Honda Dax ST70
Update, The Minibike has been Sold.
The CL90 is for sale, scroll down to the bottom
This bike was purchased new in Japan by a US serviceman. The
dealer that sold it is Curly's Honda, gate 1 Yokota air base,
Tokyo. That was on May 18, 1970. So this is a 1970 ST70 Dax K0.
He brought the bike home and assembled it, and he rode it around
his backyard once. Then he put it away in his garage. He told me
that he never got around to riding it again. 32 years later, I
purchased the bike from him, at his garage sale. It just shows
that you never know what you might find at a garage sale. The
true mileage at that time was 0.9KM. I washed it off, because it
was pretty dirty from the long years of storage. Then I had to
pump up the tires. I checked the air filter, and it crumbled when
I touched it. I replaced it with a new one and also replaced the
battery, which was dry, with a new one. I had to solder in the
wires removed from the old battery, and covered the repair with
shrink tubing. After that I added gas and tried to start it. It
wouldn't start at first, so I cleaned the Spark plug and
tightened up the cap on the plug wire. After that it surprised me
by starting on the next kick. I rode it up and down the street in
front of my house on a short test ride, it runs great,. I got it
up to about 30 miles per hour or so. This little test ride
doubled the mileage, the actual true mileage at this time is 1.9
KM.
The Dax ST70 is very similar to the US model CT70, known as the
Trail 70. The Dax is oriented a little bit more to street use, it
does not have the skid plate of the trail bike. It does have turn
signals, and a centerstand instead of a sidestand. This bike has
the optional removable front end. You just disconnect the wiring
at a connector behind the headlight. Then you take the throttle
cable apart at it's quick disconnect just under the main frame
tube. Then you crank on the little hand crank lever mounted on
top of the steering head. The front fender is mounted low to make
room for the spindle to drop down. After that, the whole front
end comes right off of the bike, so that it can be easily carried
in a car trunk. You can watch an amazing video of this
whole process here: (requires quicktime, and patience)
Cool!
This may be the lowest mileage Honda 70 in the USA.
And if you think that that first story was amazing, check out
this Honda CL90 from the same garage sale, which is still in the
original crate, never even assembled. Like the Dax, this model
was not normally sold in the USA. This one may be the only one in
the country.
