I Bought a 37-Year-Old Honda CR500 2 Stroke!

Well, the day has finally come. Ever since I started posting dirt bike builds on this YouTube channel, the most highly requested build that you guys have asked for is the Honda CR500. And right here in front of me, I have a 1988 Honda CR500 two-stroke that I found down in Arizona. My parents live there, so I asked my dad to go pick it up. The bike was actually priced at $4,500. I negotiated with the seller a little bit, and he agreed to $3,700. My dad showed up to go look at it, and he called me and he said, I wouldn't give this guy a thousand bucks. This thing is a pile of junk. And I said, no matter how bad of condition it's in, you just can't find CR500s these days for anything less than that. My dad ended up offering him $2,000, and the guy took $2,100. So here in front of me is an 88 CR500 in incredibly rough shape, but when I'm done with it, this bike will be unrecognizable, absolutely gorgeous, and it will go to one lucky winner. That's right, doing bike builds to the caliber I'm now doing them is only possible thanks to you guys entering for your chance to win. It helps fund these projects, especially for an old bike like this that is going to cost an arm and a leg to bring to showroom condition. Now you guys know I already have the RM125 giveaway going on and I've never had two bike giveaways going on at the same time, but while I wait for some more parts to arrive for that bike, there is no sense in waiting to tear this bike down so that I can assess what parts I will be able to restore and what parts I will need to source and order. I polled my followers on Instagram a while back asking if I should do a full restoration or a resto mod type build with the CR500, and the winning vote was a resto mod. Now what does that mean exactly? It means I will be using the main frame and chassis and major components of this bike, but I will be upgrading different components and doing my own little customizations in different spots instead of going to a full OEM restoration. I'm giving myself plenty of time for this project to make sure I can get it done right and source the parts I need, so this giveaway won't end until mid-August, but entries for this bike are open over on my website. The first 20 people to use the discount code CR500EARLYBIRD will get 25% off their entries, so there is a small incentive to get entered for this thing early, but you will be able to enter all the way through August and I will show you guys the entire process from start to finish of turning this old turd into something beautiful. Now what is it about the CR500 that everyone is so intrigued by and obsessed with? These bikes dominated the open class back in the day. This will be the first bike I've worked on that was manufactured before I was born. I have never had the opportunity to swing a leg over a CR500. I did have a 2001 KX500 for a brief period of time that I took to the sand dunes, and that bike absolutely blew me away, so I can't wait to get this thing in running condition and see what those guys raced back in the day. You hear a lot of people say these bikes were raced back when men were men, and that is for good reason. A 500 two-stroke produces such raw and aggressive power that you really have to respect this machine when you swing a leg over it. So take a good look at this bike right now, because when I am done with it, it will be completely and utterly unrecognizable. Let's get to work. Would you check out the welds on this silencer? Man. Now this just might be one of the straightest radiators I've ever seen, especially for a bike this old, but we've got a broken tab. Broken pieces everywhere on this build. Now do we think we're gonna be dealing with seized axles today or not? She's going, little by little. No way. This swing arm axle from 1988 just slid out like that. Let's go. This sprocket's too big to take this chain off. And this just shows you how brittle plastic gets after this many years. This thing just fell apart when I pulled this swing arm off. It was a little sketchy loading and unloading this thing into the truck, because there's no front brake, and that sight glass is a good indicator of why it does not currently hold fluid. Hopefully I can figure out how to make this clutch pull a little smoother, because that thing's a four-finger grab right now. Check out the state of these handlebar mounts. It looks like this thing was probably wrecked pretty good at some point. by twisting them first when they're all seized on from, you know, being on a bike for 36 years. These ones on this radiator are kinda tricky to get to, but we'll get it figured out. Well, guys, I've got myself a bit of a predicament. I took apart this entire CR500, but my normal parts shelves are filled with an RM125 and a CRF450. Parts on parts on parts on parts. Sneak peek of the RM125 triple clamps. Now, I knew about these spacial constraints before I tore this bike down. It's not often that I find three-framed bikes in this garage. It's usually one or maybe two at a time, but right now I just happen to have a lot of projects going on. But I wasn't gonna let that limit me from tearing this bike down. I knew once I tore it apart, I'll figure out where these parts go, whether I have to store them in my bedroom or the kitchen or find some more space in my shed. Whatever it may be, I'll make it work. And the reason I wanna share this is because I get a handful of comments of people saying, man, if I had your setup, I could do that. But this isn't how I started. When I started working on bikes, I lived in a college house with 10 people on the property. We shared a one-stall garage for all of our gear. So I had a dirt bike in there. I had a dresser that I found on the side of the road in my bedroom where I had my tools. The bottom drawer of that dresser was my toolbox at the time. I would run from the garage all the way downstairs to get a tool, back up. So it hasn't always been like this. Right now, I am making do with a 19 by 19 garage. Of course, sometimes I think, man, it would be nice to have a little more space. Right now, I move bikes around whenever I film. I have to move things around if I wanna sandblast or Cerakote. Things are constantly getting shuffled with these boxes of parts. But that's just how it goes. I am making the most of what I have. So a little bit of a long-winded way to say, don't focus on the problems, but instead find solutions. I just thought I'd share that because space is a constant battle in here, but I'm making it work. So with that said, I'm gonna get this garage cleaned up and figure out where the heck I'm gonna store these parts. Might be my bedroom. And with the entire CR500 disassembled after a few hours in the garage, I had quite the mess to clean up. As I put my tools away and began organizing parts, I inspected each component to see if it would be usable or if replacements or upgrades would make more sense. Items that clearly need to be replaced are the entire exhaust system, the plastics, which are sun-faded and brittle, the airbox, which has some significant damage, cables, pretty much anything plastic, and likely the rims. We will see about this spray-painted fuel tank as well. While that list might sound extensive, I'm actually impressed with how usable many of the components are. The frame looks great, aside from one big dent on the bottom that I intend to repair. The subframe is in reasonable shape, although there are a couple tabs that I believe are seat hooks that are broken and will need to be fixed. The suspension components don't show any significant damage. The swingarm and linkage is in good shape. And like I said, the radiators are surprisingly straight, with the only big issue being one broken tab. As for the engine, who knows what I will find when I tear into it, but externally, the cases look to be in good condition with no major damage. While everything is definitely looking rough, I am overall pleased with the quality of most of these components as a starting point for the build, as the core of this bike will remain the same. In the next episode, I will clean the 37-year-old grime off of this engine to expose what's beneath and tear apart this 500cc power plant in preparation for a complete rebuild, and we will assess what needs to be replaced. If you enjoyed this video and would like to follow along with the entire build series, please consider clicking that subscribe button. I'm on the road to 200,000 subscribers, which is completely mental to wrap my head around. I cannot believe and thank you guys enough for the continued support on these videos. One last reminder that you can enter for your chance to win this beast when it is done by clicking the link down in the description and heading to my website. Thank you guys so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.