Looking to get into this world

[klayton_moore]

My name's Klayton and I recently found one of these that had been garaged for the last decade. My family loves hondas and I had never heard of these little machines so I was very interested in picking it up. cosmetically it looked clean, guy said the keys were missing and that the car hadn't started in several years, i don't know if this is because of the key issue or an engine issue. also said it needed a new master cylinder. He wanted 1800 for the vehicle but I held off because that seemed like a lot for something that wouldn't drive. I'm looking for any information that would help in this purchase; if I can find parts for it, if they can easily be re keyed, is that a decent price for something like this. Anything would help.

[Victor L. Hernandez]

Hi Klayton, welcome to the group. Values of non-running 600s are very subjective. $1,800 can be a good buy or bad one, depends on condition, wear and if all parts are there. Engine isn’t that tough to fix as to normal engines, it’s just that it does have a specific learning curve. It’s not quite a car’s engine and it’s not quite a motorcycle engine. It is air cooled and many VW mechanics usually don’t find this engine that complicated. The engine does have a few wear points that can make it a repairable or not.
Although there are very very few of these cars on the road today, there is still a limited availability of parts (99% used) out there. $1,800 for a good body (no rust), good interior (all complete, no abuse wear), and with a complete engine, it doesn’t sound that bad, of course, pictures would also help in guiding you. A lot of these cars stopped running for simple reasons, the cam chain had a slop and it becomes very difficult to time the engine, or the engine will run poorly and out of sync. There is an enthusiast here that sells replacement chains, and that usually fixes that part of the problem. Obviously having the car not been ran for so long, you do want to open up the head and check for clogged lines, etc.
As with any classic car, you would want to buy it running and all, the truth is good running candidates for this model are running low and sparse between. I recently bought a “running” Z600, with really bad gasket leaks, bungled shifting, a lot of the hoses had been replaced with aluminum oven exhaust ducts, and ridiculously dirty brakes. But it hasn’t taken much time or money to bring it back to how it should be. And I found original correct hoses from a vendor in eBay.
It’s a nice car. People in my part of the country have rarely seen them. It’s a fun drive for two people (rear seat is good for an infant), and I won’t drive this car in the freeway not because it won’t reach a reasonable speed, but because its body is paper thin and it was not designed to be driven in over 55MPH environments in my opinion. A fender bender with a big Texas truck or long haul rig can be outright deadly. But a trip to the movie theater, the corner store, the lake through the back roads, it is that fun.
Good luck in finding one.

[Mark P Hatten]

Also, you can page thru reams of Honda 600's for sale, and expired for sale ad's as found by Microcar club.org
http://www.microcar.org/blog/2010/08/mo ... raigslist/
Mark
www.mphspecialties.com
To: anzhonda600owners@yahoogroups.com