It’s a highly modified Honda Monkey Bike that is now powered by an inline-four cylinder engine from a Honda CB350F, in place of the tiny 49cc single-cylinder engine it would have been fitted with originally.

A Pocket-Sized Widowmaker

Project motorcycles come in all shapes and sizes, the one golden rule is that you should (generally speaking) never buy someone else’s unfinished project bike, as they’re typically a Pandora’s Box of unfinished work, missing parts, and bodged jobs.

That said, sometimes an unfinished project bike comes along that’s just too interesting to ignore, like the wild 350cc Honda Monkey Bike shown here.

Honda originally unveiled their Monkey Bike series, designated “Z50”, in 1967. The entire project to build these pint-sized motorcycles had been started almost by accident.

Honda had developed some minibikes for kids to use at a carnival in Japan, it turned out that the adults loved riding them too, but when adults rode them they looked like monkeys with their knees and elbows out. This resulted in them being nicknamed “monkey bikes” and the name stuck.

The Z50 series of minibikes were typically fitted with 49cc, air-cooled single-cylinder engines of unit construction with built-in transmissions. Early bikes had no suspension at all, except for the tire sidewalls of course, but later models received telescopic forks, and later still twin rear shock absorbers were introduced.

The pocket-sized widowmaker project bike listed here uses much of the original Monkey Bike frame, though its been significantly modified to accommodate the new, much larger CB350F engine.

This bike has some limited front suspension but none on the rear, and there’s no sign of a front brake either, just a drum brake the size of a dime.

The original four carburetor set up has been replaced with an easier to tune twin carb arrangement. The seat needs to be properly fitted, both the rear brake and clutch cables need to be attached properly, that rear sprocket needs to be replaced with something more suitably sized, and there are doubtless many other small jobs that need to be done.

Credit: silodrome

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