Bought a Japanese 125cc this time round.... :D

Transmission breaker
Don
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Thanks for that Kermit. I will take a look!

The bike is riding a lot more nicely now. Had a few blasts on it today after work and it feels a lot more solid.

I was only really out to get the oil warm for an oil change, but actually came back, sat down for a minute or two (Mrs and kids were out on a playdate) and got up and went out again :D

Oil change is now done, and there are a few more bits to clean (rear wheel, rear arch to start) but I will be taking it on a longer ride tomorrow to go play hockey and come back later on. I will be able to give it a run down some a-roads and blow out any cobwebs on the way hopefully.

I have found a slight fuel leak from the carb bowl drain screw once the bike is stopped. I tried all of my o-ring supplies, but none were a suitable replacement, so I wedged in a bit of rtv sealant around the screw head for now. I have managed to find the specific 1.3mm x 4.3mm o-ring and ordered it on from Germany for later this month.

I have also ordered a bit of carbon wrap to cover some of the black plastic panels on the middle of the bike. They are scratched up and part of the larger rear seat panel, so I didn't really want to paint them. This seems like the best option for now. I will need some HRC stickers to replace the ones that will be removed/covered to keep it looking mostly stock.

I had a go at fixing the broken indicator, but have found it to be a bit too hard to fix satisfactorily. As such I have ordered in some LED indicators. I do have some spare LED flasher relays somewhere, so should be able to make the change fairly easily.

I also decided that I was not comfortable running that chain for much longer and decided to order in the full chain and sprocket sets to give me peace of mind going forward.

Lastly, I am keen to look at the exhaust. The end can looks great and is in very clean condition, but the manifold back still looks a bit corroded and untidy. I will likely remove it and look to give it a coat of VHT exhaust paint once the garage warms up a bit.

So far it's going well and the level of work needed to bring this back to as new as possible seems less than the Chinese bike needed!

Some more pics to come after the weekend I expect!
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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The rest of your future life thanks you!

Quite! These arrived over the weekend :)
CBR125RWrap01.jpg


LED indicators, much smaller and neater than the originals. Some new sprockets and a chain. Gives me a few more bits to get started on.

CBR125RWrap11.jpg


The chain is a little better looking than the dead old one.

CBR125RWrap12.jpg


Fitting them is easy enough, and they are a lot smaller, and neater, and look a little more modern.

So, I decided to get on with getting the indicators working. However, as you will all probably know. Adding LED indicators is never quite as simple as it should be. I wanted to maintain my idiot lights on the dashboard, and simply adding the LEDs into the loom make them either flash too fast, not at all, or they all flash when only one side should. You can counter this with an LED specific Indicator relay in most cases but not here :D

It seems that on this bike, the idiot light for indicators in the dashboard are a bit off. They share a bulb for both sides, and as such, the Positive / Negative flip according to which side you use according to my testing. Not a problem on an incandescent bulb, but having that in the circuit with the LED indicators with an LED indicator relay swapped in seemed to stop them flashing altogether, and they just ALL lit very dimly when I hit the switch, and the idiot light was not lit at all.

Then I had an idea... The bulb was T10 size, and I happened to have some LED T5 bulbs. I figured I could use them in the original housing. If i joined the negatives together, and used the existing positives with a shared earth which I would have to add to the loom.

Its easier to explain in the picture:
CBR125RWrap02.jpg


Here you can see the two "positives" pulled from the rubber holder in the background, and the two T5 bulbs blob soldered together on their negative contacts. Now, when i indicate right, and apply an earth cable to the blob, the right LED flashes, and then if I press the left indicator, the left one does! Voila!

Now to make them fit into the original housing:

CBR125RWrap03.jpg


This rubber housing now needs three holes to include the new earth wire. So i heated up a small screwdriver with a mini blowtorch, and poked it through the middle. I had tried using a small drill bit, but the rubber does not drill nicely, and just closes up when the bit was removed. This however, made a nice wider hole.

I tidied up the soldering a bit just after this was done, as I had actually blobbed it all together for testing on the bike initially. Its a little neater, and narrower, with wider gaps between the wire ends to make it safer before I installed it.

CBR125RWrap04.jpg


Now we have something like this! Connected up the the bike, and it worked fine.

CBR125RWrap05.jpg


Installed back into the dash, and it works great! I also kept the factory wire colours to help keep it as easy to figure out what I have done if anyone else ever gets back here to find it.

Now I have flashing indicators, and a much neater look!

I have to admit, I had a bit of a schoolboy error at one point.. I kept finding the flash rate of the bulbs getting slower and slower, and each time I adjusted the screw in the LED flasher, it worked for a few seconds then got slower and slower again till it stopped... Turns out the battery of the bike was running low... I had forgotten to hook it up the tender, and ASSUMED I had a knackered LED flasher unit, bad earth or something else... Suddenly it all made sense, as the voltage dips, the flash rate lowered. DOH!

