One wheel and no steering! Assembling the rear end of our Honda Trail 70 | Redline Update #96 - Hagerty Media

The orange Trail 70 has been a real fancy workbench decoration for the last six months. All the new and refinished parts have been sparkling from their perfectly organized places in a corner of the Redline Rebuild garage. Now final assembly is underway, and the bike’s current is a unicycle. Davin thinks he could still ride it. We think he shouldn’t try.

Assembling the Trail 70 gives a real lesson in the thrift and cleverness that the Honda designers had back in the late 1960s. There are plenty of 10mm bolts clamping things together, but the gas tank is an example of effective cost cutting. Rather than clamping it in place, there are a few small rubber isolators that effectively wedge the tank inside the stamped-steel frame. A small top plate keeps it all snugly in place. Simple, relatively fail-proof, and easy to assemble.

The rest of the rear end is similar but has a few more fasteners. The swingarm bolts into place followed by the rear wheel, shocks, and brake pedal assembly. For once, things are sliding together easily. Could that continue through the rest of the Trial 70 assembly and first start? Maybe, but you’ll have to tune in to future episodes to find out. Be sure to subscribe to the Hagerty YouTube channel to never miss an update.

Thanks to our sponsor RockAuto.com, an auto parts retailer founded in 1999 by automotive engineers with two goals: Liberate information hidden behind the auto parts store counter (by listing all available parts, not just what one store stocks or one counter-person knows), and make auto parts affordable so vehicles of all ages can be kept reliable and fun to drive.