Here's how I came to be a Nighthawk owner:

My first bike was a Honda Spree at the age of 15 in 1985, which I rode for 11,000 miles before it was stolen in 1990. I went without two wheels until late 1997, when I bought a 1983 Honda Aero 80 scooter from a neighbor of my parents' and raised it from its last-10-years-in-the-garage torpor. Aahhh, the exhilaration of a 40mph top speed instead of the 30mph of my faithful old Spree! Little did I know how low my exhilaration standards were back then.

Since Michigan's licensing law considers the Aero 80 be a motorcycle, rather than an up-to-50cc "moped" which can be driven with the normal drivers license, I had to test for the motorcycle endorsement. This was, of course, comically easy on a scooter.

About a year later, in December of 1998, we wound up moving to San Jose, California for the (tremendous) benefit of my career, not to mention my scuba-diving possibilities. Since San Jose is a much larger community than Ann Arbor, Michigan, and consequently much less scooter-friendly, I had decided, with the urging of my brother, a long-time motorcyclist and five-year Californian, that I would need to upgrade my transportation -- particularly since my wife and I were only going to bring one of our two cars out with us.

As it happened, the house that we liked best during our hose-hunting also happened to have a good-looking 1983 Honda Nighthawk 550, built in December 1982, sitting in the garage gathering dust. And judging by the "89" sticker on its license plate, it had been sitting there, and in their previous home's garage, for a long, long time.

The burgundy-colored finish was sun-faded, but with the light gray primer gently showing through, it looked for all the world like a stylish two-tone paint job. There were small rust holes in the muffler, a broken brake lever, and a couple of small rips in the seat, but overall, the bike appeared to be in pretty good condition, and it only had 14,115 miles on it.

We went ahead and bought the house and the motorcycle (for $250) on the same day, and they just left it in the garage when they moved out - no delivery problems!

After a couple of months, once we got settled in, I set to work on the bike. The previous owner had left a new battery sitting on a shelf, since the old one had sulfated itself to death some years prior, but there was no chance of the bike starting without a good overhaul -- I drained about a gallon and a half of truly rank-smelling gasoline from the tank and the carbs. No StaBil in there, that's for sure. After my experience with the 7-year, 1/4" layer of varnish on the Aero 80's carb, I had visions of a varnish nightmare times four on this bike.

As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as I feared. In an evening's work, I removed the carb rack and one by one, disassembled and cleaned out the carbs. There were small flakes of varnish left in the bowls, a thin brown patina over fuel-exposed surfaces, and the number four needle was glued into its seat by varnish, but nothing as bad as I had feared.

Surprisingly, there was a worse varnish situation on the air screen behind the carbs, with actual globs of varnish clinging to the screen. The paper air filter element even had a brown discoloration on the side facing the engine.

I reinstalled the carbs with the usual struggle, and then my brother and I set to work on the front brake, which had seized up. It was a pretty straightforward task to dismount the caliper, pull out the plungers, and put it all back together with fresh brake fluid, as the seals were in good condition and didn't need to be replaced. Regardless of its seized state, it needed a flush - the old brake fluid looked like cappuccino.

Next, we put the battery in, turned on the key, and pushed the starter button ... nothing. The headlight went dark, and it just sat there. At first, we though that the starter solenoid was bad, but shorting it with a screwdriver allowed the engine to crank. A generous helping of contact cleaner in the starter switch and low-voltage contacts of the solenoid, and voila! It cranked away, and once I remembered to turn on the petcock, after draining and recharging the battery (there's no petcock on scooters) it sputtered, smoked, and popped, but eventually revved up and started.

It wouldn't idle, though - I realized that I had forgotten to thoroughly clean the choke circuit. Duuuhh! In an effort to avoid another carb rack removal, I've been squirting carb cleaner down in the choke plungers, and it's been steadily improving.

Once the engine was operational, a number of other sporadic electrical problems cropped up - the turn signals weren't flashing, the horn was completely dead, and the brake light was intermittent. I wound up taking the tank back off and cleaning the 10 years worth of goop out of every electrical contact I could find, and put a shiny new aftermarket horn on it. I put it all back together, and everything worked great, except there was still no turn signal.

As it turned out, I needed a new turn signal relay. I managed to blow a fuse while testing this theory, and discovered that the spare fuse in the kit was already blown. Duuhh... In any case, I ordered a new turn signal relay along with a grommet or two and a new air filter, and after two weeks of bumbling by Honda, my parts order finally came in, and I had a fully functional electrical system and a fresh, varnish-free air filter.

I was able to avoid paying back registration fees, since vehicles apparently drop out of the California DMV computers after five years of inactivity. I had to rent a truck to haul it in for VIN and engine number verification, but that was a small inconvenience when I finally tacked the new license plate onto the bike and rode for the first time. The transition from 80cc with enough horsepower for a 40mph top speed to 550cc with enough horses for a 116mph top speed is a dramatic and exhilarating one, even when I'm only going 40mph down a city street.

Like any new owner, I promptly purchased chrome and aluminum polish, and obsessively polished up a gleaming finish on its plentiful shiny surfaces. The passenger seat rips were patched up with electrical tape, and look just fine. I'm working on ordering a new set of salvage mufflers to correct the rusty holes in the current ones that make it sound so gruff.

So for a total outlay of not much more than $350 in parts and supplies, I have a pretty, low-mileage, well-operating Nighthawk 550. I rode it 120 miles in the first week, and I'm looking forward to many more weeks, years, and miles of my relationship with this bike, and to touring the beautiful California scenery with my brother. My personalized license plate should be coming in a couple of weeks, so if you see a Nighthawk 550 jetting around the San Jose area with an "ATMC NRG" plate, that'll be me.

Mike

San Jose, CA