Changing tack a bit, I decided to have a go with some carbon "look" wrap I had found cheaply online, mainly because I had a new heatgun a few weeks ago, and little cause to actually use it.

CBR125RWrap06.jpg


Here I am starting my journey on a bit of the black plastics on the rear panels. I left the sticker for HRC underneath as a fall back incase I had to remove it all and start again, but actually quite likes the look of it once I started, so went with it. I may re-add the stickers over the top later if it proves to stand up the punishment of that spot.

CBR125RWrap07.jpg


And, a few heat gun applications, some relief cutting, and a bit of stretching and folding later, I had this! I was quite pleased with this, and only had a couple of issues to deal with:

1 - The cutting of the edge along the painted panel was nerve-wracking, as I was using a craft knife to try and get into the edge.
2 - The fairing bolt hole needed quite a bit of relief cutting, and was not as tidy as I would like - However, its hidden under a bolt :D

CBR125RWrap08.jpg


Closeup

CBR125RWrap09.jpg


Loosely back on the bike.

I think I can do a better job next time having done this, and I also had a go with an offcut (so it was a bit dirty on the backside causing some imperfections) on a small trim part to see how I might go about doing more complicated parts, where using more than 1 bit of the wrap would be more practical..

CBR125RWrap10.jpg


I think this will work ok, and I will upwrap, and re-wrap this part later when I have more time and patience to see how it will work in these areas!

next up is to tidy up my new wiring a bit, shorten the cables, and make it look as stock as possible, then I want to see about adding a couple of things to the dash. Mainly a clock of some sort, and hopefully a gear indicator also! I think it makes sense to try these things whilst the bike is back in bits at the front again. I also want my fairing bolt kit to turn up from China so I can get rid of all these mis-matched bolts!
 
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Transmission breaker
Don
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Wiring is all tidied up at the front, now to the rear!

CBR125Rled1.jpg


Ahh, someone has been in here before too.... I shall snip down and tidy up the rather odd extensions/changes in here to make it look a bit neater...

CBR125Rled2.jpg


Fairings back on, and the front now looks like this... A little bit neater I think!

CBR125Rled3.jpg


Rear given the same treatment. Had some fun routing the cables down inside the plastics at the rear, but no issues in the end.

Now I can get the wrapped rear panels back in place, and see how it looks...

CBR125Rled4.jpg


CBR125Rled5.jpg


Pretty happy with that, now toying with the idea of wrapping that grey plastic panel on the front of the tank...
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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The bike went for it's MOT, and.... FAILED
It had a binding rear caliper, which I managed to miss somehow.

Still, it was sunny, and I was outside, so I took some pics.

CBR125Rbrakes1.jpg


CBR125Rbrakes2.jpg


Quite happy with how it looks for the moment, some niggles to sort, but not looking too bad for an old bike!

I also made some downlight DRL for the nose, because I had some spare LED strip, and fancied giving it a go :D

CBR125Rbrakes3.jpg


They are not too overly bright, but light up the mudguard at night, and make a visual highlight to help being seen.

CBR125Rbrakes4.jpg


Its more of a mock up for now, but I like the idea, and will likely revise this to make it a little more polished. I have them run off the sidelight bulb circuit, so should be on all time.

CBR125Rbrakes5.jpg


Diddums warned me about these fairing bolts, but I am willing to give them a go, as the fairings were held on with a total hodge-podge of random bolts. I will keep an eye on them!

At the same time as ordering my new brake caliper seals, I also ordered a brilliant little bike lift!

CBR125Rbrakes6.jpg


Here it is, £40 worth, and supposedly good for up to 500kg. It is not meant for lifting a whole bike, but it will tilt it on a front or rear wheel to give access, which is all I need. Its also great because it folds near flat and takes up next to no space when not in use!
I could not recommend it enough if you do not have space for a proper lift! It made the brake job a LOT easier, especially as the bike has no centre stand.

CBR125Rbrakes7.jpg


Wheel out, bit mucky in here.

CBR125Rbrakes8.jpg


Brake system all out. Very easy to do once the wheel is out. Split pin for brake lever, 1 screw for a cable guide, and 1 bolt for the resevoir.

CBR125Rbrakes9.jpg


Pads out, and removed the piston, just by cranking the brake till it popped out, the just pour out the old fluid, and clean up any spills.

CBR125Rbrakes11.jpg


Mucky in here! Seals are all crusty and bulging out.

CBR125Rbrakes13.jpg


Old Seals, looking a bit worse for wear!

CBR125Rbrakes14.jpg


Seals out - and then I gave the recesses a good clean with a jewelers screwdriver. I also took the time to give the caliper as a whole a quick clean up whilst it was out.

