80 Tail Piece on 79

[Spooky#1]

Last Spring I replaced my 79 tail piece with a silver one with the storage compartment. Did Honda sell a silver 80 CBX in Europe? The tail piece looks original factory minus the plastic lugs that the lid lock brackets fasten to. The mounting lugs on the lid were removed and the lid was epoxied to the hinge as well. I used metal blind furniture nuts JB Weld'ed to the underside of the tail piece and lid to fasten to. I already had the 80m grab bar assembly, storage box and related hardware.

[daves79x]

No, there were no silver '80s anywhere. Honda made the replacement silver tails with the lid soon after they came out. That's all you could get if you needed to replace the silver '79 tail. Yes, you found out how fragile the mounting system is on them.

Dave

[Spooky#1]

Thanks! So they were selling pre-production 80 tail pieces as replacements? Look at picture one and you'll see the two flat spots where the lock bracket mounts should be. Odd that they left them off. It took a little work to get everything set right but it all worked out and only cost me about $650 for all of the parts needed to have a storage compartment.

[daves79x]

The original mounts for the lid have broken off flush where you epoxied on the fasteners. They were just little plastic 'barrels' that the screws threaded into. They are very prone to breaking off. That's what I was referring to as a 'fragile' mounting system.

Dave

[Jeff Bennetts]

Spooky, the catch for the lid lock is NOT part of the tail, the catch for the tail lid lock is actually a component of the chrome rail, people forget to unlock the lid before removing the seat and tail assembly, this puts stress on the lid and mounting points.

The hinges and locking mechanisms are becoming rare, I have been tearing my shop to pieces looking for a set of hinges for a member here, I know I have a set somewhere.

[Spooky#1]

The lock brackets on my 80 aren't fastened to the grab bar, they are fastened to the underside of the tail piece like the silver one in my pictures. I'm looking at my 79/80 parts manual now. Sounds like they made a change midyear maybe.

[Jeff Bennetts]

The lock brackets on my 80 aren't fastened to the grab bar, they are fastened to the underside of the tail piece like the silver one in my pictures. I'm looking at my 79/80 parts manual now. Sounds like they made a change midyear maybe.

I have never noticed that before, pieces 8 and 9 in this schematic are fastened to the rear of the grab rail on my replacement 79 silver tail, I bought the tail replacement kit from Honda back in the day and it included the grab rail. There are no mounting towers on my tail for the locking latch but I looked at a couple other tails I have and they do have them?

[Spooky#1]

Then Honda must have discovered the problem with removing the seat with 8 & 9 fastened to the grab rail and made the change. Interesting stuff, I wonder if there is a bulletin floating around out there on this. If they corrected it before the 80 models came out then there probably is no mention about it anywhere.
How exactly are the brackets mo0unted to the grab rail piece? Can you provide a picture? The tail piece a put on my 79 has the raised areas where the plastic lugs should have been molded in but they are smooth and not broken off so I must have one of the replacement ones like yours.
Notice that the plastic lock plate lugs were never molded in.

[daves79x]

There was NO bracket ever fastened to the chrome rail. The entire hinge and latch assembly is fastened to the underside of the tail and lid. Never was there a difference from that. The rear latch mounted to the underside of the tail sits right down on the chrome rail but is, and never was, mounted to the rail itself. Not sure what you are remembering Jeff.

Dave

[Jeff Bennetts]

Pieces 8 & 9 are fastened by two screws between the two rubber nubs #13 on the rail, I'll get a pick and post it up.

[Jeff Bennetts]

There was NO bracket ever fastened to the chrome rail. The entire hinge and latch assembly is fastened to the underside of the tail and lid. Never was there a difference from that. The rear latch mounted to the underside of the tail sits right down on the chrome rail but is, and never was, mounted to the rail itself. Not sure what you are remembering Jeff.

Dave

Dave take a good look at Spook's silver tail, like mine he has NO mounting towers for the lock catch on the underside of the tail, just two raised molding nubs.

[EMS]

. Not sure what you are remembering Jeff.

Dave

While I am here, I can add a few things for Spooky's benefit:

Honda recognized that the tail design on the 1979 with ONE rubber bumper underneath was flawed. Many of them cracked, typically in the middle of the tail, above the rubber.
When they introduced the 1980 with the lidded tail, they made this part a replacement part for 1979 also. Mainly to make people use the double rubber bumper rail. It didn't happen until about the middle of the 1980 production run.
The early combined 1979 and 1980 parts lists dated September 1979 still show the original 1979 part available which was later discontinued.

You find these things out, when everything is "boiled down, dissected and holmolginised (sic) to the point of obsession" rather then spouting unfounded wisdom.

[daves79x]

OK - your tail, then Jeff, has the mounting towers broken off. The set-up you describe is something someone came up with to 'fix' the problem. I've restored 4 '80s and worked on a bunch of others, of all VIN ranges, and they all mounted the same way. And I found a bunch that had been broken off. As Mike said, the 2-bumper set-up keeps the tail from cracking, but really has nothing to do with the latch system. I can say, with as much certainty as I know my name, that nothing ever screwed to the chrome rail.

Dave

[Jeff Bennetts]

The towers where never there to break off, look at the molding lines at the underside/base of the tail where they should be, they are the same as Spook's, half circles that stop at a molding line, there are no signs of removal they are smooth and glossy, I have owned this 79 since 80, and I don't remember doing anything to modify the setup but put a couple ties on the catch because I bent it taking the seat off without unlocking the lid first.

Hey EMS, this must be your 2nd to last post?

[Spooky#1]

The lock plate mounting lugs on my tail piece aren't broken off, it's easy to tell the difference even if someone attempted to smooth off the nubs. I have no idea why they altered the molds that way but if you look close at the image I posted you can see the mold line running right across the stumps. I have had a similar experience gathering information for my 68 CL450 resto, Honda would sometimes make subtle changes without a part number update. Sometimes they would provide a frame number where changes occurred but not always. I think it's entirely possible that the early replacement tail piece sets had the lock plates mounted to the grab rail cross-member.