Thumbs

Why are you pulling the engine? Rebuild the carbs, find a plenum chamber/air filter, fluids and you’re ready to fire it up ....a first run on flushing oil will clear any sludge out Personally I’d take the plugs out and turn the motor over for a few minutes on the crankshaft to be sure oil is circulating to the journal on start up

That’s not mud, it looks like sawdust The throttle butterflies will be shut as well as the slides being closed, you should be able to vac the dust out The air filter fits onto an alloy plenum chamber, you should be able to get one on eBay no problem

Joe @ V4dreams.com has nearly all the information you’ll need about stripping the carbs and much more

Can you post up a video of the bike with the noise and without?

Plastics can be repaired by either solvent or heat welding, there are numerous specialists around or do it yourself My RC24 came with broken plastics and a piece 6x4” missing from the right hand side, all repaired with acetone and ABS slurry ...there’s numerous YouTube videos about both methods Its really not that difficult and is worth trying

Me too, mine was done by the main Honda dealer who sold me the bike at the 16k very expensive service

Welcome to the club, there’s owners and service manuals in the download section Nice looking bike ...

If you’re going to France don’t forget the compulsory stuff - hiviz tabard, complete set of ALL bulbs, spare spectacles and 2 alcohol breath tests ....

I’m not familiar with that shock but it sounds like it needs a professional overhaul and regas Do you know how old it is?

Grease or oil on the thread when they were installed

Joe @v4dreams.com has a photo study in dealing with the carbs, I rebuilt my RC24 carbs recently and that was a major part of my toolkit

New chain & sprockets are fairly simple, the gearbox sprocket is just under the cover .... all you need is a river tool If you have a worn rear sprocket then there’s a chance the chain has been jumping around particularly as you mentioned more than 1” of slack

Tight spot in the chain? Have you checked both sprockets?

You obviously haven’t ridden much in California .....

WD40 is what I use to get old sticker glue off with Iso is not a solvent for most glue as it’s got water in Don’t try acetone, that’s a solvent for the styrene in ABS, only Honda know what the “rubber” in the grips consists of .... Or Immerse the grip in hot water to hopefully soften the glue