The Devil made me do it! Masquerading as Mr. Bob Kelly, he has tempted me with new primary chains, then revealed the treasures of the Colorado Rockies which then pulled me into a 3 day sift and search for vintage Honda parts, then ended with a 1200 mile return trip in a bouncy U-Haul rental truck, hauling a trailer behind.
Like many of us, Mr. Kelly is always on the hunt for a deal on bikes or parts for his collection. We have both spent the last week or two sorting and putting up our vintage Honda parts treasures for sale to get them back into circulation. I didn’t buy the two CB77s that were in the storage unit, but he found homes for them in just a few days. So… now what?
In his searching around the internet looking for hot deals, Bob sent me a link to the same auction company that offered some of the pre-sale items from the CO estate sale. This time he posted: This looks like a nice CB77…. Auction in Los Gatos, CA about 450 miles away from me. It is an early 1965 black Super Hawk with 4k miles on it, but not run for many years. I click onto the website and find not only the CB77, but a pile of CB77 parts listed in one batch for a starting bid of $1.00. Also a 2004 Kawasaki 250 Ninja with 31 miles on it, but also not a runner.
So, the bidding is closing on 10/30/2025 around 8:30. NO ONE BID ON THE PARTS! I got the whole truck load for $1!The Ninja ran up to the $2k range and the nice CB77 bumped up past $3500 with the 15% fees so I let it go. I already had a $1500 CB77 on the line, so I now need to trek up to Los Gatos and haul away my truck load of CB77 parts, bought for a dollar. I did also win some used CB77 badges for $3. Total outlay was $7.50.
So, the next challenge is to drive up to Los Gatos, hopefully spend a night with my daughter’s aunt Tammy and return the next day. The unforseen challenge, this time was that the auction was on Thursday and the pickup time was on Saturday ONLY! The auction company told me about some “helper” websites where you can hire people to do work of some kind, but this would involve picking up parts, storing them for a day or so, then me driving up and picking them up from the assistant. I checked a couple of websites and sent out messages, but it was a big “ask” for most of them, so I decided to DRIVE UP on Halloween Friday and rent a trailer to drag it all back down to San Diego again.
Happy Halloween...?
Having just done 1200 miles a couple of weeks ago, I was not totally in the mood to do another 1,000 miles again so quickly, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. So, I threw some gear and tiedowns into the truck and hit the highway at 9:30 am on Friday morning. It’s I-5 for 80 percent of the drive, so off I went, hoping for a break from the usually awful LA traffic. Leaving at a late morning time, allowed me to miss the morning commute and it was clear sailing all the way until the Hwy 101 and I-5 interchange, where it all ground to a halt for about 30 minutes while we managed about 10 mph for the good part of it. Once I cleared that hurdle, it was onwards and upwards to the “Grapevine” climb to 4144 feet, then quickly down into the flatlands of central CA. There are miles and miles of trees and plants of all kinds that help feed much of the US. Water is a big problem for the farmers there and you wonder how they managed to plant and water thousands of trees all year long.
At the top end of the I-5 journey, you have to transfer over on the Hwy 152, which leads over into the San Jose and cities around the S. Bay area. I arrived into the city of Los Gatos, where the parts were being stored at a house at the end of an 8-mile winding road, but was not available until the next morning.
SPOILER ALERT!
A year ago, as I was hauling a load of bikes and parts in my 2015 Tacoma, the low air pressure warning light switched on at 4:30am, just as I was about a half-hour into my 120-mile trip to the El Camino College swapmeet event. I checked all the tire pressures with my battery-powered air compressor that is always kept in the truck and all the tires were fine. It was the tire pressure sensors which have little batteries inside which were failing. I had two of them changed out and was told the other two were about ½ power left.
Fast forward to Oct 31, 2025 and the light came on again, this time in the middle of the uphill grade towards the peak of the Grapevine climb. I figured that if there was a tire going down, I would have felt it as it went flat somewhere along the way. There was no change, so I carried on with the knowledge that the last two sensors had given up, but the tire pressures were all okay. I did recheck the tires when I was at the U-haul place and they were down a few pounds from normal, but all four were doing just fine. Whew!
