Radical Hodaka 125 MX on display at the 2015 Siege Vintage

[pungo]

Pretty nice looking, lots of mods

http://oldmotodude.blogspot.com/2015/02 ... ay-at.html

[hodakamax]

Wow, that is wild--how did the clutch get back there? Did it start out as a Super? Veeery interesting--Hmmm. Waddaya think?
Thanks Pungo for sharing.

Maxie

[pungo]

Not to be mistaken, its not my bike. Just a link I found from a search. Could contact the owner via the page info I guess. May even be a person on here. donno

[Charlie R]

Looks like a Lee Fabry creation. Paul probably knows for sure. It's one killer trick bike very nicely done for sure!

Just for fun....how many "tricks" can you see? I love it when people find the tiny obscure mods on my bikes.

Charlie R.

[Bullfrog]

Yup. That's the machine created by Lee Fabry. Among other things, he was determined to check out the difference in performance which might result from moving the clutch from the crank to the mainshaft. As I recall his comments, the modification was in the "cubic dollars" category and the clutch worked fine . . . but the modified clutch location didn't make the "night-and-day" sort of difference some folks expected.

Fantastic workmanship. Really nice technical features. Beautiful finish. A truly one-of-a-kind Hodaka.

Ed

[taber hodaka]

What a beauty Wow wow wow . What radial head was used, I don't think it was Indian the head seems to match up to the cylinder perfectly. What a show piece.----------Clarence

[socalhodaka]

Looks like a Lee Fabry creation. Paul probably knows for sure. It's one killer trick bike very nicely done for sure!

Just for fun....how many "tricks" can you see? I love it when people find the tiny obscure mods on my bikes.

Charlie R.

Air box number plate made from a road cone.

[hodakamax]

We need the pix on our site.

[admin]

Lee always does great work and this bike was no exception!! The head is from a Zundapp 125 and then modified.
Paul

[dirty_rat]

It also looks like the frame has been changed; ie. the engine sits lower (looks like the frame tubes were lenghtened to lower the entire engine). Anyone know what type of forks are on it? Is this one of the bikes he brought to Hodaka Days in Mid-Ohio, it looks familiar?

[socalhodaka]

Yes the frame is lowered, Lee is a tall guy. This bike has been around for a long time. The forks I think are Betor.

[admin]

Lee might answer himself shortly but Kelly is correct.
Paul

[lee fabry]

That would be my work. It took hundreds of hours and many thousands of dollars. There is a full feature of it in VMX #20 from 2003. If you have
access- all the details are there. Also, on Siege's website there is a spread and an abbreviated story on it. I regretfully sold the bike to a friend
of Harry Taylors; George Eadie a few years ago. I built it on a dare. I was told by the "Elsinore" CR125 crowd in Ahrma sportsman 125, that I
could not possibly build a Hodaka to out perform the Honda. It took a lot of changes to do so, but when finished it would not only smoke a the
CR125, but would actually pull a stock Honda CR250 on a straight away!

[lee fabry]

The triple clamps are 1974 Honda CR250M, tubes, sliders and front hub are 1974 Yamaha YZ250A.

[socalhodaka]

[admin]

Thanks Lee for chiming in! Always great to hear from you and always great to see your work!
Sincerely
Paul

[oldmxracer]

Anyone have pics of the 125 Harry Taylor built with Maico forks? I had the treat of giving it a short go at Diamond Don's once, but I won't call out the present owner right now.

[socalhodaka]

Anyone have pics of the 125 Harry Taylor built with Maico forks? I had the treat of giving it a short go at Diamond Don's once, but I won't call out the present owner right now.

Yea it had the same clutch set up as Lee's bike, I raced it at a AHRMA race in Arizona once in the plus 50 class with a bunch of 250cc and got 2nd overall. I will get some photos of it as I too no where it's parked.

[lee fabry]

Mine was a 1993 KX80 Hinson set up on a custom machined and heat treated main shaft extended and broached to accept the Kawi clutch.
In material alone the clutch mod ran over $3000.00. After all the engine work to increase peak horsepower, the super combat clutch with
the best parts I could build it with would instantly fail. I launched one stock clutch through the side case! The KX80 clutch (as Ed said) didn't
actuate much better than stock, but would last and never slipped, dragged or failed.

[racerclam]

THe cluve me that clutch on the Harry Taylor bike was of of his proto type dirt squirt 80 as well as the sand cast side cover. Harry gave me that whole assembly and I modified the primary drive on one of my bikes to use it , then Harry wanted it back to put the squirt back to origional so I gave it back , I I did have to use heavier springs to stop slippage. That same clutch can be found on the Pederson wild cat. Oh and Harry never did put the clutch back on the squirt , It went on his 125 race bike that Greg Watkins bought from him.

Rich

[Bullfrog]

DOH! So I only remembered a small part of the comments on the clutch . . . the part about actuation. Seems like there might indeed have been a bit of "night-and-day" difference involved (i.e. exploding the crank mounted clutch out the side of the case VS not doing that sort of thing with the mainshaft mounted clutch).

Thanks for the rather gentle correction Lee.

Ed

[oldmxracer]

I raced it at a AHRMA race in Arizona once in the plus 50 class with a bunch of 250cc and got 2nd overall.

I'm not surprised at all. I got off it wanting to find a modern 125 to line it up with a drag race.