Honda CB125T2 Restoration

[Yoshi823]

I've had this bike for quite a while now & have decided that i'd like to restore it...





I don't want to go silly & try & make everything exactly right as I would if I was restoring something more worthwhile like a Honda 550/750, but it can be a long term project to maybe make it look similar to what was in the brochure of its day...

[UK Pete]

Go for it Tim,  if you can do it cheaply enough it should be a good little project
Pete

[Spitfire]

You just have to have something to potter on !

Cheers

Den

[Yoshi823]

I'd bought the bike for my daughters to learn on, but now that they have cars they're not so bothered...but the missus has taken a shine to it as she used to have a CB125TD Superdream when we first started to go out together. But she always enjoyed going on the back of the 750 or riding her own 550.

[Yoshi823]

You just have to have something to potter on !

Cheers

Den

The 125 is a sideline...this was last week...



& this on the other side of the garage...

[Sprunghub]

Recently completed this one for my lad.  Bought as a 'shed find' job, 1978 CB125T, re-built spoked wheels on powder coated hubs, BNOS front disc came with the deal, new seat - the old one was scrap & they are very difficult to find - David Silvers do a very good 'pattern' Honda logo'd one for a 'fair' price.  A pair of NOS OEM exhausts, a lucky find complete BNOS Honda front forks and sliders, re-bored .05 & new pistons & rings, Sprockets Unlimited sprockets & chain, home paint job with RS paints & Sunrise Graphics decals, frame shot blasted & home painted with top-notch zinc primer & chassis black, Avon road-runner tyres.






Insurance for him on this as a Classic is 1/3rd of what it would cost him to insure a 2000 or later CG125.   It has quite a bit of 'go' to keep up with traffic.

[Bryanj]

I remember those engines as being a swine to strip with the duplex cam chain

[Sprunghub]

There is a knack to it  & it definitely helps having nimble fingers  

[Yoshi823]

What a lovely example...I hope that my T2 comes out as good as your son's bike looks.

[Sprunghub]

I just hope HE keeps it looking like it !

It's an all-weather rider, not a poser he has to do 15 miles a day to School & back on an 'trunk' road & through town as he's not eligible for school transport now he's turned 17, + running around to his various clubs & groups.

We didn't polish up the engine & cases & the shocks could do with changing, otherwise, it has settled down into a very nice ride.
If you find you need any bit's, please give me a shout,  I have some odds & sods about.  French Ebay is quite good for bit's - the T & T1 & 2 variants seemed to be a popular model over there, they seemed to market them longer, whilst 'we' were running the TD Superdream's ?

[Yoshi823]

Now that I have dug down to the bottom of the box of bits and pieces, I have found that somewhere along the line I have mislaid a number of items from this bike. The little 'W' shaped bits that hold the needle in place in the slides of the carbs, the studs that hold the rear sprocket in place in the rear hub and the big circlip.

I have found that the centrestand has dug itself into the cross frame member so that when the bike is on the stand, the rear wheel touches the floor. A bit of welding will be needed there I think, so as to stop the stand from moving forward too far.

The paint on the tank, front and rear mudguards and side panels is cracked quite badly...I think that it has been applied a bit too quickly without allowing for the previous coat to dry, causing an orange peel effect.

I have three wiring looms in the shed...but I am not sure which one is for the 125. The Haynes manual for the bike deals mainly with the Superdream and so the photos tend to be more relevant to the later machine.

If only digital cameras were available in the day when I stripped down this bike.

[Yoshi823]

I have found an ideal way of removing paint from the side panels of this little 125 of mine...I put them into the bead blaster. It has taken them down to a base layer & given me a good starting point for the primer. The problem with doing the same with the fuel tank is that my blaster cabinet is too small...

I have now cleaned the frame & repainted it with Smoothrite Hammerite, together with a good number of other items that I have cleaned in the blaster. The swing arm just needed cleaning off the chain lube & degreasing before painting, as were items like the centre stand & the headlight bracket. Quite a few chrome items have been painted as I think that this will contrast nicely with the new red paint work on the tank/side panels/tail unit etc.

Items like the cam cover, gearbox sprocket cover & the alternator/points cover have been blasted & then highly polished, as I think that this will also contrast well with the black & red painted bits.

The engine is back in the frame, & as I have removed bits for cleaning from the engine I have this horrible suspicion that there may well be a leak from the vertically split crankcases. Still, that won't worry me...i've had the Exup 1000 engine apart so I don't think that a piddly 125 will give me any problems.

[UK Pete]

Sounds like your getting stuck in Tim,when do ya think your have it done
Pete

[Yoshi823]

Hi Peter...thanks for asking about the state of the 125...i'm doing it bit by bit, but the list of bits that i've mislaid/lost since it was stripped down grows longer & longer, so i'm not sure when the final inspection will be. I've not decided on the seat base/foam yet, & the exhausts may well end up not being standard. My daughters boyfriend spends well over

[Yoshi823]

It's nice to have the engine in the frame & a rolling chassis now. Having the handlebars in place isn't always a good thing as they tend to get in the way when it's time to put it back in the shed.

One of the things that I did find with the engine was that the two removeable inlet manifolds have a rubber 'O' ring sealing the joint...& this perishes very quickly. Anybody who has such a manifold on their bike would do well to unbolt this part & to check the seal, especially if you're having problems with tickover mixture settings & trying to set up the balance of the carbs on any multi-cylinder machine. I learnt this fix at an early stage of my motorcycling time when a friend had a Kawasaki Z400 twin that had carbs problems. A smear of blue Hylomar is normally sufficient to get the mixture back to normal again.

I managed to procur a pair of gas shocks from a friend who was going to throw them out. The springs have polished up nicely & once in place do look the part. It's so long ago now since I first stripped it down, maybe 16 years +, & i'm having problems of where everything goes. I seem to have some bits & pieces in a box of bits that don't seem to go anywhere. The last bike that I restored back to roadworthy condition was a Honda CD200T Benly, & when a neighbour gave me his trashed (by his son....) & aged CD185T as a donor bike, there were quite a few compatible parts. When I sold the 200, I gave the new owner many 185 parts that were surplus. Unfortunately I think that I may well have given some of the parts of the 125T away as well...ooops. The list of missing parts has increased, as has the shopping list. Parts like the kickstart rubber, gearchange shaft seal, clutch cover gasket, alternator/timing cover gasket, front caliper gasket & seals, air filters x2, passenger footrests (which I might make on the lathe), silencer brackets (which I may well make) & a myriad of other small parts.

One of the parts that was missing from the auto advance/retard mechanism was one of the springs. I remember reading many moons ago how people would remove one of the springs on this unit so that there was less resistance to the bob-weights getting to full advance quicker. This was a trick used by people who raced 750 & 500 fours back in the old days, & I have a feeling that the previous owner thought that he could do the same thing to a 125 twin. But looking at the points backplate, it looks as though there had been many attempts at setting the timing correctly, not realising how much the spring made a differance.

There's no sidestand on the bike as standard, but when I bought the bike I was given a Honda MB50 in bits.

One of the parts that were kept when this bike was scrapped was the stand, & so i'm looking to use the sidestand from the MB50 on the 125. It would certainly help with the rebuild, as I don't want to place the 125 on one of my ramps as these are already in full time use for the other...more important bikes.

I havn't got any further with the bodywork as yet, other than to cut back countless coats of dirt on the underside of the front & rear mudguards & the 'applied with a wallpaper brush' gold hammered finish paint on the underside of the tank, which has been smoothed out using glasspaper & repainted with black smoothrite paint.

It's coming along...