I tracked down the closest U-Haul in Los Gatos, but they didn’t have any one-way trailers available, so they had to re-direct me to San Jose area for pickup after 9am in the morning. My calls to Aunt Tammy went to VX mail. It turned out that she was at a Halloween party, so I just looked up a local hotel that was on the way towards the trailer location and settled into for the night. It was a Quality-branded Hotel in Santa Clara for $90 for a king-sized bed on the ground floor. The first thing I noted was that the decades old digital clock with the red numbers had a scrambled display, so you had no idea of the correct time. I always pray that the room becomes dark at night when you go to bed, but the bright lights of the parking lot bled around the edges of the curtains and there was another light source coming through the shower window, but the door was out of square and it wouldn’t close all the way unless it was forced closed. The empty mini-fridge was humming loudly, so I pulled it out of the cabinet and unplugged it. I added some ear plugs and finally got settled down after watching the World Series game.
I tend to wake up around 5-6am, so had plenty of time for a shower and grab a few bites of their “free” breakfast offerings, which were Yogurt, a muffin, a banana and some Orange Juice. I left about 8am to give me time to navigate over to the U-Haul location where I arrived at 8:45. Initially, I was surprised to not see the promised trailer on the small corner lot, but finally discovered the lone unit tucked behind a van on the lot. The place was supposed to open at 9am, but the owner didn’t get the door open until 9:05. Then there was the paperwork and photos of the trailer to be taken, credit card charged and finally a full hookup about 9:30.
I plugged in the Los Gatos address and headed back for another half-hour journey across the South Bay Area to the exit for “Black road.” It was several miles of 2-lane, twisty mountain roads with cars suddenly popping up around the middle of some sharp bend. Finally, there was a private road that continued up through the thick forest scenary to the address. I mis-read an address plaque on the side of the road and turned in one driveway too soon! I had to manuever the truck and trailer back out carefully and then drove up a long driveway to where a gathering of other winning auction people were busy hauling out their treasures. The property is on 40 acres and was for sale at some multi-million dollar figure. The house was surrounded by lush green grass and I was told DO NOT DRIVE ON THE GRASS!
The lucky bike winners were there loading up their treasures. The driveway was narrow and I had to wait until most of the first wave of buyers had loaded up and driven off so I could carefully back my truck and trailer up the driveway and off to the right side where the bounty of Honda parts were staged in a 3 car garage. I brought a dolly and some other loading tools, plus a motorcycle ramp that I often use to load up boxes into the back of my truck.
While I was viewing the large load of engines, a bare frame, boxes of mostly CB77 parts, the owner offered a rolling chassis bike from down in his barn for FREE! That changed the dynamics of my loading plans a bit. I brought a little battery-powered air compressor and aired up the tires. With some help, the bike was loaded off the corner of the tail gate, with the trailer still attached. Without the 115 lb engine and other chassis parts, the bike was tucked into the corner of the truck bed and strapped down for the journey. I actually was given a CA title for either the bike or the bare frame, as I left. I had arrived at the location at 10am, but wasn’t able to leave with the parts packed up until noon. It was another 15 minutes driving back down the hill, partially blocked by a bicyclist coasting down at 20 mph. I hit the freeway at 12:30 pm and was on the way home, loaded with a partial bike and a trailer loaded with precious CB77 parts.
Now, it is Saturday and traffic is building and busy. I am keeping the truck about 60-65 mph in the truck lanes which are often all chopped up or poorly patched. I am now dodging slower moving semi-trucks in the truck lanes for another 500 miles. You can see how the trucking industry is the lifeline for the country, given the unending lines of big diesel trucks going in both directions down the I-5 and all the way home. Small wonder that the roadways are so damaged from the huge weights of the trucks and their loads.
Apart from WAZE steering me around and through the evening LA traffic, the rest of the journey went smoothly. Gas stops were about $40+ each time and the truck handled the task with amazing ease. There were times when I had to hold it in 2nd gear at 60mph on long uphill sections, but it never overheated or seemed to be fazed by hauling an extra ton or two behind it.
I walked into the house at 9pm, after 1014 miles of driving up to SJ and back. There was so many parts and bins that I have to rent a storage unit for a month or so, while I sift and sort out all the parts and fine homes for them all. In the end, it cost me about $400 for my $1 purchase, but I was happy to be able to get them back into circulation again.
Bill Silver
aka MrHonda
www.vintagehonda.com
11-2025
