3,066 mile 81 on eBay

[CBXTed]

Mine had this on the tank.

[Larry Zimmer]

Quite the odyssey. It was fun following. Happy Endings are good endings. Have fun.

[BillB]

Just a few minutes ago I talked to the person who rescued the bike after it sat on display at a motorcycle training school in Texas from 1981 until 1994. He was the owner of a Suzuki-Kawasaki dealership in New Haven CT. I was able to get a good cell phone number for him and he remembered a lot about the bike. He said a friend at a Honda motorcycle dealership in CT told him the school wanted to sell the bike. It had sat in a display case in the lobby of the school and never touched. He bought it and had it shipped to CT. He said it was issued a state VIN because the VIN on the bike was not 17 digits. This may be true. I cannot see the first 3 letters on the VIN, which should be JH2. I thought they were hidden behind the bracket for the fairing, but they might be missing. There have been comments that the school bikes had odd VINs, although I don't quite understand how or why Honda would do that during manufacturing. Did they plan at the factory to not sell these bikes? Regardless, the dealer then sold the bike to a man in New Jersey. A few days ago I found a phone number for him, called and left a message. Yesterday day his son called back to report that his father was no longer alive. He did not recall the bike directly but was very interested to learn about it as I had the original bills of sale, repair receipts, and a photocopy of the title from his father's ownership. His son is a motorcyclist and asked for first dibs if and when I choose to sell it. His father only kept it for a few years, selling it to a man in MA in 97. That owner kept it until 2021, selling it to the people in CA that I bought it from a few weeks ago. There is a little log book in which were recorded oil changes, brake rebuilds, and Mike Nixon's carb rebuild. Very handy. So, that essentially completes the story about this very original, unmolested school bike. I will get a closer look at the Honda VIN.

[BillB]

I put 230 miles on the bike last week.

[JoeInTUS]

The two school bikes I worked on did not have the JH2 stamped on the steering head. I think Honda did that to all of them to prevent them from being registered, not that it stopped it from happening.

The advantage I see in the state issued VIN on your bike is it will make it easier to get it registered in a state that is fussy about the VIN stamping not having 17 digits like it is supposed to.

[BillB]

[LATE EDIT: There is no VIN anomaly. What Joe observed was the way all VIN stampings were done. So, the machinations of my response here are misleading.]
Joe, thanks for confirming the VIN anomaly. What is interesting is how Honda Japan knew these would be school bikes, never intended to be sold when they were being built. I always heard they were leftover, unsold inventory in the US. But with the incomplete VINs, it is almost certain that Honda made these bikes to support motorcycle repair training centers. The original owner said that the school in this case was a Honda training facility. I thought that was very odd, as it seems clear from the incomplete VIN that Honda never intended to sell these bikes. I suppose the facility could have been Honda-sponsored but not run by Honda. We know that many of these bikes ended up in high school auto shop classrooms. I've never seen any documentation about what Honda was doing from anybody who was involved in the implementation of the "school bike" program at Honda.

[LATE EDIT: Just found this here: viewtopic.php?t=8627
This post is by the person who actually created Honda's program to donate overstocked CBXs and other vehicles. It clarifies all of my confused logic above.]

Also, the original owner indicated that the bike had never been touched at the school and was flawless when he received it. The next owner had the windshield replaced a year later. I assumed that was a missing part from its time at the school, as often happened. But it was replaced for some other reason.

[daves79x]

Honda didn't know they were going to be school bikes. If yours and the two Joe mentioned do not have the stamping, no '81 does. I don't have one here to confirm that, I'm sure several guys here can. The JH2 is only on the steering stem VIN tag and is clearly separate and quite ahead of the other digits.

Dave

[JoeInTUS]

Yes, what Dave said. Looked at some photos of another 81 I worked on, no JH2 stamp. Pretty sure it was not a school bike.

Thought I had seen the stamping on an 81 but must of been an 82.

[BillB]

Is the 81 titled and registered with a 14-character VIN? It would be interesting to test whether that is a valid VIN.

Here is a 1981 Honda CBX currently for sale. Look at the VIN. JH2SC0604BC301077
https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/mcd/ ... 14430.html

Here's another:
https://bid.cars/en/lot/0-25851144/1981 ... 05BC300102

1981-Honda-CBX-JH2SC0605BC300102-10.jpg

According to NHTSA, beginning in 1981 VINs were standardized for all vehicles sold in the US and have always been 17 characters since then, and Honda motorcycles made in Japan began with JH2 starting in 81. J = Japan country of origin, H= Honda as manufacturer, and 2 indicates motorcycle. If it was made in the US instead of Japan, it would be 1H2, (1 = USA country of origin). If I search the VIN on my 81, with or without JH2 or 1H2, it is invalid. In other words, Honda never registered these VINs in the US. If it had been manufactured for sale it would have a valid manufacturer's VIN. My 79 does not have JH2, instead begins with CB and is 10 characters long, as there was no standardization before 81. My 82 is a standardized JH2 17-character.VIN.

Wikipedia on Honda VIN codes and the NHTSA reference I read, must be wrong if 81's had a 14-character VIN with no country of origin, manufacturer or vehicle type in it.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Vehicle_I ... /VIN_Codes

[sixofsix]

You have to look waaay to the left of the VIN number to see the JH2 prefix and it is autofilled on each VIN plate so the font is slightly different. I have two 81 CBX's that were originally registered way back minus the JH2. And both of them had to be re-registered with the JH2 prefix added in. It's very easy to miss it as it is actually a bit away from the rest of the SC... part of the VIN. I am sure there are a number of 81's registered without the JH2 prefix. There you have it...

[BillB]

I believe all 81s manufactured for sale in the US should have a 17-character VIN. On my 81, the first part of the VIN on plate is obscured by the front fairing harness. It is routed inside the fairing bracket and can't be shoved aside. I will have to remove the fairing to see it. BUT on the other side where the VIN is stamped into the frame, the first 3 digits (JH2 or 1H2) are not there.

[BillB]

DELETED. I will wait until I remove the front fairing so I can see all of the VIN plate on my 81.

[JoeInTUS]

Bill

I know one of the three 81s I put my hands on had a California title with the full 17 digit VIN. It was a school bike. Never saw the titles for the other two.

[BillB]

DELETED.

[BillB]

Bill

I know one of the three 81s I put my hands on had a California title with the full 17 digit VIN. It was a school bike. Never saw the titles for the other two.

Unfortunately I can't see all of the VIN plate until I remove the front fairing again. But on the stamped side it's on 14 digits, no JH2. [LATE EDIT: That's the way they were done normally.] I guess all the confusion comes from it being so hard to see all of the VIN plate. Normally no one examines that unless it is undocumented, as it would be with school bikes. There is a lot of mention that school bikes have "odd" VINs in articles in CBXPRESS. When I take off the fairing, things should become clearer. We will get to the bottom of this.