Assembly is reversed, and I had to put in a new bleedvalve, as the old one was VERY knackered. Put in new pads too whilst I was there.

CBR125Rbrakes18.jpg


All done, bar the bleeding.

CBR125Rbrakes17.jpg


Lunched bleed valve, was a right pain to remove, but got there in the end!

CBR125Rbrakes20.jpg


Threw on the new chain whilst the wheel was off.

CBR125Rbrakes21.jpg


New fairing bolts fitted, and you can see the last bit of carbon covering I put onto the rather faded and scuffed clock/dash trim panels.

CBR125Rbrakes23.jpg


Another one.

Whipped it down to the MOT place for the free re-test yesterday, and they looked over the brakes, checked they worked, and handed me an MOT pass :)

Had a good long ride out Sat afternoon, and its feeling like a new bike. Much smoother with the new chain, and the bike just FEELS a lot more solid. Hard to explain, but I really just feels more sorted.
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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OP: Is that in-line fuel filter a standard factory fitting?

I ask as every time I’ve seen one on a road bike, it’s been fitted to keep a bike running with an internally rusty fuel tank.

Ahh, I am not actually sure!
However, now you pointed it out, I will be changing it anyway!
It also has an inline fuel tap which is not standard. I suspect it might have at one time had a sticky float and someone figured sticking a tap in was easier than fixing the carb.

I saw another bike 1 year newer at the garage and I took a load of photos to see what I could spot that was different. Fuel tap was not there, but I didn't check if there was a filter.
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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Did a few more bits:

I was not too happy with the throw, and brightness of the standard lighting setup. I had read that only the left side was meant to work, which upon checking out the bulb types turned out to be BS, due to having dual filaments, and one was burnt out.

CBR125Rlights1.jpg


So, this was how much light it was throwing with one halogen bulb. Main beam was not much better either!

CBR125Rlights2.jpg


As a side point, i was also not keen on the colour they were producing...

CBR125Rlights3.jpg


So, first, I dropped in an LED BA20D replacement, that I knew worked well on my Monkey bike:

CBR125Rgearposition2.jpg


Straight away, it was much better!!!

CBR125Rlights5.jpg


Here it is next to the original main beam bulb from above to show the difference.

CBR125Rlights7.jpg


Now both changed, and low beam on both sides with LED to match the sidelight LED bulb.

Will have a ride out on it tonight, and see how it is in the real world, but it looks good so far :) I also want to check I am not blinding people!
 
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Man of Honour
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As it's lighting up the ceiling I'll be very surprised if anyone can see you coming and don't just think they're heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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As it's lighting up the ceiling I'll be very surprised if anyone can see you coming and don't just think they're heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just realised I put up the main beam photo!

The dipped is a in a much more similar throw pattern, Just brighter.

Will update in a mo
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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Riding about on the bike, the two things I was missing at the moment on the dash were a clock, and a gear indicator.

I searched high and low, and could find nothing other than the standard neutral light only position selector:

CBR125Rbrakes15.jpg


That is what it looks like as it is currently on the bike. Note only one wire, and this is only used for the Neutral light..

I had whipped this off before to get a better look at it, and one of the things I noticed on the backside is that there are 6 contacts, but only 1 wire. It seems very odd that Honda would make the base with 6 contacts, and not have an option to have a gear indicator! So i bought a secondhand one to get a better look at how it worked.

CBR125Rgearposition3.jpg


You can see what I mean in the above, with the 6 contacts. The smallest one is the Neutral light, the one to its left is first gear, to its right is second gear, and it rotates around anti-clockwise continuing.

I had an idea. I figured that if I can get to the backside of those contacts inside the sealed part of the unit, I might be able to make my own version, with all the contacts working. Which can then be hooked up to an LED display unit, to give me the gear selection i wanted!

CBR125Rgearposition4.jpg


Here is where I need to get into..


CBR125Rgearposition5.jpg


My early attempts were quite gently, seeing if i could prize, or scratch out the sealant. But it was taking forever to get as far as above, so I took a different route!

CBR125Rgearposition6.jpg


As you can see, I found this much easier going! You can see the backsides of the 5 unused contacts, and thy are nicely drilled and ready for solder. I tested the continuity from from one side to the next, and there were no shorts, and all the contacts checked out. Result! Now to make it work..

CBR125Rgearposition7.jpg


Haha, a bit of soldering, and its starting to look like this might actually work out.

CBR125Rgearposition8.jpg


CBR125Rgearposition9.jpg


No warping, no burns, and no breakthroughs, so this should be good to test. I went from lightest colour to darkest, with White as first, and brown as fifth.

I checked continuity of all the connections again, and no issues were found.

CBR125Rgearposition10.jpg


It almost looks oem from the contacts end.

