a tiny switch hidden on the headlamp shell.

Now the bike was registered and road legal it had an age related registration number allocated to it. My sneaky plan of avoiding the need for a number plate fell into place. I sacrilegiously cleaned the Honda logo off the back of the seat and had my girlfriend paint on the number with acrylic paint.

We took our bikes to The Isle of Wight Monkey Bike Rally 2004 and thrashed them round the island for the weekend. The Micro Trail held up well and was a real crowd pleaser as there are so few on the road. There was however a similar 'Trail on the run! It's got a lowered seat and a pretty quick Cub 90 engine fitted. It's all quite rough and ready but it happily showed my bike a clean pair of heels!

We estimated top speed to be around 55mph much like that of the Dax the engine came from. The gearing seemed to be spot on for a good compromise for the flat and hills. I wasn't certain at the time however and raised the gearing and totally spoilt it so subsequently returned to the original gearing.

The parts to be painted were also to be of the highest quality. These went to Panel-Wise in Weybridge for preparation and painting. The correct shade of Mexican Yellow and White were obtained in two-pack from RS Paints (See links)

Below right: Where's that frame repair now?!

I built the bike back up again in my lounge over the period of only two days. I knew the bike so well by now and everything fitted together perfectly it was a doddle and pleasure to assemble.