CBR125Rgearposition11.jpg


Lobbed in some RTV sealant around it all, and smoothed it off a bit.

Done! Checked continuity again once it was dried, and all good. Now I have ordered an LED display (they all seem to go up to 6 gears), so I will have 1 wire not in use, but should be able to get it in the dash neatly enough with a bit of work.

The way the display works is quite simple. It has 1 12v feed, and 7 earths to correspond with Neutral, and the 6 gears (or 5 in my case). If you ground the wire for first, this displays a 1. So, you wire this up white wire, 2nd goes to pink, etc. As the selector moves in the gearbox, it touches each contact, completes the circuit, and displays the required number.

Looking forward to the wiring up on the bike next, it should be here by Sunday i hope!
 
Transmission breaker
Don
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The rust!!! The new chain is crying!

Its just the accumulated chain wear, with chain lube. They all look like that apparently! It will be getting cleaned up soon enough :) Likely when I change the sprockets.

Next on the list, was knocking up a cable, and the required connectors.

CBR125Rgearposition12.jpg


Salvaging some connectors and separating the pins for re-use.

CBR125Rgearposition13.jpg


My boy and I got to work figuring out the wiring..

CBR125Rgearposition14.jpg


Soldering (badly!) the new wires back to the salvaged connectors, they has some heatshrink added shortly afterwards.

Repeat a few times:

CBR125Rgearposition15.jpg


Now, we have the makings of the loom/wiring extension

CBR125Rgearposition16.jpg


Old vs New

CBR125Rgearposition17.jpg


Back in place, fits fine.

CBR125Rgearposition18.jpg


Connectors, ready to be hidden away, with the original neutral light in place.

CBR125Rgearposition19.jpg


Stuck the light into the dash somewhere

CBR125Rgearposition20.jpg


Notched out a little hole in the clocks housing, to run the cable through.

CBR125Rgearposition21.jpg


Folded around, and wrapped under the housing.

CBR125Rgearposition22.jpg


Wrapping up the wiring extension to join the two parts.

CBR125Rgearposition23.jpg


Routing the cable through, with a little adhesive catch holder near the headstock.

CBR125Rgearposition24.jpg


All fitted up, and WORKING...

Well, mostly.....

I then discovered a little oddity of the position switch. On connecting everything up, the numbers were a bit backward, and third gear would not work at all..

I kept testing what I though was the third gear contact, and it was fine, but would never work! Then i matched up the connector when the gearbox was in third gear, and it was flipped 180 degrees to where I thought it was, and in the space where there was NO selector contact... So, i fired up the bike, put it into 6th gear, and "3" popped up....

Ahh, i figured it out!!

Pic to explain:

CBR125Rgearposition25.jpg


Right, so Red was what I assumed it was originally, with 6th gear having no connector, as it was likely a part that came from a 5 speed bike. I assumed the rotation was anti-clockwise as you look at the pic.
However, it turns out the rotation is clockwise... and 3rd gear has NO connector. So when I was flipping 1-2 and 4-5 around, it worked, but showed 6th gear as 3 on the indicator...


So, lesson learned! I will have to take the original part, and modify it, to add a 6th connector where the green 3 should be. At the moment, my plan is to drill a hole from the connector side, put a bolt through from the front, cut it short to length, drill a small hole in the inside, and solder a wire to that.before expoxy and re-silicone as before.

I think that will give me a decent connection, and ALL the gears connected. I also will change the display to a blue one, with a 7 speed display, as the 6 speed one counts 0 (N) and as such, there is no 6th gear indication. This new display is on order already.

However, its progress, and gives me the indication correctly on 1-2 4-5, blank on 3 and shows 6th as 3 :D So it will make sense to me only for the moment, till I get the new part made up!
 
Soldato
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Bristol
So much for testing things before final fit eh. ;)

It would have made sense to solder in the wires and then test out the gear selector/display before sealing it up but it's a lesson learnt and looks like you've worked out what is going on with it so not too big a deal.
 
Soldato
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Lincolnshire
Realy impressed with the wiring stuff for the gear display, ok it might be wrong (for now) but i wouldn't have an idea where to start with all that stuff, Bravo!

It's nice seeing a CBR 125R too; I had the RW-7 model when i was riding on a CBT; great bike, although the exhaust gasket blew on me on my last spirited ride before trading it in :p
 
Man of Honour
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17 Oct 2002
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Ottakring, Vienna.
@Malt_Vinegar, this thread inspired me to go out and buy a knackered bike to rebuild, so thanks a bunch :p:(

All the plastics have multiple broken/missing tabs and lugs, so I have some Whitemorph on the way. What do you glue it on with? I was going to use a 2 part epoxy of some sort but if whatever you used works then I'll go for that.
 
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